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The Interior Castle (a book by Teresa of Avila)
illustrated by Michael and Isaiah Bischoff
Holy Delicious Desires, Part Two:
God’s Longing for Us
Janet O. Hagberg
In the Holy Delicious Desires essay, Part One, I delineated three ways in which we start our initial search for God, for that something beyond us, the Mysterious, the Eternal. These three ways are wine, women (men) and song, or sex, drugs and rock and roll. In this essay I hope to illustrate how that initial search for our Source moves to a deeper longing if we acknowledge it. Eventually we feel God’s longing for us as an invitation to a sacred dance. If we accept God’s lead, we dance as One, in union with the one we adore.
What, then, are these ways in which we may grow to anther level of understanding of the path that leads to that sacred dance?
Let’s start with a key concept that we need to understand before the rest will make sense. That concept is that God dwells within us as well as outside of us. The place in which God dwells is called our soul, holy place, grounded center, solar plexus, or as people in the Eastern Orthodox Church call it, our hesychia. It is that place in which we house many holy desires, among them a desire to create, a desire for intimacy and a desire for spirituality, a deep connection with the Holy. In fact, when we open ourselves up to a deeper relationship with God often some of these other desires (creativity, intimacy, spiritual longing) come into bloom as well. It’s as if they are all housed together and when one gets some attention the others are aroused as well. At our core, we have a rich mix of desires for the Holy.
An old mystic described this place within by yet another image when he said, “God puts within us a spark of the Divine. How close are you willing to come to the Fire?” That is the key question, in my experience. How much do I trust God to love me, care for me, desire me, invite me to Union with Godself? And how can we approach the divine fire if we fear the heat, if we don’t trust God, or if we feel totally worthless? How can we even witness this Holy fire without being burned or deeper yet, how can we let our egos die, and let ourselves be consumed by the Fire, so to speak?
Soul Work: the way we approach the divine fire within
Let me describe three ways we can approach the Fire, and then conclude with a special story about Dorothy, a young girl who dances with flame. The term I use to describe this process of deliberately coming close to the Fire within is Soul Work.
Soul work transforms the three desires represented by wine, women and song into an inward relationship with the Holy that is no longer ruled by addictions, lust, or craziness.
Soul work as an approach to the divine fire is not dependent on other people but more dependent on the Holy and the inner connections that God creates in our hesychia, our center where God dwells. Soul work transforms us through the distilled strength of God’s love and desire for us, and the sacred egoless place that develops in us as a result.
And the fruits of these experiences are outward, for the good will of the world. The fruits of this inner work are always more love for and good will in the world. No matter what our work or our social position, we are called to be God’s representatives on earth, vulnerable, trusting, repentant, forgiving, loving, healing, humorous.
The three ways I suggest we approach the Fire are creativity, desire for intimacy and spiritual longing. The final image is a delightful scene of Dorothy dancing.
These three, creativity, intimacy and spiritual longing parallel the three ways in which we began our search; wine women and song (or drugs, sex and rock and roll). Each of these three morphs into its sacred counterpart, and then accepts the divine invitation and collaboration with God. I will explain each set of changes in order. This sacred journey is a gift from God. Our role is to acknowledge that gift and to make wise and sacred choices, to be intentional about approaching the Holy, and to find wise and grounded people around us to mentor and guide us.
Wine (drugs) stimulates creativity, then accepts divine inspiration
Wine, or the desire to be transported into another world, is the desire for a touch of the mysterious, a journey beyond ourselves, a “trip” as the drug world calls it. This often shows itself as creativity or personal expression and can take us in a number of directions. So when we find our mode of expression, our voice, we are witnesses to our desire for a connection with this mysterious creative experience. Our desire is to express something with the use of our hands, heads, bodies. Our creation may make use of our inner ideas, thoughts, colors, wood grain, crops, fabrics, machines, type, knitting needles etc. We accept ourselves as artists in our chosen voice, whatever it may be. Artists of all types speak of this mysterious desire to express themselves via inspiration, muses, or unexpected connections. Creativity is a gift and is unique to each individual. Finding ours is like uncovering a treasure in a field.
