The lost art of leisure

A taste of heaven

James Keenan

Leisure suggests not doing, but being. But the Professor of Moral Theology at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, MA, found that 'busy baroque' was the key. He explains what a true experience of leisure means to him: shared in friendship, it gives an experience of the kingdom.

I GREW up in the New York province of the Society of Jesus. The province gurus, predominantly New York and New Jersey American-Irish Jesuits, promoted a very simple, occasionally austere, fairly disembodied, spirituality that I dubbed "Irish Gothic". I first encountered it in the novitiate, which I entered 32 years ago at the age of 17. There I would try to pray in the chapel, where the only thing adorning the tiled walls were the words, "Be still and know that I am God". God may have spoken those words to John of the Cross, but I found them no more than an attempted harness. Inevitably, I bolted nightly from the chapel.

My first retreat there was eight days on the first week of the Exercises, my sin and God's mercy. Six months later I began my long retreat and my (same) director kept me for another ten days on the first week. It was so painfully dry. I thought, at least my meditations on hell had some colour. It was not until I got to the contemplations of the second week, the life of Christ, that my retreat took off. I liked these contemplations, especially where there were lots of people and movement. I would just lie down, pray for vision, and my contemplations had a life of their own. Technicolor. Thank God for those contemplations.

One day, 11 years later, my provincial sent his assistant to inform me that I was to do a doctorate. The provincial and his consultants had not yet decided what I should study, though they suggested urban studies or political science. Eventually, after talking with professors and colleagues, I asked if I could do the doctorate in moral theology. "Yes", I was told. But where? I decided I wanted to study with either Josef Fuchs in Rome or Bruno Schüller in Münster. With the advice of John O'Malley, I went with another Jesuit scholastic to Florence that summer to study Italian.

After two months of being unable to decide, I travelled to Rome to meet Josef Fuchs. It was during that visit to Rome that I discovered baroque art. After meeting Fuchs, I went to visit the church of St Ignatius, the Gesù. I loved the church immediately, especially its ceiling where Ignatius is sending Jesuits to the four corners of the earth. The colours, the movement, the passion, the incomprehensible vision.

I went to the main altar and sat down. Above hang pictures of Ignatius at La Storta, where in a mystical vision he saw God placing him with Jesus. Above the story was inscribed, in Latin, God's promise that was uttered in the vision, "I will be propitious to you in Rome". I got up and told my companion that I would study in Rome. "Why?", he asked. I showed him the words. Did I need anything more?

I loved baroque art immediately. I felt connected with another type of spirituality: far more active, colourful, embodied, forgiving, celebratory. It was like being in the fourth week of the Spiritual Exercises, finding God in all God's creation. I felt liberated from Irish Gothic.

While studying there, I heard confessions at the church of the Gesù. I would prop up my chair so that I could peek through the confessional shutters and see that other gorgeous ceiling, with its huge narratives of human heroism and God's delivery, framed with rich gold and beautiful naked angels. Baroque art always prompted me to look up.

Whenever friends visited me in Rome, I took them touring. "Look up at the windows", I would say. I would help them to see how, unlike perfect Renaissance windows, baroque windows always have breaks in them. Unlike Renaissance idealism, the baroque sees the world as imperfect and in need of repair, but in that brokenness is the possibility of receiving the divine. All the broken frames of baroque art are the gateways for merciful glory to enter and transform our very physical world. In baroque art and spirituality, we get to see how light, glory, joy - in short, the presence of the Almighty - shatter the boundaries of our ordinary lives and transform our bodies into immortal diamonds.

Several years later, I was preparing for my second long retreat, this time as a tertian. Before starting, I took a pilgrimage to Loyola, Spain. On our first evening at liturgy, while standing around the high altar during the eucharistic prayer, I saw each of my 20 companions prayerfully contemplating the consecration. I could never focus like that, and became distracted immediately. I quickly scanned the cavernous basilica. It was baroque. Thank God, I prayed.

What was that up in the cupola? I began to see seven figures. What were they? A woman with a mirror, another with scales, another giving suck from her breast…Prudence, justice, charity…The figures were the icons of the seven virtues. The basilica was incarnating virtue. As my friends saw God in the breaking of the bread, I saw God bursting out all over.

My prayer, like my leisure, is baroque. I love the incredible, varied stimulus of baroque. If the German Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper was right about leisure as a foretaste of how things will be, then my leisure is like my spirituality, busy baroque. I know, I know, people who write about leisure usually talk about quietness, silence, being alone. Fine, there are times that I love the sublime, but for me (as it was for Pieper) leisure is the experience of receiving, of being open to what is being communicated, to being stimulated by the presence of God. That is my leisure: stimulus, reception, openness, celebration, taking all of it in.

I now believe that leisure is about tasting the kingdom of heaven. It has taken me a long time to learn that. As a child I was never attracted to the kingdom. The "beatific vision" sounded pretty boring. Eternity, contemplating God. Phew! But when I read Thomas Aquinas during my studies in Rome, I learned that Heaven, or patria as he called it, was pure act. I was freed again from all those sedentary, subduing images that anchored others but harnessed me. Since then, in my leisure, I look all around me for the kingdom.

Often, I start my day with a five-mile run, during which I pray. I love the leisure of my run along the glorious Charles river. I take in everything: pedestrians, joggers, skaters, bikers, drivers, buildings, river, grass, bushes, trees, ducks, swans, and other birds. God is running with me, carrying me through the day that is on my horizon. I feel God's presence in my lungs, in my legs, in my blood, in my sweat. God runs with me (or is it, I with God?) at a good pace.

Like the morning run, my best leisure is with others. When I am alone I do good work, but when it comes to leisure I want my friends. I want to hear about their lives, how they are doing, what they are planning, when I will see them next. I want to go to films with them, walk along the Charles, eat in a restaurant. And I want music in the background.

I have just come back from a glorious holiday. My friend was a perfect companion. We drove, walked, talked, visited, laughed, and saw. One night was especially great. We were staying in a town with one of my former students, now a lecturer. It was evening and he took us to a cliff to see the silhouette of an incredibly beautiful, highly ornate architectural site. With about one hundred others we stood at a distance, waiting for it to be illuminated. Afterwards, we descended to a square where we sat for a light supper. We ordered wine and dinner. In the background, a guitarist was playing. I watched as my former student, quite at home in his new terrain, told us both what he loved about this splendid, ancient city. This is what heaven will be like, I thought: God's love, human gratitude and friendship, beauty, truth, and joy.

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