“Tomorrow” is a word that is shot-through with emotions: hope, fear, longing, joy, dread, excitement, anxiety, anticipation, worry, and more[1]. The Future being the least real aspect of Time, it is also (at least from certain philosophical perspectives) the most malleable. The Past is unchangeable. The Present simply IS. But the Future: it is the Time of Promise. Yesterday’s gone; Today is always; but Tomorrow is YET. Tomorrow, indeed, is the Eternal Yet. Nomatter how bad things are, Tomorrow may be better Yet. Nomatter how good things are, Tomorrow may be worse Yet.
The constant known unknown is the ever-looming Yet of Tomorrow. The reason a slave can continue to toil is the same reason a miser is ever more miserly – which is the same reason the parent of a dying child continues to pray – which is the same reason the barren woman continues to pray: the Yet.
The unknowability of Tomorrow is what makes it both beautiful and terrible. In both the new and the old senses of the word, Tomorrow is “terrific”. It both evokes terror and elation. Because Tomorrow isn’t anything it could be anything. Who knows what a day will bring?
And while people, as individuals, are probably default optimists or default pessimists, I tend to think that all people wish Tomorrow will be better. Even if they don’t hope – they desire. If not anticipation, then aspiration.
Isaiah 56:12 says:
“Come,” each one cries, “let me get wine! Let us drink our fill of beer! And tomorrow will be like today, or even far better.”
The Bible here, incidentally, speaking about false teachers (there’s a sermon there, but I must move on), makes the hope of everybody living it up. Everybody who has lived in luxury and expects to continue presupposes that the deep satisfaction of living an idle, pleasure-seeking, carousing lifestyle will bring perpetual flourishing and fulfillment. Sadly, far too many people believe, or at least hope, that an eternal Bacchanal would be a life of ever-increasing pleasure and satisfaction. The great Yet of Tomorrow would become nothing more than the promise of more and better and greater sensual satisfaction.
And yet, as everyone knows, that’s not how pleasure works. Pleasure for Pleasure’s own sake falls inescapably within the jurisdiction of the Hedonist’s bane: the Law of Diminishing Returns. The reason an experimenter becomes and addict becomes a junkie becomes an overdose is the same reason why the daydreamer becomes the porn watcher becomes the addict becomes the adulterer. Which is the same reason that Hedonism is really a grotesque snipe-hunt. You say, “AHA, but snipe are real.” Yes. So is Pleasure. But there’s a world of difference between hunting snipe and “going on a snipe-hunt”. Similarly, there’s an eternity of difference between pleasure for living and living for pleasure!
The difference is that those who enjoy pleasure for living are those who have learned to accept pleasure as a gift from God to be cherished, but not an end in itself to be pursued. Paul calls it contentment – which is the secret to living in plenty or in want – knowing how to be abased and how to abound. Lewis writes about this often, how pleasure is a gift of God but seeking it for its own sake is…dingy. In That Hideous Strength, we read about the profound spiritual experience of Ms. Independent, Jane Studdock, and how quickly the sublime and transcendent can be transformed into the mundane and commodified.
“Words take too long. To be aware of all this and to know that it had already gone made one single experience. It was revealed only in its departure. The largest thing that had ever happened to her had, apparently, found room for itself in a moment of time too short to be called time at all. Her hand closed on nothing but a memory. And as it closed, without an instant’s pause, the voices of those who have not joy rose howling and chattering from every corner of her being. “Take care. Draw back. Keep your head. Don’t commit yourself,” they said. And then more subtly, from another quarter, “You have had a religious experience. This is very interesting. Not everyone does. How much better you will now understand the Seventeenth-Century poets!” Or from a third direction, more sweetly, “Go on. Try to get it again. It will please the Director.” But her defences had been captured and these counter-attacks were unsuccessful.”
When one reads of the power of her experience and then reads how quickly she diverts direct communion with God into a desire of academic and intellectual advancement – and the approval of others, it becomes clear that even the pleasures of Divine encounters can be corrupted and perverted by our desire to want things for their own sake rather than for the sake of Communion with their maker.
As stated, Lewis comes back to this theme often, as do so many Christian thinkers. The basic truth being that it is wrong, not simply incommodious, or impolite, but wrong to want pleasures for their own sake. Indeed, it is a cosmic slap-in-the-face to look at the pleasures and joys which are meant as means to awaken a desire for God in our hearts and simply seek more joys and pleasures.