The deeper movement of accepting divine inspiration, molds us into Union with God. We hear the Holy, our Source, asking to be the divine inspiration behind all our work, longing to be our main collaborator. We become part of the eternal flow of the Holy presence on earth when we say yes to God’s request to be our muse. We are bringing God’s love and spirit to the world. It does not mean that we necessarily create sacred art but that the work we create has sacredness about it, no matter what the content. People can feel it when they view or hear or touch what we have created. It has a healing or deepening affect on them. Creativity in this form, is a way of releasing our wills and being embraced by the Holy Fire within.
Women (men-sex) stimulate a desire for intimacy, then accepts the Divine invitation to Sensuous Beauty
Our love of bodies and body connections is an overlooked desire for intimacy with ourselves and with others. When we misunderstand this we can have many sexual connections without meeting our needs for companionship and understanding. Intimacy comes in many forms, including sexuality, conversation, collaborations, support groups, therapy, even physical touch in massage or body work or sports. People in the military experience intimacy through shared experience, especially in dangerous situations. So we know we all need strong connections.
Once we acknowledge that need for connection and seek a wide range of intimate experiences, our bodies believe that we can be trusted and invite us into a deeper relationship with our body-self and with God. Our bodies desire an intimate relationship with our soul, our hesychia. Our bodies send us messages from God through dreams, symptoms, sleeplessness, visions, tears, coincidences, visits from heavenly beings, cravings. If we listen and embrace these messages as God-given, we grow to a new level of intimacy in the world.
The divine invitation to a deeper level of connection is this: to know sensuousness and beauty as God’s longing for sacred contact with us in our bodies and our earthly experiences. Sensuousness is a way to honor the beauty of our bodies and to show our self-love, as a gift from God, no matter what we look like or how much we weigh. We can claim our life stance, our own scent, our texture, our sound, our unique look, because it is God who is present to the world through us. God’s desire for intimacy with us unites our two souls. It is a high form of discernment. It is thirst without gulp. It is touch without lust. It is beauty without vanity.
At last, a deeper experience of God’s beauty also becomes clear. We see God’s beauty in all of life, even in the storm, the dark, the grief of life. Beauty is what God leads us to as we journey into this union. There is beauty in the flaw, beauty in illness, beauty in surrender, beauty in Godself.
Song (Rock and Roll) stimulates spiritual longing, then accepts the invitation to intimate prayer: God praying us in the world
The human journey is filled with spiritual longing. We see it in the way we reach out for meaning; music, pilgrimages, books, gurus, getting lost in adventure and danger. In music, especially pop music, it seems the spiritual longings of our souls desire connect with the mystery of the beat, the lyric, the performer, or the song writer. In sacred choral music the longing is for expressing the inexpressible through our voices and especially our hearts. We long for elevation to another plane of life. We look for ways to get lost. We look for ways to get found. Spirituality: the longing for deeper meaning.
Then the most amazing thing happens. We’ve looked all over for God and finally we stop and realize that it was not about us looking for God at all. It was about us stopping and letting God find us. And once that happens all we desire is more contact with the Source, more desire for losing ourselves in God, even the desire for death (not suicide) in order to be reunited. The deepest way to be reunited is prayer in my experience. Not rote prayers or memorized prayers, although those are useful as mantras, but individual prayer as an intimate relationship with the eternal. The way God finds us is primarily through our willingness to stop, to listen and to hear God’s still small voice when we pray.
The ultimate journey is this: over time God’s desire for us becomes a life style infused with prayer that leads to gratitude for all of life. God is infused into each and every transaction and relationship, each gain and loss. God everywhere. God in everything. Once this happens we start to see that God has invited us to be so close, so intimate that we are no longer praying to God. God is now, in fact, praying through us. We become God’s prayer form in the world. God uses us as a conduit to Godself.
