Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Poverty in Desire
At the root of all of my desires for pleasures -- in food, drink, comfort, etc. -- is a deep desire for God. This, I think, is true for everyone. Our desire to experience the good in something is really desire to experience the perfect, perfectly fulfilling, good.
We just don’t normally experience it this way because we’re caught up in our sensory existence. It is what Dom Augustin Guillerand refers to as the “darkened transparency” of things. The good things around us should point us to God, but they don’t. We’ve lost (in original sin) our sense of the meaning of created goods:
I think what we want is that piece of candy (or whatever) because it delights my senses. But when I really probe the depth and source of my desire, I find it’s something more transcendent, something deeper that I desire. I would gladly trade the good I think I want for something that would never leave me wanting anything.
So it is ultimately God that I desire more than any thing else, even though I do not normally experience it this way. I desire God above all things. And, I think this is true for every human being.
But now that is the problem. We are to love God above all things, not merely desire God above all things. Desire is just the beginning, and I seem to be stuck there.
I encounter nearly endless desire, and yet I do not love as I should
So how do I go from desire to love? I can’t.
All I can do is beg. I am less than poor. I owe what I do not have and cannot create. All I can do is beg. Beg God to give me love -- to give me Himself, who is Love itself -- so that I may give it back in loving Him and my neighbor. Beg God to transform me from an empty abyss of desire into a loving, living person.
We just don’t normally experience it this way because we’re caught up in our sensory existence. It is what Dom Augustin Guillerand refers to as the “darkened transparency” of things. The good things around us should point us to God, but they don’t. We’ve lost (in original sin) our sense of the meaning of created goods:
Instead of pointing to the Creator and leading us to him, things show only themselves, with the result that we stop at them. The devil, to whom we stupidly gave them when we gave him ourselves, speaks to us through their many voices; his shadow darkens their transparence. Beyond their attractive forms we no longer seek the beauty they reflect, but merely the pleasure and satisfaction they are able to offer us.
- Dom Augustin Guillerand O.Cart.
I think what we want is that piece of candy (or whatever) because it delights my senses. But when I really probe the depth and source of my desire, I find it’s something more transcendent, something deeper that I desire. I would gladly trade the good I think I want for something that would never leave me wanting anything.
So it is ultimately God that I desire more than any thing else, even though I do not normally experience it this way. I desire God above all things. And, I think this is true for every human being.
But now that is the problem. We are to love God above all things, not merely desire God above all things. Desire is just the beginning, and I seem to be stuck there.
I encounter nearly endless desire, and yet I do not love as I should
So how do I go from desire to love? I can’t.
All I can do is beg. I am less than poor. I owe what I do not have and cannot create. All I can do is beg. Beg God to give me love -- to give me Himself, who is Love itself -- so that I may give it back in loving Him and my neighbor. Beg God to transform me from an empty abyss of desire into a loving, living person.
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