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As we journey in this way and in faith, We shall run on the path … our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.
—Rule of St. Benedict
Lonni Collins Pratt, Father Daniel Homan, Benedict’s Way
I believed once that to be spiritual meant to be deadly serious. How wrong. To be deeply religious alone is to be deadly serious. Religion apart from spirituality tends toward glumness and grouchiness that detracts from the beauty in the Divine, what Scripture calls “glory.”
The writer of I Peter, likely not Peter but, possibly, a member of the church at Rome and to churches in northern Asia Minor (1.1-2), addresses his letter to Christians in persecution. The time and nature of the persecution is unclear. The persecution could have been from the state or from the society itself; as in, ostracism and harassment. I Peter 1.8-9 (ESV) reads:
Though you have not seen him [God], you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
The joy of the normal life in Christ is “inexpressible” and “filled with glory.” “Inexpressible,” aneklaletos (an-ek-lal'-ay-tos) is assumed to derive from eklaleo (ek-lal-eh'-o), “to speak out, divulge” (Strong’s Analytical Concordance). The Christian life is to be a witness to rejoicing that cannot be spoken. Such joy derives from the wellsprings of Spirit. Do you enjoy this unable-to-be-voiced rejoicing?
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This joy, normal for the in Christ person and communion, is “filled with glory.” “Glory” is doxazo (dox-ad'-zo, from doxa (dox'-ah) (Ibid). This joy is filled with the brightness and blessedness that characterizes the Essence and Expressions of the Divine. Do you enjoy this divinely blissful and beautiful joy, the joy inexpressible?
Be cautious of spending too much time with persons overly serious about religion. What is their track record in history? … wars aplenty, a surfeit of excommunicated "heretics," a mass of "witches" killed (drowned, burned), ranting and raving to dissolve separation of church and state and create a Christian nation (translated "a Christian Despotism"), inability—possibly, better “arrogant refusal”—to look on the world as neighbor, alienation of sincere religious persons who differ with them, reduction of morality to religious legalism rather than universal principles, factiousness in communities of faith, subordination of faith to cultural politics, damning all persons not of one faith, … Indeed, the greatest foe of the churches is self-righteousness and the greatest threat to many a professing Christian is true righteousness, or “right relations.” Self-righteousness, evidenced in community-righteousness, is antithetical to righteousness and, thus, the joy of mystically participating with other persons in Christ.
One trait of contemplatives of varied wisdom traditions is humor. Do we really think we please the Divine with morose religious gravity? "Oh me! Oh my!" Maybe God would say sometimes, "Oh! Get over yourself!" We may even go to worship gatherings thinking to be serious minded is only sole means to express reverence. Would you want persons acting with such gravity at your Resurrection Party?
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