by Ron Surgeon
“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there's something stronger – something better, pushing right back.” - Albert Cammus
Can you hear the invitation to give close attention to our truest longings? I say truest longings because sometimes we can have longings that are not the truest.
These are the longings that oppose goodness and our most authentic self-expression. On the other hand, our truest longings come from another place. From the depths within, the Spirit longs for what is against the flesh — the declining aspect of ourselves leading us to compromise the truest good — and the flesh longs for what is against the Spirit.
Those two different longings are as Carl Jung said,
“… contempt against contempt and love against love.”
God gives us good and wholesome desires. Those desires are His doing. His longings, likewise, are an echo from the world to come. And your life, in various aspects, is the working out of His longings through you.
Through the inclination toward goodness, found in our truest longings, we recognize that something trustworthy resides within. Our true longings are the friendship between us and the Divine. They are the voice of Him who always was and forever will be. Longing can be divine discontentment nudging us to lay down cumbersome and non-enriching activities.
Through longing we can learn to “give up all the other worlds except the one to which we belong,” said David Whyte.
We are like the swan giving up its clumsy waddle on the land to dance gracefully in the lake. Like the swan in the lake, longing helps us find the place where we belong. Own your longing. Longing helps us choose more decisively between the courageous path or the path that leads to the ordinary. There is something trustworthy residing within.
Patiently, we can advance ourselves toward it. I think the poem below says it best.
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.
-John O’Donohue
Remember, understanding your longing and the bearing it has on your spirit isn’t something you have to navigate alone. Request an appointment with a Christian therapist at Kardia Collective and find out how this shift in perspective can help you make progress in your own life.