Yearning, we all do it—whether for a new bicycle, for the phone to ring, for the healing of a break-up, or for restoration to health.  Woven into this feeling is a pseudo hope, even perhaps a flight into fantasy or theft. How well I remember stealing the faux-gray suede wallet at a downtown store, related in an earlier blog.

But there’s a spiritual kind of yearning that empties the heart of the inessential, that demands reigning wayward instincts, that activates patience and discernment, and that reorients the psyche toward experiences of critical new learning.

Such leaves stretchmarks upon the psyche, hankers for the unknown that alone will satisfy, and thirsts for the unquenchable.

Old Testament texts abound with examples. Whenever yearning’s grip is too much, the waiting, too ambivalent, I turn to the psalms or the Book of Job for help: The Ancients had experienced this pull, as well, and recorded their experience.

Then you will call, and I will answer you, you will yearn for me the work of your hands, says Job to Yahweh (14:15). Such references His Unconditional love for us, and for those preparing for the physical death of their bodies, an extreme consolation. 

In these Heart-whispering blogs, I’ve given way to the many faces of yearning, only to have waited out another lull with its subtle diminishment. And more purification and spiritual growth are still to come.