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Part of the empirical evidence for something corresponding to “God” at the core of all spiritual questing is simply the pervasive, universal longing for “God.” Regardless of how we dress up this longing, according to religious culture, caste, and custom, we cannot get away from the longing. Indeed, if anything, one of the oddest belief systems is atheism, which claims to be empirical, while denying the ample evidence for a Higher Being, however we choose to define this Ground of Everything. But, not less odd, possibly, is the secularism that will speak of God, even turn Spirit into a nationalistic icon (“In God We Trust”), while denying itself the quenching of spiritual thirst, as it hugs the surfaces of the faith, refusing to lose itself in the depths of Spirit. And, my friends, the thirst will never be quenched and our heart will never overflow with Living Water, unless we delve into the depths of this Ocean of Spirit.
Indeed, the persona of a faith is meant to awaken us to the thirst that only can be met with an immediate, mystical experience of Mystery. At some point, we have to quit holding hands and start making Love, so to speak. Otherwise, our hearts will only aspire to an unfulfilled experience of full Embrace, and the holding of hands will become more unsatisfying the longer we deny the call of our Heart to enter into God and be entered into by God, becoming One, in Love.
Fortunate are we to have the witness of great Lovers of God. These come to us from every living faith. These sages, saints, and contemplatives leave us words, inviting us to the Embrace of Divinely Erotic Love:
Hafiz, 14th Century Sufi, from Shiraz, Iran, invites us all …
Let’s toast
Every rung we’ve climbed on Evolution’s ladder.
Whisper, “I love you! I love you!”
To the whole mad world.
Let’s stop reading about God—
We will never understand Him.
Jump to your feet, wave your fists,
Threaten and warn the whole Universe.
That your heart can no longer live
Without real love!
(I Heard God Laughing, Trans. Daniel Landinsky)
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 11th-12th Centuries, Iran, drunk on God, writes:
At dawn came a calling from the tavern
Hark drunken mad man of the cavern
Arise; let us fill with wine one more turn
Before destiny fills our cup, our urn.
(Trans., Shahriar Shahriari, www.okayonelife.com)
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Khayyam assures us, we can, now, enjoy the heavenly romance that fulfills our longing, again and again, and refers to what Jesus means by Abundant Life (John 10.10):
Heaven is incomplete without a heavenly romance
Let a glass of wine be my present circumstance
And one of the most poignant statements of this Divine Romance is from St. Augustine:
Too late did I love Thee, O Fairness, so ancient, and yet so new! Too late did I love Thee[!] For behold, Thou wert within, and I without, and there did I seek Thee; I, unlovely, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty: Thou madest. Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee. Those things kept me far from Thee, which, unless they were in Thee, were not. Thou calledst, and criedst aloud, and forcedst open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and chase away my blindness. Thou didst exhale odours, and I drew in my breath and do pant after Thee. I tasted, and do hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace.
(The Confessions of St. Augustine, Book 10, section 27, Trans. Robert C. Outler)
Dehydration creeps up on a person. Dehydration does not scream, alerting us to its onset. I know this by experience, for I, during a first extended, total fast, did not drink or eat for three days. Only at the end of the three days did I begin sensing dehydration: “No, do not try such a total fast! Nor will I, ever again. With dehydration, we hear no clarion call: “You are mostly water, and you are losing most of it!” The signals are subtle. We may feel tired or uneasy. We may not identify these as symptoms of a thirsty body, even while we continue gulping down a hot cup of coffee or cold beer, or running to get another cookie or sandwich, thinking we are really hungry, not thirsty. Then, if we have the coffee or beer, we lose more water. And, while we may get away with this for a long time, ultimately, we may pay. As in, one recent medical caution is the possibility that not drinking enough water can lead, in the long run, to heart complications. See, the entire body relies on being well watered, while much of what we consume, which we think is tastier than water, detracts water from the body, rather than replenishing.
Professor of Religion, Augsburg College, Bradley P. Holt, begins his book on Christianity spirituality with the image of thirst. Indeed, his book is titled Thirsty for God: A Brief History of Christian Spirituality. Holt recognizes that one of our challenges is that we often find it difficult to act on what we do know. This is one reason any religious person can grasp the teaching of the faith and, still, find herself seeming to fail to live up to the principles of the faith.
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