Dorothy Dancing: Flesh has Danced with Flame
As we experience these forms of soul work, we come at last to the image I described of Dorothy dancing. In a poem by Louis Untermeyer, Dorothy, a young girl, dances with flame. She embraces the flame, unafraid, and lets it be her dance partner. Miraculously, Dorothy and the flame become one. The Soul unites with Flame. In the dance of intimacy with God we become One.
In the words of Untermeyer, “Then, as the surge of radiance grows stronger/ These two are two no longer/And they merge/Into a disembodied ecstasy/…What mystery/Has been at work until it blent/One child and that fierce element?/ It is enough that flesh has danced with flame.”
This whole journey, the change from wine women and song ultimately into divine inspiration, sensuous beauty, and God praying us into the world, happens for one reason and one reason only. The powerful force behind it all is God’s unconditional love and longing for us. The love and longing of God are what draw our souls to Godself and reunite us with our creator in a final burst of divine flame.
I will end with the best way I know of describing this breathtaking love of God that we come to know intimately in the process of soul work. I offer the words to one of my favorite hymns that uses a writer’s images to describe this love that we can only point to but not adequately describe with words.
Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And everyone a scribe by trade
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky
Ó Janet O. Hagberg, 2014. All rights reserved.
Excerpt of“Dorothy Dancing” by Louis Untermeyer, from The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems, compiled by Jackie Morris. The hymn, “The Love of God,” is so old that it does not appear in most hymn books. It was written by Frederick M. Lehman in 1917 and arranged by his daughter, Claudia L. Mays. The song is based on a Jewish poem written in 1050 by a cantor in Worms, Germany. The words from the stanza I cited were first seen penciled on the wall of a patient’s room in an insane asylum after he died, and were assumed written in a moment of sanity.
(The following chart didn’t transfer well or accurately so if you want the information on it, email me and I will get it to you. janethagberg@comcast.net
Summary Chart: The Journey to Union with God
Downward Spiral Most Human Desires Upward Longing Union
Addiction Wine; Drugs Creativity Divine
Inspiration
Lust Women (men); Sex Desire for Sensuous
Intimacy Beauty
Madness Song; Rock and Roll Spiritual God
Longing Praying us
(Meaning)
ÓJanet O. Hagberg, 2014. All rights reserved.
Reflections on this essay
How have you experienced creativity, desire for intimacy or spiritual longing as a healthy practice in your life?
What mysterious and/or sacred experience have you had that touched you deeply?
What is the call to you that emerges from reading about this deeper journey?
What gives you hope that your journey represents God’s longing for you?
All Loss is Gain
Last week God dropped a little nugget into my lap. God said, “All loss is gain.” This is hard to wrap my mind around since the usual arguments ensue: what about babies who die? What about the holocaust?
While reflecting on this some particularly challenging scripture came to mind as well; verses about losing your life in order to gain it or giving up important things in order to experience something else or seeing good things coming out of seemingly bad things. These all trouble me and make me wonder whether I would ever be able to live like this—or even want to live like this. Who, in their right mind, would deliberately give up all they have or love with no guarantees for the future?
Here are some of the verses or quotes that cause me the most consternation.
*Anyone who holds onto life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal. John 12:25 Message
*All is gift. Teresa of Avila, 16th century abbess, mystic and saint
*Think of your sufferings as a weaning from that old sinful habit of always expecting to get your own way. Then you’ll be able to live out your days free to pursue what God wants instead of being tyrannized by what you want. I Peter 4;1-2 Message
*Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and the sake of the gospel will save it. Mark 8:35 NRSV
But then, after pondering these challenging verses, I decided to see this new little nugget as God’s way of inviting me to more intimacy and to a deeper truth growing within me. I like this shift but I still can’t quite fathom what it means for me to lose my life or to be reckless in my love for God or to embrace loss lovingly. How do I even taste of this radical call to loss as gain? I cautiously asked God to show me little glimpses of it in my own life. What a dangerous prayer. Use only with caution!
