"One of these mornings, you're goin' to rise up singin'"

Some habits are easy to break. Writing, for example, is one such habit. After a very light June, I've started July quite aggressively. Nonetheless, it's Friday again, the Fourteenth Friday in Ordinary Time. I was delighted that Easter seemed to linger this year. It doesn't seem to me that Easter is really over until Corpus Christi is concluded.

I suppose, if there's anything worth clinging onto it certainly must be the resurrection. But the words of the risen Jesus to Mary Magdalene- "Stop holding on to me" (John 20:17)- spring to mind. The point, I think, especially in, through, and by his resurrection, which made possible his unleashing of the Holy Spirit, is our risen Lord inexorably calls us ever forward. As I was reminded by reading the excellent biography of Ignatius of Loyola, this is something the founder of the Society of Jesus understood very well in his own life.

Anyway, looking back on my Fourth of July post, I realize that I made a pretty hard-and-fast distinction between eudaimonia and hedonia. Another book I recently finished was Arthur Brooks' From Strength to Strength. A few days after my last post, I ran across a passage in Brooks' book that reminded me living a happy life requires both eudaimonia and hedonia. The former is about finding satisfaction by living a purpose-filled life, whereas the latter is about doing what feels good.

Living by the philosophy "If it feels good do it" is not a formula for true happiness, as any recovering hedonist can tell you. But life would kind of suck if you never deliberately did anything that felt good. As Brooks observes: "Hedonia without eudaimonia devolves into empty pleasure; eudaimonia without hedonia can become dry." He goes on to note: "At the nexus of enjoyable and meaningful is interesting." This nexus is sometimes called in media res. Literally meaning, "in the middle of things," it's where the truth is often said to be found.

In a polarized time and society such as ours, we lose track of this. Losing track of this often means that people who naturally temperate experience centrifugal force, pulling them from a balanced position towards one pole or another. We've probably all seen the post/meme/tweet "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." Lately, my internal response is- "If you're always outraged, you're paying way too much attention."

Rather than making a distinction between hedonia and eudaimonia, it's probably important to distinguish between hedonia and hedonism as well as between eudaimonia and eudaimonism. This touches what I wrote about spirit and flesh, too. A point I hoped make in that post was that Paul is in no way rejecting the body outright. He's taking aim at hedonism. As Saint Ignatius of Loyola learned the hard way, Christianity isn't all about ascesis. Self-denial of even things at times, perhaps for specfic reasons, can be useful but not as a state-of-life for most Christians. I am still not eating meat today.

I think a good example of the balance between eudaimonia and hedonia can be found in a dialogue I heard on more than one occasion. It involved the late Archbishop George Niederauer and young Catholics from my diocese. The question went something like this: "Is it true the Church teaches we have to go to Mass on Sunday? Isn't it just as good to go skiing, hiking, hang out with my friends, etc.?" His first answer was usually, "As I see it, I get to go to Mass on Sunday." He would follow up by saying something along these lines: "Going to Mass doesn't prevent you from doing any of those other good things. In my experience, it makes doing those things all the more enjoyable."

Our Friday traditio is the late, great Ella Fitzgerald singing that classic Summertime. This, too, strikes me as a nice balance, even if it leans a bit toward hedonia, something that always makes people like me a little uneasy but in a good way.