Mystical Duty and a Well-Lived Life
Two twentieth century authors dare us to believe that happiness strengthens our spiritual bonds
Whether or not we identify as Christian, do we have a duty to be happy? Or a duty to be joyful and embody delight?
No doubt many would find this a strange, if not downright bizarre, question. Duty, for those who still believe in such things, is linked to self-sacrifice, to austerity, to a kind of self-denial in service of some greater good (whether it be the nation, or God, or even the world). A century ago, large segments of British and American society accepted values such as the nobility of sacrifice and the virtue of obedience. During World War I, many (not all) people would have accepted that these values are praiseworthy and important. For that matter, they would have regarded it as suspicious not to uphold such values.
Granted, there were dissenters, but generally speaking, concepts like duty would have been far more widely affirmed by society at large in the days of the Great War.
C. S. Lewis and Dorothy Day were near contemporaries (she was barely a year older than him); he briefly served during WWI, and both were in the late teens during the conflict. Despite their differences (gender, nationality, and politics), they were both destined to become world-renowned Christians, but not until several years after the War ended. Given these parallels, is it surprising that they both, independently, came up with a provocative insight into the duty of living an optimal life?
It is not easy always to be joyful, to keep in mind the duty of delight. — Dorothy Day1
It is a Christian duty, as you know, for everyone to be as happy as he can. — C. S. Lewis2
Let’s ignore Lewis’s archaic masculine language; he wrote these words in 1955 (Dorothy Day wrote hers before 1952). We’re back to our original question: is it fair to think of our relationship to joy, to happiness, to delight, in terms of duty? Do we owe our best life to God, however you may envision the Divine?
Both Jack Lewis and Dorothy Day would unhesitatingly say “Yes, of course.”
To my postmodern ears, duty sounds like the opposite of happiness, joy, and delight. To link those qualities with duty seems to risk poisoning the pleasures of life as given to us through grace. But I have to ask: is the problem here not with duty itself, but with my understanding of duty?
After all, duty is a reminder that none of us are truly, in the end, pure individuals. For better or worse, our lives are always lived in the context of some sort of community and relationships. If we let go of the cynical beliefs that make it fashionable to reject duty, perhaps we can be open to a much more radical idea. When we are innocently happy or joyful or full of delight, this not only brings us pleasure, but it’s something that strengthens all our relationships — including our relationship with the Divine.
Day, Dorothy. The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist (Kindle Edition), p. 285.
C. S.Lewis, Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C.S. Lewis (Kindle Edition), p. 264.