On Joy & Delight
The Christian tradition has long insisted that joy is not a mood or a feeling — it is an enduring gift, made possible by the greatest of virtues: love.
We will explore the Christian tradition's understanding of joy and delight through voices from the early Church, the medieval monastic tradition, and modern Christian writers. Drawing especially on the thought of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the series traces joy as the fruit of love rightly ordered — a transformation that moves the soul from the restless love of self toward the freedom of loving God for God's own sake. In that purification of desire, love becomes joy. And in the modern imagination, thinkers like G.K. Chesterton remind us that delight begins in wonder: the astonished recognition that existence itself is grace.
As in previous years, the series will be explored through two live events — a series-opening lecture featuring Tish Harrison Warren and a closing session — along with a series companion reader and discussion groups. You can sign up for a discussion group by clicking here. The companion reader consists of four sessions containing primary theological text along with poetry, visual art, Scripture, reflection, and practice.
On Joy & Delight Closing Session
We will be closing this exploration of Joy & Delight by hearing from local Christian voices and celebrating the creativity, wonder, and connection that is found in our very own community.
Join us for an ice cream social, light refreshments, visual art from the reader on display, and a conversation with the writers featured in this year’s reader.
Inspired to dive deeper? It’s not too late. You can still order a reader and even launch a fall discussion group to discover the depth of joy and delight found in connection, participation, awe, and wonder.
CLOSING SESSION DETAILS
Closing Speakers: Dustin Messer, Michelle Matthews, and Maggie Philpot
Date: Thursday, August 20, 2026
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: Central Commons Library | 4711 Westside Dr, Dallas, TX 75209
Closing Session Speakers
Fr. Dustin Messer
Dustin Messer serves as the vicar of All Saints Dallas where he enjoys connecting people to God's Word and Spirit. Before coming to ASD, Dustin taught at The King’s College in New York City. He continues to teach at Reformed Theological Seminary-Dallas and serves as an Envoy for Langham Partnership, a ministry founded by John Stott to promote biblical scholarship in the Majority World. Dustin sits on the advisory boards of both RTS-Dallas and The Greystone Theological Institute. Since '08 Dustin has been married to his college sweetheart, Whitney, and together they have two kids, Pennilyn and Auggie.
Dr. Michelle Matthews
A graduate of Baylor University and Southern Methodist University, Michelle holds both a master’s and a doctoral degree in the Liberal Arts, with a concentration in the Humanities. She taught literature, poetry, and writing on the high school and community college level as well as humanities at a classical school. Michelle is always on the lookout for opportunities to use her research and her classroom experience to shine light on the many ways aesthetic engagement in literary works can enrich lives. Truitt, her husband of 39 years, caught her passion for good stories long ago, and many of their discussions revolve around the books they’re reading.
Maggie Philpot
Maggie grew up in Fort Worth, Texas where she somehow still lives. She spent eleven years as an educator, teaching teenagers how to express ideas and exert power using the art of rhetoric, and she earned a Masters Degree in the oh-so-practical art known as Humanities. She is currently pursuing more impractical schooling with a doctoral program in writing.
Most of all, she is passionate about anything and anyone who attempts to make beauty, order, and meaning in this crazy world. The simple act of writing is one way to do just that.
join a discussion group
ORIGIN Opening feat. Tish Harrison Warren
Opening Session of Origin “Joy & Delight” with Tish Harrison Warren
Opening Session Speaker: Tish Harrison Warren
Tish Harrison Warren is a writer and an Anglican priest. She is the author of several books, including Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life, which won Christianity Today's 2018 Book of the Year, and Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work, or Watch, or Weep, which won Christianity Today's 2022 Book of the Year and the 2022 ECPA Christian Book of the Year.
She formerly wrote a weekly newsletter for The New York Times, which focused on faith in public discourse and private life. She was also a columnist for Christianity Today. Her articles and essays have appeared in Comment Magazine, The Point Magazine, Religion News Service and elsewhere.
She currently serves as the C. S. Lewis Theological Writer-in-Residence for the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies at Baylor’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary. She is a senior fellow with The Trinity Forum and an assisting priest at Immanuel Anglican Church. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and three children.
Her forthcoming book, What Grows in Weary Lands will be released on May 12, 2026.
Help Make this program possible
ORIGIN, both the speaker series and the reader, is made possible by generous donations from the community. Would you consider donating so we can continue to create quality spiritual formation resources for artists and creatives?
Order the Origin Reader: On Joy & Delight
This anthology is the loving creation of a community of friends in hope of transformation and an ever-deepening faith. As with previous anthologies, each chapter includes an anchor text, poetry, visual art, and scripture, and prayerful reflection. We hope you will find the authors, poets, and artists to be wise guides and friends as you enter into a companioned journey of exploring joy and delight through the door of imagination and deeper to the heart. This reader is intended to be used alongside the Art House Dallas Origin program. If you are unable to afford this reader and would still love to participate, please fill out this form and let us know your situation. On Joy & Delight will be mailed to participants. Pickup dates will be available in Dallas as well.
This anthology is the loving creation of a community of friends in hope of transformation and an ever-deepening faith. As with previous anthologies, each chapter includes an anchor text, poetry, visual art, and scripture, and prayerful reflection. We hope you will find the authors, poets, and artists to be wise guides and friends as you enter into a companioned journey of exploring joy & delight through the door of imagination.
There is a suggested donation of $10 for the reader. This reader is intended to be used alongside the Art House Dallas Origin program, if you are unable to afford this reader and would still love to participate, please fill out this form and let us know your situation.
On Joy & Delight will be mailed to participants. Pickup dates will be available in Dallas as well.
Join the Origin Content Team
Each year Art House Dallas staff and volunteers come together to choose a theme and curate content for the next year’s reader. If you are interested in being a part of that team, helping to curate theological texts, poetry, visual art, and prayer/scripture for next year’s reader, please fill out the form below.
ABOUT ORIGIN
Origin, an Art House Dallas program, seeks to establish a wholeness and connectedness between spiritual formation, imagination, and the arts with the ultimate intent to establish a sacred perspective on how we individually and collectively live and create. We believe that beauty shown through the arts, culture, and creation holds a powerful ability to form the way we see ourselves, the world, and our interaction with both. As embodied creatures made in the image of the Triune God we must consider the formation of our senses, our emotions, and our ideas. This same incarnate God calls us to be like him in our participation of cultivating goodness, truth, and beauty. There are few things more sacred in life than points of origin. The point from where thoughts, ideas, and perspectives begin holds potent ability to echo and endure through generations and shape how people and cultures both speak and act. How a person interacts with and thinks about the world is the essence of living and the result of a starting point.
