Longing for More
“When was the last time you felt a longing for healing and fundamental change groaning within you?”
I began the book Sacred Rhythms in my sacred chair by the fireplace, my heart full of honest skepticism, if not slight desperation. I scooched in close to Hope. Feeling wounded by the church and religion and spiritual leaders, I was trying to remain open, to keep showing up to the Holy Spirit and her breath in me. This language was resonating: longings, desires, groaning, change.
“One of the most basic things we need to understand about spiritual transformation is that it is full of mystery.
We can be open to it, but we can’t accomplish it for ourselves….
we are compelled to seek out ways of living that are congruent with our deepest desires...these discoveries are available to all of us as we become more honest in naming what isn’t working so that we can craft a way of life that is more congruent with our deepest desires….settle into our desires and name them in God’s presence.”
Settling into my desires: this felt very honest. Not like the laundry list of Christian to-do’s, no one shoulding on me, but opportunities towards authenticity, towards a more integrated version of me. Ruth, the author, shared the passage from Mark 10, where Bartimaeus finds out Jesus is coming and he gets up to run to Jesus’s feet. Jesus asks him a single question: What do you want me to do for you?
Jesus is a sneaky little shit.
Is what I was looking for already there, inside of me? Did I already know what I wanted? I recalled my first session with my therapist, Billy, six years before. Eli was a newborn. I felt a transition happening even then. Something was off.
It was dark in the living room with just a little light coming from a lamp in the corner and the moonbeams seeping in through the old 1960’s metal framed windows. Eli and I held each other as he nursed and I rocked slowly and quietly back and forth in the black wooden rocking chair. My eyes started to wander across the room as he began to fall asleep. Just above the entertainment center, I spotted mispainted crown molding. Very clearly in the center of one board of crown molding the paint went from one shade of white to another. Suddenly all my eyes could see was how far we had to go on this old house we’d been “updating” for three years. One piece of mispainted moulding took me from peace to panic: The house would never be right. We'd always be playing from behind. I should work more so we can get ahead. I should stay home full time until the kids are in school. Josh's job isn't right for him. Maybe I'm not even right for him. We live too close to family. We should move closer to my sister. We should move. This house is the problem. I'm the problem. We should have another baby. Babies are too hard on our marriage. We need to get into a marriage class. I don't like the marriage class at our church. I don't like our church. Josh shouldn't have become an elder. I should go back to school....
The next day, I made my first appointment with Billy. These breakdowns over seemingly unimportant details are often directional signage pointing us towards our inner life, reminding us something is aching down deep. Mindfulness or therapy, practiced honestly, can shine a light into these dark corners and help us to see the valid and true pain points of our lives.
First appointments with new therapists can be paralyzing. It’s an emotional one night stand you are hoping to turn into a meaningful relationship. I told Billy there was this other part of me that I felt was out of reach and desperate to be touched. And it wasn’t buried under my laptop, the diapers or hidden in my closet with my yoga pants. It was inside of me. When I really stopped, got still, which was usually around one in the morning when I was nursing Eli and the rest of the house was finally quiet, in those moments I would breathe in this piece of my soul that I didn’t recognize and needed to get to know again.
From Billy's direction, I began gathering symbols of what brought life to my Spirit. At the same time he challenged me to let go of the illusion of fulfillment. I scribbled on my notepad, “The deliciousness of desire...having longings, but longings not having me.”
Fast forward six years and I’m there at the fireplace with Jesus asking me, "What do you want me to do for you?" Had I still not tapped into my deepest longings on this journey of becoming? This felt immensely frustrating but also full of possibility. It meant this voyage had not started today but that I had already been on it for a long time. The upside of the “not yet” is the “still going.”
Sacred Rhythms became one of those symbols, one of those signs to keep heading towards my true north. I didn’t have to figure out my complicated relationship with the church to remain grounded in the Spirit filled life. Six years really isn’t a long time. Maybe my story wasn’t over, maybe this was the introduction and not the last chapter. Maybe “the end” from my closet was a lie. Maybe Anne Lamott is right and “grace bats last.” Maybe I would have to find the courage to turn the page.
I let myself sit with this question, Jesus asking, “What do you want me to do for you?”
read more