It’s 7:15 AM and I’ve just returned from a long walk. It is rare that I should awaken early enough and with enough gusto to take such a jaunt, but oh how glad I am that this was such a morning.
I’ve been experiencing a deep longing for God. A longing that brings me to tears when I have enough quiet to sit with it, or, as in the case of this morning, walk with it.
This longing is heartbreakingly blissful, which makes sense in light of paradoxical logic, which I was reading about yesterday. Paradoxical logic posits that we can only understand Ultimate Reality through contradiction.
Well, I thought that I’d explain how I happened upon this longing, of course my grandiose hope is that you, too can attain this longing, but I know that our Creator, the nameless one, made us each so unique that you might happen upon something different than this, that brings you closer to a recognition of God around you in an even more personal way for you. But I’ll go ahead with my intentions anyway.
I think it’s pretty basic, but we’ll see how it turns out.
My longing for God began with my longing for other things. Things that my human self has a passion for. For instance, I LOVE brand new, newborn babies, they evoke a sense of heaven in me, I am utterly carried away to a different state of being when I approach a newborn. The more intimate I can be with that newborn, the more carried away I am. My experience with newborns has run the gamut, from a brief glimpse of another mother’s child in a stroller in the mall (get that baby ON you woman!), to breastfeeding the three newborn babies of my womb, just following the harrowingly exhilarating adventures of their homebirths. I was practically manic for the latter.
Then there’s this house, it’s near where I live now. It was built on the top of a hill here in the unincorporated area of Santa Ana in 1929. It looks like a mission, and I’m not at all equipped vocabularily, to describe the edifice in architectural terms (seeing as how I make up my own words and all!), but it reminds me of a villa, it has a terra cotta tile roof and . . . Oh I just can’t bear to butcher it like this. It’s just AMAZING! I mean, you approach the place and you can feel it’s breath, it’s alive and it tells you fantastical stories beyond what itself has experienced. As I passed it today I imagined it, on a secluded beach with clean powdery sand leading to warm, clear waters with a small break and THAT is my heaven. Of course I’d be giving birth there regularly to my newborn, nursing babies!
Then there’s bees. For some reason bees have struck me lately as something so amazing, actually insects in general. I’ve been longing for a deeper understanding of insects and how their communities operate (if you feel the same, I recommend the DVD series Insectia with Georges Brossard, it is available at the Orange Public Library). Insects are so far ahead of mankind in many ways, they are complexly miraculous in their capabilities and activities.
Okay, okay, you get it. Well, my longings, my human longings, when I sit with them and I feel them and maybe examine them a little (though I try my darnedest NOT to intellectualize them), they ARE my longing for God. This notion was suggested to me in the book The Awakened Heart by Gerald May, MD (who should be sainted in my opinion). We are human beings, created in the image of God, everything human is of God, and yes, we are capable of sin and evil, but not by longing. When I consecrate my longings, in prayer, I feel God. I long for God, and life becomes so sparkling, warm, shining and loving, including all people and the longing deepens. The more I recognize the longing the more I long.
The things that God created, human women with our wombs, breasts and babies, bees with their “find-the-food” dances, even the creations of man, like that awesome house, they all reflect God in some way. And as I sit here, being a human, longing for the things that speak to my heart, I am longing for God and he’s here, ministering to me in words I cannot comprehend and in feelings I cannot describe. I want to get closer to God, but that notion makes me feel like I have to DO something to get there, or LEARN something to get there, but that is not the state of things, of He and I. He’s here, always, and surrounding me in the things I love and long for, always. The more I long for Him, the more I feel Him and then I long even more.
What do you long for? What is the height of inspiration for you? What are the things that happen that make your heart either squeeze tight in your chest, or feel like it’s going to swell to the size of Texas? What causes you to need to catch your breath? Is it beauty surrounding you in your own creative expression? THAT reflects God. Do you long for delicious food that delights your tongue? THAT reflects God. What do YOU, personally long for? Optimum development for your children? World Peace? To eat yoghurt on a balcony over the Mediterranean, of one of those beautiful structures on the island of Santorini, the ones where the domed roofs were painted to match the sky? Do you long to meet and unite with a soul mate with whom you can share the minutiae of daily life? Whatever you long for is YOUR way to your own heart where you can love and long for God. He’s there. Pay attention to your reaction to things, look for God in those that delight you and lead you to longing and find quiet stillness to sit there with that, even if that means admitting something that you’ve tried to fool yourself out of, don’t be afraid to stay there, even if you feel strong emotions taking hold. Consecrate your longings in prayer and God will minister to you in ways you don’t comprehend and you might not realize it at first, but look for those feelings that you cannot describe, that’s how you’ll know.
