Increasing our longing.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee speaks to our masculine vs our feminine side. He notes that in our quests in life, we tend to focus on our masculine side, seeking goal-oriented ends. And, he says, masculine values even dominate our spiritual quest: we seek to be better, to improve our self, to get somewhere. We have forgotten the feminine qualities of waiting, listening, being empty (24). I find these words ring true for me.

Perhaps some of these problems stem from our concept of waiting. For us modern folks, waiting is more of a punishment, an inconvenience, a test. Waiting implies some sort of failure to arrive. Possession is seen as accomplishment. And not "to have" implies emptiness.

Yet, much happens in waiting. We do more self-reflection while waiting than in possession. We are more attentive, more alert, more filled with desire. Waiting also increases our yearning. Vaughan-Lee  says longing awakens us to our own need,a need which we can never satisfy...

To long, to wait. That is what the feminine qualities teach us. That is how we increase longing. And longing is not a bad thing...

Longing that transforms

This blog often speaks of longing and of seeking in our journey. For me, it is the difference between a spirituality of contentment (I say all my prayers and do all my duties, so therefore all is well) and a spirituality of never enough (when I go beyond obligation). But the "never enough" isn't helpful unless we realize where this discontentment comes from: our longing for the Ultimate.

Vaughan-Lee speaks to this in his book Love is a Fire: Just as Love is the Essence of the path, so is longing its agent of transformation. Vaughan-Lee reminds us that though we are born for God, we forget. We lose sight of our Ultimate; we get distracted. And then life gets messy. We get promptings of our loss: dissatisfaction with our job, our career, our present stature in life. Having all, but feeling empty. Wanting more, but not sure what "more" is. And, he says, sometimes people brush it aside; the last thing they want is to be distracted from their outer goals, their achievements, and to be taken into the vulnerability and need that are within them.

I suspect that that last part of his statement, to be taken into the vulnerability and need that are within really speaks to the problem. No one wants to be vulnerable, because to be vulnerable means, in some way, to be weak.

And yet, as in so many other areas, faith changes that. For in faith, to accept my vulnerability is to accept the truth about myself. And to do that, I must have a very strong belief in the power of the Divine One. It is only with the strength of that belief that I can journey into the interior and look honestly at the need within myself. It is only with a strong faith can I accept my mortality. Accepting these things opens the door to transformation.

Paul puts it another way: God chose what is weak in this world to shame the strong (1 Cor. 1:27). Because I discover my real strength when I believe in Someone stronger and more powerful than myself. And then, I can let go of the distractions, and journey inward. I can sit on the broken seat of my humanity and contemplate the Divine. I can enter into my vulnerability and know, I can be transformed.