“As Christians, we believe that we bear the image and likeness of God inside of us and that this is our deepest reality … God is fire—wild, infinite, ineffable, non-containable. If that same fire is inside us, and it is, then there are divine appetites inside of us too, appetites that are not ever satiable in this life. There’s a divine restlessness written right in our DNA.”
—Father Ronald Rolheiser
There is within each of us an unquenchable fire. We feel it as an inner hunger, a disquiet, a loneliness that we cannot escape.
This is how Father Ronald Rolheiser in his book The Holy Longing speaks of what he terms “the congenital all-embracing ache that lies at the center of human experience and is the ultimate force that drives everything else.” What we do with that fire, how we channel it, he says, is our spirituality.
He writes: “What we do with our longings, both in terms of handling the pain and the hope they bring us, that is our spirituality.”
This fire, this eros—the energy that drives us—he describes as the “principle of integration and individuation within us.” How we channel this will either lead to greater integration or disintegration within our bodies, minds and souls.
Our spirituality is clearly personal, our own love affair with the God within, a God whose presence is described by Thomas Merton as a “pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven.” And, though we may deeply cherish our times of contemplative silence, as did Merton, the quiet whisper from the God within may be urging us to follow the passion of our hearts and lead us to unexpected places.
For many of us, spirituality is deeply connected to ecology, so that our every act of care for Earth and creation is a spiritual act. When we make our morning coffee, the simple act of what we do with the grounds can be spiritual. Composting our coffee grounds every morning helps the soul, the worms, the grass, the blueberry bushes, the lilies.
Walking through nature with care can be a spiritual act. It can give us energy and feelings of renewal deep in our soul, and it can also be a way to use our fire.
Thomas Berry—theologian, ecologist, and author of Dream of the Earth—often referenced a spiritual experience he had as a child while noticing a field of lilies across the creek. The field was full of life, with bees flying, lilies and grasses dancing in the wind, images that stayed with Berry all his days and helped guide his fire in an expression of ecospirituality.
Others respond to different aspects of life in a similar way, finding themselves drawn to social movements, becoming passionately involved in working for human rights; for the rights of minorities; for gender equality; for the alleviation of poverty, homelessness or other social ills. Because of our own life experiences, we might be involved in prison ministry, peacemaking and nuclear disarmament, or any of the many places where large and strong hearts are needed.
Wherever the longing of our spirits may lead us, however we express the fire in our hearts, God always draws us toward a future filled with hope.
Theologian, John Haught, in an article called “Teilhard de Chardin: Theology for an Unfinished Universe” in the book From Teilhard to Omega: Co-creating an Unfinished Universe, writes of how Teilhard found the basis for spiritual renewal in the awareness that “creation has never stopped and so the universe is still coming into being.”
This has great relevance for us. “The point is,” Haught writes, “each of us is part of an immense cosmic drama of transformation, a fact that may give new significance to our lives and works no matter how ineffectual these may sometimes seem.” He says that since we live in a universe that is open to new possibilities, a universe where love and hope are found, what is needed is the “creative vitality” of each of us to move toward this possible better future.
The ache that Rolhleiser speaks of—the ache that lies at the center of the human experience—is what moves us to find purpose for our own lives and to do all we can to create a future of hope for the people yet to come.
—Betty Daugherty, FSPA, Prairiewoods foundress
& Angie Pierce Jennings, Prairiewoods hosted groups & hospitality coordinator
Posted Nov. 20, 2018