Daley Ponderings

At our church's marriage retreat last weekend, we got a copy of "Innocent Pleasures" by David Powlinson, an article that was in the fall issue of The Journal of Biblical Counseling.I finished reading it this morning and found it to be quite good. David spoke of the evil and glory of little pleasures in our lives.
The evil is that the "little" pleasures can become a snare, and take up more time, thought, money, etc. than they should. He had a general list of how to telll if a "pleasure" is a bad thing: being obsessive/obsessed, impulsive, compulsive, cancerous and mutant. He had a good contrasting example between Brave New World, where people are controlled by what they love, and 1984, where people are controlled by what they hate. I haven't read either of those, and perhaps I should, but I think I understood his point. (which is longer than what I wrote here)
In case you think he has gone off the deep end, he writes, "this article is not a rant against the media or hedonism or eroticism or sports or all the other ways it is possible to amuse oneself to death. Christian truth cuts against the grain of a culture by offering something better."
He speaks of how the "bad" pleasures have a cycle of diminishing returns where true pleasures, "work in exactly the opposite way as the addictive cycle. It takes less and less to push the lever of joy. Less stimulus is needed for greater joy. Joy is the gift of God, one of the small kindnesses of grace in action."
He speaks of the glories on the little pleasures and describes a couple people who have learned to glory in what God has given them; he speaks of an elderly grandmother who, "witness[ess] intense pleasures: a certain slant of sun across the maple tree and splashing onto the kitchen floor, a cup of Earl Grey tea resting ont he tablecloth, the pattern on the teacup, the curve of the handle, the feel of the cup's rim on her lips, the familiar aroma delighting her as if she experiencing it for the first time. And when her three-year-old granddaughter runs into the room, she feels a pure joy like paradise.
There is much more that could be said, but you could go read the 14 pages yourself too, though I am not sure if you can find the article online or not.