LONGING, DESIRE, AND THE FACE OF GOD
We’ve all heard these lines, prayed them, and in our more reflective moments tried to mean them; but, mostly, our hearts have belied those words. We haven’t really, at least not in our more conscious thoughts and feelings, longed for God with any real intensity and in our beds at night our souls are generally keeping vigil for someone other than God. But, for this, we need not apologize.
We are human beings, not angels, and nature and instinct conspire to direct our gaze and our desire towards this earth. It is persons and things of this earth for which our hearts long with intensity. We ache for a lot of things, though our most intense longings mostly have to do with yearning for a soulmate and with emotional and sexual consummation.
Those desires, at first glance at least, generally do not appear as holy or God-directed. We dare not associate what we are feeling at those times with the holy sentiments we express in our psalms and prayers. And we are the poorer for that, religiously and humanly. That desire, far from being unhealthy, is in fact a sign of health. Beauty is meant to be honored; we are meant to feel that powerful attraction and pull, including its sexual component. Beauty, of course, is also meant to be respected and not violated.
The point here is that, consciously and unconsciously, we understand these powerful earthy and erotic attractions as taking us away from God and as something we need to give up in order to move closer to God. Our desire for God and our more earthy, sexual desires are perceived as competitors, incompatible, demanding that we renounce one for the other.
More than we imagine, that misconception hurts us, because everything that is beautiful and attractive, however earthy and sexual, is contained inside of God. God is the creator of all that is beautiful, attractive, colorful, sexual, witty, brilliant, and intelligent. All that we are attracted to on this earth, including the beauty that allures us sexually, is found inside of God and our attraction and longing for it here on earth is, in the end, a longing for God.
To read more click here or copy this address into your browser http://ronrolheiser.com/
www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser
www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser
No comments:
Post a Comment