Active Contentment: Puddings, Chimney-Pots & Dad’s Latte Froth

How do you pronounce “C-O-N-T-E-N-T”? Please say it out loud.

Did you say /kənˈtent/ or /ˈkäntent/?

For the record, they’re both right. Both come from Latin. The first is from contentus and means ‘satisfied’, the second is from medieval Latin contenta and means ‘things contained’.

I know. There are only three of you who love Latin. And you could all school me. So I’ll move on.

To a little English lesson.

Contentment is both “sweet content” and “cubic content.”

In “The Contented Man,” the English author, G.K. Chesterton, opens his “content” case this way:

The word…has two meanings, somewhat singularly connected; the “sweet content” of the poet and the “cubic content” of the mathematician. Some distinguish these by stressing the different syllables. Thus, it might happen to any of us, at some social juncture, to remark gaily, “Of the content of the King of the Cannibal Islands’ Stewpot I am content to be ignorant”; or “Not content with measuring the cubic content of my safe, you are stealing the spoons.” And there really is an analogy between the mathematical and the moral use of the term, for lack of the observation of which the latter has been much weakened and misused…

Before Chesterton unpacks that analogy, I’ll mention in passing that our productivity fixation does not foster contentment. (I was reminded this week of that discouraging truth in this encouraging Lazy Genius podcast). And, in case you had any doubts, social media doesn’t either.

Apart from those influences, I’ve told you before that contentment doesn’t come easy. It is not mere resignation. Cultivating contentment is hard work.

Which might be why “The Contented Man” so intrigued me. It’s a fresh take.

“It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it.”

Here’s how Chesterton explains the /kənˈtent/ and /ˈkäntent/ connection. (Bolding mine.)

I wish to urge the case for cubic content; in which I take a personal interest. Now, moral content has been undervalued and neglected because of its separation from the other meaning. It has become a negative rather than a positive thing. In some accounts of contentment it seems to be little more than a meek despair.

But this is not the true meaning of the term; it should stand for the idea of a positive and thorough appreciation of the content of anything; for feeling the substance and not merely the surface of experience. “Content” ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased… Being contented with bread and cheese ought not to mean not caring what you eat. It ought to mean caring for bread and cheese; handling and enjoying the cubic content of the bread and cheese… Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it. It ought to mean appreciating what there is to appreciate in such a position; such as the quaint and elvish slope of the ceiling or the sublime aerial view of the opposite chimney-pots. And in this sense contentment is a real and even an active virtue… The poet in the attic…realises how high, how starry, how cool, how unadorned and simple—in short, how Attic is the attic.

True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and it is rare. The absence of this digestive talent is what makes so cold and incredible the tales of so many people who say they have been “through” things; when it is evident that they have come out on the other side quite unchanged. A man might have gone “through” a plum pudding as a bullet might go through a plum pudding; it depends on the size of the pudding—and the man. But the awful and sacred question is “Has the pudding been through him?” Has he tasted, appreciated, and absorbed the solid pudding, with its three dimensions and its three thousand tastes and smells? Can he offer himself to the eyes of men as one who has cubically conquered and contained a pudding?

In the same way we may ask of those who profess to have passed through trivial or tragic experiences whether they have absorbed the content of them; whether they licked up such living water as there was.

Have you “licked up such living water [or latte froth] as there was“?

I’m learning how. I was licking on Thursday afternoon when the son who moved out dropped by for a short, but long-awaited visit. I was licking when I saw photos and scores from the fall sport my other son chose not to play. And I am licking when I “explore the space” in my tiny, windowless room at work.

I want to digest all that is in life’s unbidden puddings.

To digest like this, to thoroughly appreciate the content of a thing, sometimes we must lick or suck or scrape.

My dad loves a dry latte, and especially that extra froth. It’s why he keeps his “froth spoon” in the car. After he downs the drink, there remains that delectable dairy froth on the bottom and sides of the cup. He stows his special spoon so he won’t miss a bit of froth.

LIcking up living water means we go through every season, the plenty and the want, with a spoon. That’s Chesterton’s “sweet content” and “cubic content” connection. We sip all the goodness we possibly can then suck, scrape or lick out the froth. We pause, we let ourselves feel “all the feels,” when a loved one comes or a loved one goes. We let that pudding go through us.

But why?

What’s in the pudding?

Through all life’s puddings, from the bottom of the cup, to the peaks of the attic, we find Jesus Christ.