God gently pointed out a few places in which I am getting a small taste of what it means to count loss as gain, to be “reckless” for what I need instead of what I want.
One place I’ve experienced this is cleaning out all the hidden clutter in my condo. I’m sure readers can relate to thisJ It seems deceptively simple until you try it. I now have a list of more than fifteen areas of my condo that need shedding but as soon as I move toward any of them I come up with excuses to keep or cling to my things. I mean things like photos by the hundreds, files of old careers, teaching notes that are no longer relevant, clothes I’ve not worn for a year, rag rugs made by a friend, gifts that I don’t have room for any more. It is just plain hard work to deal with all the memories that come up as I sort through things. And I usually bump into the less attractive reasons I cling to things: guilt, loss of identity, ego, even self-pity.
But on my better days when I have more perspective on the bigger picture, and I get into what I call my flinging mode I can release boxes of unnecessary, even sentimental or worn out items and feel cautiously elated, lighter, less burdened. Something within me is decluttering as I toss. It is like a small symbolic act to actually toss or recycle something. Not easy, because it reminds me of moving towards death (which may be the ultimate reason I don’t want to do it) but still strangely liberating.
The harder area of my life that illustrates this “letting go and losing” concept is in relationships. I am a relational person and take the nurturing of my close relationships seriously. So when a particularly close relationship ended in a surprising and deeply unsettling way this year, I felt a deep loss. In order to be fully present to this break I called upon God to be fully present and God responded by providing me with clarity, vulnerability and honesty within the hurt, anger and sadness. The parting was emotionally and spiritually excruciating. The loss was great. The grief was intense.
It’s difficult for me to see clearly the bigger picture for both of us but I do catch small glimpses of the larger story this break is a part of. And I do trust God to show me some day what the ultimate gain will be from this loss, as hard as it has been to endure.
What I am experiencing is a deeper internal cleaning so that I am available with more energy and presence for something else, perhaps more of the holy to fill the empty space. I feel God gently calling me to more creativity, both in my writing and with my icons. I feel like I have more compassion for myself and for others who lose people they care about.
I also feel as if the process of navigating the loss brought me to a new place within myself, a place of deeper honesty, relative calm, new self-regard and an understanding of the other person—ultimately the capacity, for the first time, to stay present to the searing but cleansing power of pain. None of this would have happened without God’s help. I would have just withdrawn or found a way to blame myself or the other person.
I feel like I’ve found a new part of myself through this loss. I believe I am learning to be a healer, a compassionate truth teller. While I am still very sad, I feel the sadness is creating a cleaner heart in me. I’m reminded of David’s words in Psalm 51, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. (v 10). Another verse from that same chapter resonates in me as well, “Behold you desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. “(v 6).
Oh, to have that wisdom that only God can give… Maybe there is gain in this loss after all. And it occurs to me that maybe my two glimpses of “loss as gain,” of cleaning out my condo and cleaning out my heart are more related than I realized.
ÓJanet O. Hagberg, 2014. All rights reserved.
Reflections on this essay
What comes to mind when you hear the words, “all loss is gain”?
Which of the verses listed trouble you or draw you the most?
How have you experienced loss that resulted in some gain; freedom or new life for you?
How do you embrace God in the difficult or unfathomable realities of your life?
What have you learned about yourself or about God that enables you to trust God in the process of life?
GOD OUR HEALER
Yes, God heals. But what does that mean? And why is it important? As I’ve meditated on this I’m increasingly impressed with how vital God’s healing is, yes for our bodies but just as importantly for our spiritual well-being. Healing is about release from pain and limitations. It’s about return to full function. It’s about restoration to wholeness. To health. To well-being. As Healer, God seeks to bring us back into unobstructed union with the Divine.
GOD WANTS TO HEAL US
It’s important to know that God wants to heal. Longs for us to be whole. Heals so that we can be restored to true and full fellowship with God. The following scripture verses underscore God’s persistent, unrelenting desire to have us be whole and in relationship with him/her. God is proactive as Healer.
