Restlessness and Longing

As a deer longs for flowing streams,
    so my soul longs for you, O God.  Psalm 42:1

Some years ago, a spiritual director recommended a book she thought would resonate with me. It was The Holy Longing, by Ronald Rolheiser. Its first chapter begins, "It is no easy task to walk this earth and find peace. Inside of us, it would seem, something is at odds with the very rhythm of things and we are forever restless, dissatisfied, frustrated, and aching. We are so overcharged with desire that it is hard to come to simple rest. Desire is always stronger than satisfaction... We are driven persons, forever obsessed, continually dis-eased, living lives, as Thoreau once suggested, of quiet desperation, only occasionally experiencing peace."

Rolheiser goes on to say that the much misunderstood term "spirituality" is about what we do with this burning desire. In that sense, everyone has a spirituality, which is not to say that everyone pursues their desires in ways that are helpful. Indeed many spiritualities may be destructive and pathological, but they are the way in which people's souls attempt to quench their desire.

My own restlessness is often quite close to the surface. At times this longing has been, to use Rolheiser's language, holy. It has drawn me toward God and toward God's will for me, a longing like that named by today's psalmist. But at other times, my longing and restlessness seeks an outlet in other places and is far from holy. This can be particularly problematic for a pastor because my longings for success or affirmation or accomplishment can easily be dressed in religious garb.

I suspect that the spectacular moral failings and scandals that too often plague religious leaders have to do with this easy confusing of a personal desire with a holy one. I suspect a number of such folks fooled themselves long before they ever fooled others. That surely happens in the non-religious arena as well, any time people decide their desires and longings are valid and legitimate, if not actually holy.

In the aforementioned opening chapter, Rolheiser also uses a famous quote from Augustine. "You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." Success and accomplishments are fine, up to a point, but they never completely fill our emptiness, although our frenzied, anxious, rat-race of a world indicates we're still hoping they may. At the same time, the current fascination with the topic of spirituality suggests that many have their doubts.

What is the object of your deepest longings? And as Sarah Palin might say, "How's that working out for you?" I know that for me, it's easy to get off track, and every so often, I need to make sure my deepest longings are actually about God.

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