Back to that Latin, it is satisfaction contained. The source of living water that forever satisfies is contained in Him. That is /kənˈtent/ and /ˈkäntent/ connection.

Which means that when we do what Chesterton advised, when we really “conquer and contain the pudding” and explore that space in which we’re placed, we find Christ there with us.

Paul called this “the fellowship of his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10). “When grain and new wine abound” David knew the source of joy (Psalm 4:7). In the spaces of plenty and of want, Christians find Christ.

We are /kənˈtent/ with the /ˈkäntent/ of our lives
because “to live is Christ.“

Which is where the Apostle Paul landed in Philippians 4:11-13. He had just rejoiced in the generous gift the Philippians believers had sent to support him in ministry:

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

In Philippians 3:8 Paul shared the secret, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” It’s all loss—the health, wealth, comfort and fame that the world counts as gain—compared to knowing Christ.

That is the secret of this supernatural contentment. Knowing Jesus. But getting to that place, learning that strange way of counting, is arduous and rare.

Contentment is arduous and rare.

Contentment is an active thing. I cannot wait for it to come to me because it never will. I must defy my natural frame, like Habakkuk did, and take joy in the Lord.

That is to admire the chimney-pots and scrape up froth and let the pudding go through me.

Contentment is hard. My hungry heart wants more. I might grieve my loss when I hear about family and friends living the life I scripted for me. I might inwardly groan when they see sides of God’s goodness he hasn’t let me see.

Contentment doesn’t come easy for me. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

But the “grace of God teaches us” (Titus 2:11-14). It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and yes to godliness. It teaches me to no to complaining and yes to contentment.

God’s grace teaches me to shift my gaze, to reframe the pain, and to count it all joy.

But it is arduous.

Why put in all the work?

Because we exist for Christ (Colossians 1:15-16). That is why we want to offer myself “to the eyes of men as one who has cubically conquered and contained a pudding” — the pudding of the real life God has given us, not our self-scripted imaginary lives

We want to “conquer and contain” all the stuff of this mist of a life even when it feels like a drought.

I want to be so satisfied in Christ that I am not mastered by the /ˈkäntent/ of whatever God in his wisdom and mercy allots. This is to “conquer and contain” life’s pudding. This is the secret to being /kənˈtent/.

The content man, John Piper explained, “is in sync with the reason he exists.” We exist to magnify Christ. We magnify Christ, we make him look great, when we are content. A pleased, thankful child at the dinner table “magnifies” the mother who made his meal. A displeased, grumbling child does not.

We were created, Piper writes, “to eat and drink and work and rest in such a way that shows his supreme greatness and value and beauty. To magnify Christ: that’s why you exist.”

That’s why we put in all the work. Why we count blessings and let ourselves “complain of nothing, not even the weather.” It’s why we savor the view of the opposite chimney-pots but we don’t waste our time at pity parties bemoaning the life we haven’t got.

Did I mention that contentment is arduous and rare?

Don’t you want to be content? Want to be positively pleased with your life? Want to go through it not somehow, but triumphantly? I do.

Even though I do not have the family or job I thought I’d have, I want to realize how high, how starry, how good life is. I want to enjoy the chimney-pots from the attic, or the rainy bus stop, and “lick up such living water as there is.”

Tonight, by the grace and power of Almighty God, I am.

I realize the goodness of life in this little house in the big woods of Wisconsin, with my broken little family and my windowless work room and patchwork ministries to my Sunday schoolers and my friends and my Thursday Bible study ladies. I taste it in the stir-fried peppers, onions, and beans from mom and dad’s garden and in the crunch around the bruise of an apple that fell from the neighbor’s tree.

Tonight, I let life’s little pudding infuse me. I lick up living water such as there is.

I know Christ and I am content.

"If we listen to our self-love, we will estimate our lot less by what it is than by what it is not; shall dwell on its hindrances, and be blind to its possibilities; and comparing it only with imaginary lives, shall indulge in flattering dreams of what we should do, if we had but power; and give, if we had but wealth; and be, if we had not temptations. We shall be forever querulously pleading our difficulties and privations as excuses for our unloving temper and unfruitful life; and fancying ourselves injured beings, frowning at the dear Providence that loves us...

But if we accept our lot as assigned by God, we shall count up its contents and find in it resources of good surpassing our best economy." 

—J. Martineau, quoted in Daily Strength for Daily Needs