Yearning

Credit: Gabor Murray

A few days ago I had a discussion with a friend about yearning--like, among other things and despite our advanced age, we don't give up wanting to have a close, romantic relationship with a member of the opposite sex. I still yearn for a perfect garden, warm sourdough bread, and linen sheets. I have linen sheets, will always have linen sheets. Lord, please grant me that one concession and let me die on linen sheets. (In a perfect garden with the love of my life holding my hand . . . ) And I yearn for a closer union with God and avocados that are always at the perfect stage of ripeness. Avocado on warm sourdough bread.


This brought to mind a John O'Donohue poem--For Longing--that I posted here some time in the past. John O'Donohue expresses it so much better than I ever could. It bears repeating.

For longing

blessed be the longing that brought you here
and quickens your soul with wonder.

may you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
that disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

may you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
to discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.

may the forms of your belonging – in love, creativity, and friendship –
be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.

may the one you long for long for you.
may your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.

may a secret providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.

may your mind inhabit your life with the sureness
with which your body inhabits the world.

may your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.

may you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.
may you know the urgency with which God longs for you.

by John O'Donohue

Shards of glass

Last night or, to be more precise,  just before dawn this morning, I awoke from a dream that I remember in startling detail. I was at some sort of tribal, artsy party on a beach. I had applied all kinds of beach debris--shells, small stones, bits of seagrass, and crab claws--to my body with glue. I was covered in bits of the sea and quite proud of my creativity. There was a man there (James) whom I had known as a boy when both of us were in high school. I wasn't that interested in talking to him, but after I had fully adorned myself in sea bits, I sat beside him as he leaned against a sand bank alone, in silence, staring at the water.

When I sat down he put his arm on my shoulder and, still looking at the water, said, "You know, I really used to love you back then."

My hands were covered with glue and my mouth was full of shards of glass. I said, "I want to tell you a story. But wait until I get this glass out of my mouth." I removed glass and more appeared. I continued removing it, waiting to tell James my story.

At that point, my former bastard bully of a husband stood at the shore and shouted at me, "What are you doing with him? You get away from him!"

I saw the ex-husband without feeling any emotion other than mild amusement. He didn't frighten me or make me anxious. I just chuckled and said, through the shards of glass in my mouth, "I don't care what you think. I'm free now." And I awoke.

My first drowsy thought was to thank God for the dream. "Thank you, Lord! Thank you--you know I needed to feel that. Thank you!" And I recall thanking him for my interaction with James and my confidence that I could remove the shards of glass--not for my lack of fear or emotion toward my husband.

But now, hours later, the images of the dream still vivid, I wonder why I was so grateful to God for the dream. I know that dreams are often God's way of sending us messages. But what was the message?

Having sharp things--pins, needles, glass, or fish hooks--in my mouth, throat, sometimes my arms, is a recurring image in my dreams. Always I remove some and more appear--I can never get them out. I used to interpret that as meaning I was frustrated that I wasn't able to express myself without retribution.

My sense is that my gratitude was more because I knew that James loved me when we were young. I was fully aware that it was in the past. And this time I felt that I could get past the shards of glass and tell my story and that my husband was just a silly, angry guy on the beach. But the intense feeling of gratitude, that the Lord had sent me a message, I still can't decipher. I need to sleep on that.