“I am the Lord who heals you.” (Jehovah-Ropheka = the Lord your Healer). Exodus 15:26 “See now that I, even I, am he; there is no god besides me……..I heal….” Deuteronomy 32:39 “…they did not know that I healed them.” Hosea 11:3 “I will seek the lost and bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak…” Ezekiel 34:16a “I have seen their (willful) ways, but I will heal them; I will lead them and repay them with comfort…” Isaiah 57:18 “(God) binds up; …. his hands heal.” Job 5:18 “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.” Matthew 8:17 “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 “He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3 “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.” Matthew 4:23 “Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. Mark 1:41-42
FAITH UNDERGIRDS HEALING
Next, it’s good to remember that faith accompanies healing. We need to reach out. To ask. To receive. We need to believe and accept God at work in our lives. To be complete, God’s work as Healer requires belief and acceptance on our part. True, some healing seems to occur without the recipient actually asking. Who, but God, knows the readiness of that person’s heart? As a gift offered is not complete until the intended receiver accepts it, so God’s gift of healing is not complete until we believe and make it our own. The following verses illustrate several stories of seeking healing, believing and being healed.
“O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.” Psalm 30:2 “Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue (whose daughter was ‘dead’), “Do not fear, only believe.” Mark 5:36 “Then (Jesus) said to him (the tenth leper), ‘Get up and go on your way, your faith has made you well.’ “ Luke 17:19 “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14 “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.” James 5:16 “Wherever (Jesus) went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.” Mark 6:56 “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved…” Jeremiah 17:14 “Jesus said…‘Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well.’ And instantly the woman was made well.” Matthew 9:22 “Come, let us return to the Lord; for…he will heal us;….he will bind us up.” Hosea 6:1 “Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Mark 5:34
GOD’S HEALING RESTORES WHOLENESS
Finally, the result of healing is to be made whole. To be set free. To know the joy and peace of physical and spiritual renewal and well-being. To have union with God and fellowship fully restored. Surely our response after this should be thanksgiving and praise to God our Healer. Consider the following stories.
“I will bring health and healing…I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security.” Jeremiah 33:6 NIV “Jesus….said…’Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’ ” Mark 2:17 “…God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power;…he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.” Acts 10:38 “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases…..he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” Isaiah 53:4a, 5 “I will heal their disloyalty; I will love them freely….” Hosea 14:4 “For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, says the Lord.” Jeremiah 30:17a
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits – who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases…” Psalm 103:2,3 “So (Naaman) went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan…his flesh was restored…and he was clean….Then he said, ‘Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel; please accept a present…your servant will no longer offer burnt offering or sacrifice to any god except the Lord.’” 2 Kings 5:14-17 “…ten lepers…were made clean….one turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him…Jesus asked, ‘…the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ “Luke 17:14-19 “When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, ‘Woman, you are set free from your ailment.’ When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.” Luke 13:12,13
…Have you prayed for healing and thought your prayer was not answered? What might be going on that makes it feel that way?
…How do you know when God has healed you? What has your experience been?
…After healing, in what ways do you integrate thanksgiving and praise into your life?
We thank and praise you, Healer God, for pursuing us so that we might know healing, wholeness and full intimacy with you.
Hi, I’m Bobbie and am what some would call seasoned. Now in my early eighties I look back on a life full of experiences through which God has shaped and refined me – still a work-in-progress – and for which I’m so very grateful. My first husband and I raised three daughters and both of us worked full time. Following his death from leukemia, God gave me another good man to partner with. Our combined families now delight us with 17 grandchildren. Our church’s prayer ministry is my passion. I also enjoy reading, journaling, long walks, jig-saw puzzles and knitting prayer shawls. I’ve known Janet and treasured her friendship for close to 35 years and am honored to share on her blog.
c Barbara Spradley, 2015, All Rights Reserved