And, it is obvious, that God, in His wisdom, has created a failsafe in this fallen world – the Law of Diminishing Returns. Those who go in for pleasure, soon find that satiation doesn’t satisfy. In fact, Pleasure itself becomes not only unpleasurable, but implacably miserable when it is sought for its own ends. Pleasure for Pleasure’s own sake is like a giftwrapped torture chamber. But those wracked and wrecked on the rack of their own Hedonism rarely stop writhing, and seek the source of Pleasure Himself. Foolishly we think that if a little backscratching feels good more will be better. But sadly, some get fully flayed and still don’t learn that backscratching exists to solve the problem of itching – not to bring purpose in its own right. In the same way, Pleasure, which is good, exists as a guide to lead us to God. Pleasure is a Paragon not a Panacea.
God desires us to experience Pleasure as a gift and as a guide. Pleasure points us to the coming day when all who are in Christ will be perfectly united in glorious communion with God Himself! When we will be made like Him and forever and anon we will continually draw further and further into the fellowship of the Triune God. THAT will be Pleasure, in a Platonic sense – the ideal Pleasure of which all lesser Pleasures are merely imitations. The Pleasure of perichoretic communion with God – the joy of being one with the One, is the experience that God Himself has felt for eternity and wants to share with us.
Or, to put it less theologo-poetically, God wants to share the Pleasure He experiences by being in communion within Himself with others! God made us to commune with Him. To enter into the fellowship of the Trinity. Not as Gods! Of course, not in that way! But to enter into the Fellowship IN CHRIST.
Imagine, if you will, sitting alone in a lunchroom and looking and seeing a group of friends laughing, smiling, sharing, sacrificing for eachother, always being kind to eachother…in short, you see a group of friends full of love and the joy of loving and being loved by others. And suppose you watch and watch, terrified as an outsider to come.
But suppose that one day, these friends, invite you over, and it isn’t awkward because they don’t let it become awkward. They simply let you be part of the group – sharing their mutual love with you and being authentic and genuine and encouraging you to be like them – to be one of the group!
Imagine how you would feel to experience the joy of not only being invited to be among those happy few, but to be made like them so that you could love them and be loved by them as they love and are loved by eachother.
What if this is exactly why God invented Pleasure? To point us to Him, as the end of yearning? What if our hopes for a better Tomorrow are all hopes for all yearnings and desirings to be fulfilled in Him? What if hunger and thirst and lust and boredom were invented by God to point us to Him?
What if the reason we place our hopes in Tomorrow is because in every one of our souls is the unquenchable hope that Tomorrow will be the day that we achieve abiding Pleasure? What if the reason we fear Tomorrow is because we’re afraid that there is no such thing as abiding Pleasure? What if the dread Yet controls our actions and thereby directs our destinies by making us misers or merrymakers. The Pennypincher and the Prodigal both expect something from the Yet. The Pennypincher, in his heart of hearts, has learned the half-truth that earthly-Pleasure is a lie and things won’t get better. The Prodigal, in his heart of hearts, has learned the half-truth that Pleasure is real and attainable. They’re both completely right and they’re both completely wrong.
The Pessimist is right to fear tomorrow because there is no earthly Pleasure to make this life worth living. But he’s wrong to think that because earthly Pleasure is ethereal that Divine Pleasure is a lie. The Optimist is right that there is such a thing as abiding Pleasure – he’s wrong to think he can find it here. Both because of there expectations of tomorrow and their understanding of Pleasure, direct their lives accordingly, even if in diametrically opposite directions.
The God of the Yet is the God of Pleasure and He has directed His universe in such a way that Pleasure, as well as her twin sister Longing, direct our hopes and fears about Tomorrow.
As we saw in Isaiah, the party animal is hoping that Tomorrow promises perpetual Pleasure. The Pessimist fears he’ll never find perpetual Pleasure – that Tomorrow promises only loss of what little Pleasure exists. But in Christ, there IS perpetual Pleasure. There are no diminishing returns when in communion with God – only ever-increasing ecstasy.
[1] I mean “more” in the sense of “et cetera” and not as though “more” we an emotion. You might ask, “well, if you know it’s confusing, why didn’t you just write ex cetera, in the first place?” Well, then I’d correct you and say, “it’s eT cetera, not eX cetera.” And you’d give me that look and I’d say, “why don’t you write your own blog?!” It would get ugly – so don’t ask.