Longing

Traditionally we are taught, and instinctively we long, to give where it is needed - and immediately.  Eternally; woman spills herself away in driblets to the thirsty, seldom being allowed the time, the quiet, the peace, to let the pitcher fill up to the brim

For too long, we have believed that the divine is outside us.  This belief has strained our longing disastrously.  This is so lonely since it is human longing that makes us holy.  The most beautiful thing about us is our longing;  this longing is spiritual and has great depth and wisdom.  If you focus your longing on a faraway divinity, you put an unfair strain on your longing.  Thus it often happens that the longing reaches out towards the distant divine, but, because it over-strains itself, it bends back to become cynicism, emptiness or negativity.  This can destroy your sensibility.  Yet we do not need to put any strain on our longing.  If we believe that the body is in the soul and the soul is divine ground, then the presence of the divine is completely here, close with us.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

Yearning: It needs to hurt in order to be worthy of the word. Otherwise it is just wanting.

The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God's love; but if the soul cannot yet feel the longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God.

I did not know I was on a search for passionate aliveness.  I only knew I was lonely and lost and that something was drawing me deeper beneath the surface of my life in search of meaning.  There is a hunger in people to go to those deep depths; to know that our lives are sacred; that our hearts are truly capable of love.  It is a yearning to be all the we can be.  A longing for what is real. 

There is a void in your soul,
      ready to be filled.
You feel it, don't you?
You feel the separation
      from the Beloved.
Invite Him to fill you up,
      embrace the fire.

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

I think everybody longs to be loved and longs to know that he or she is lovable and, consequently, the greatest thing that we can do is to help somebody know that they are loved and capable of loving.