Christianity (and spirituality more broadly) has often focused strongly on asceticism, and you can see why. For most of history, deprivation was the norm for the vast majority of the population, so how could any form of abundance not stick in the throat as a fundamental injustice

But as we conquer the demons of famine and want, can we embrace a spirituality of conscious abundance? Of the holiness of pleasure? God, after all, made sugar sweet, wine intoxicating, art sublime and perfume transporting

There is consumption for the sake of consumption. Pleasure that does not exist for the sake of itself but to demonstrate your power to destroy and consume. It gives us temporary relief from our hurt and our vulnerability but it is not holy and it is not whole-making

But there is also the savouring of pleasure that is pleasing to God, that contemplatively brings us closer to the Creation while liberating us from the chains of the mundane. Can walking that line be a kind of spiritual practice?

Credit for this outpouring of mysticism goes to Yellow Tail and their very affordable Shiraz