Tag Archives: desire

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

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Quis ascendet in montem Domini / aut quis stabit in loco sancto suo? Innocens manibus et mundo corde / qui non levavit ad vana animam suam, nec iuravit in dolum. Ps 23 [24]: 3-4

Notam fac mihi viam, in qua ambulam/ quia ad te levavi animam meam. Ps 142 [143]: 8

The translation of ‘levavit ad vana animam suam’ I usually read renders it, ‘desires not worthless things’. So I have always thought of this quality—of the one who does not desire them—as a kind of non-distraction by useless stuff: trinkets, frippery, junk. But Psalm 142 puts it in a different light. ‘Ad te [Domini] levavi animam meam’: ‘to you [Lord] I lift up my soul’. If the soul is meant (as of course it is) to be ‘lifted up’ to God, then ‘levavit ad vana animam suam’—[having] lifted up the soul to worthless things—is nothing short of idolatry. It is not simply distraction by shiny trinkets but displacing the proper object of the soul’s desire: God. Then these are not just any worthless things. Whether or not the things mentioned are idols crafted of wood or stone, once the soul has been lifted up to them, they become idols. For that is what idolatry is: putting something else in the place of God. Compared to God, anything we desire is vain, useless. That is, nothing we desire will satisfy our soul. So the psalmist longs for God like a person in a desert yearns for water. Only God can quench that thirst. So the psalmist calls on God when his heart is numb within him. Only God saves all those who are crushed in spirit. To expect things—any things—to heal a broken heart or satisfy a thirsty soul is to try to fill a cracked jar with water: vain.

Idolatry is not a sin because God gets angry at being replaced, as if we are thereby depriving God of some necessary accolades. Idolatry is a sin because it stops us calling on God in the day of trouble, which is our only hope of rescue. And it isn’t only things that appear worthless that can be idols, of course. The most pious-seeming sacrifices can become idols if they are not offered up to God with a humble and grateful heart. All the burnt offerings continually before God (in Psalm 49 [50]) are worthless compared to ‘a sacrifice of thanksgiving’. God does not need the things we offer up. God lacks nothing: ‘if I were hungry, I would not tell you’ (Psalm 49[50]. 12). No: what God asks is this: ‘Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me’ (v. 15).

All the practices of abstinence, fasting and almsgiving, prayer and penance, can become idols if we do them out of a desire for anything but God. The lack of food on days of fasting is a tiny taste of the ‘day of trouble’—a self-induced lack to train the soul for the real thing: a hunger we have not chosen and cannot satisfy; an emptiness not of our own making.

How will my soul know what to do in the day of trouble? Practice, practice, practice: ad te levavi animam meam, ad te levavi animam meam. In all the small wants that irk me during Lent, let me lift up my soul to the One who alone can satisfy.

Deo gratias.

Saturday after Ash Wednesday

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I have been very grateful for the comments from Saintly Sages on previous posts. These Lenten reflections are simply a part of my own discipline. Blogging them is a form of accountability;  thanks to Wesley Hill, for sharing a link to thinking coram deo on Ash Wednesday and adding some incentive! 

I first tried something like this in 2009, on paper. Over the past 5 years, I have gradually typed up those daily meditations and shared them with others. I would love to make those available in published form, perhaps for next Lent. All the feedback and comments on the meditations on my blog will be of immense help as I revise that manuscript. So thanks, for reading and for commenting. Today’s post is at thinking coram deo as usual. 

 

What my three-year-old taught me about the body’s grace

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You know that essay, the famous one by Rowan Williams, 'The Body's Grace.' He wrote it in 1989 and it was first delivered as the 10th Michael Harding memorial address. Then it appeared as a pamphlet, and was reproduced in volumes of essays edited by Charles Hefling and Eugene Rogers. I distinctly remember where I was the first time I read it: in my carrel in the basement of the theology library at Duke. “…that God desires us as God desires God…” Really?
 
At the time, I could not conceive of it. Of course it was appealing, mind-boggling, and changed the way I thought about sex and sexual relationships. When I married Lewis three years later, the light had begun to dawn. Although I had written off the idea of falling in love, and having that be a real thing, not just infatuation, or something that happens in movies (they say 'happily ever after,' but you don't get to see what that looks like), I had to admit that there might be something to it. (I said as much at our wedding reception.)
 
But I still had no idea, really, about this grace. Still, and I think this is the case in Rowan's amazing essay, it was about the sexual meaning of the body. The enjoyment and desire remained in a sexual register. Yet what I learned as I had children was that there is something else–not to say more–that is graced, and grace-filled, about the body. I remember saying to a friend when my first-born was still very small that it was very sensual but not at all sexual.
 
This is hardly surprising, and is probably the testimony of mothers from the beginning of time. I love having children, and I am especially fond of babies. When my son, who is now seven, was three, though, I learned a more significant lesson. One morning I was dressing, and he came into the bedroom. His eyes lit up when he saw me. Now I wasn't keen on what I looked like without too many clothes on, but he was obviously delighted with me. To be close and to touch my skin was a great pleasure for him. It was as if he appreciated the skin, the body, of this person whose body had borne him and fed him (until he was two-and-a-half!), not because of its objective beauty or potential for giving “joy”, as Williams says. No, the skin and the body were desirable because they were mine.
 
I had always had trouble with “God desiring us” because the context in which it was set was so sexual. Sure, sex is good, but it isn't everything. Something about the way my son responded to me (and not just on that one occasion, but for many months) broadened my understanding of the body's grace. Desire comes in lots of forms, and intimacy has many dimensions. I always knew that, sort of, but it has become much more real for me as I have been a mother. My son has a little sister, who, at two-and-a-half, is very much the same way–she likes to curl up next to me on the sofa (or anywhere, really) with her head resting on my bare stomach. If she's in the room with me when I am dressing, it always takes longer. There is a deep mutual affection and intimacy that characterises my relationship with my children, and it is not remotely sexual but equally profound. And I find it much more powerful, actually, to think that God desires us, fragile and fallen human beings, as I desire my children, and–even more–as my children desire me. Their pleasure and uncritical joy in my body has taught me more about the body's grace than anything else I have ever encountered.
 
I was reminded of all this by a video I saw–what our kids see when they see us. As a mother, I felt the same way as those interviewed: I wish I were more patient, attentive and calm. But what the kids said (really, the video is worth watching) brought back to me this truth about the body's grace. And it put into words what my children have said with their gestures and expressions and touch.
 
Is that the way it is with God? Is that what mercy means? Is it my children's uncritical joy that erupts in heaven over the repentant sinner?
 
I sure hope so.