the heart's desire

I went into the church tonight.

Vespers had been over for some time and the church was empty and dark except for a faint yellow flicker of a candle on the altar, and some patches of varying blue light on the east side of the arched ceiling, a streetlight refracting through the stained glass windows.
I brought in a candle and lit a few of the others over the icon of the Ascension, and the icons of Christ and Mary.

I sat for a long time in the semi darkness, in the silence with just the whirring of the fans overhead.

It is hard to remember the last time I felt this safe to enjoy darkness and silence in such a large space, a space that is usually public. I gradually became bold enough to speak my prayers into the spacious darkness. The sound of keys in car doors outside and distant laughter from restaurant goers in the street added to the feeling of sanctuary within, beneath the arched roof.

I was sitting on a pew at the back of the large open space we have between the altar and the pews. The emptiness of the sanctuary, and the darkness made it feel as though I were really quite near the icons before which I had lit candles, and the dark stretch in between felt more like a link, like connective tissue, than a distance or a separation. In the centre of the icon of Christ, instead of His face, I could see only the glow reflected from the candle I had lit.


I have long avoided this sort of solitude with my thoughts, with the true prayers of my heart.

It seems that this solitude is necessary to discover the true prayers of my heart, and to be able to pray them.

"Cast your burdens upon the Lord," Father John said today during confession.

I'm funny. I don't want to "burden" or "bother" God with all my petty woes and complaints. Instead I grumble to everyone else about my troubles and frustrations.
I've had it all backwards!

"Grant me compassion for another's troubles
and courage for my own!"


I discovered something. It is possible to feel a deep sorrow and longing, not out of shame, not out of distress. It is possible to weep with longing for Jesus Christ. Because of missing Him. Because it has been such a long time since I've "seen" Him. The business and burdens of life, my petty preoccupation with inner and outer troubles, have kept me from tasting and seeing that the Lord is good. Have kept me from the sweet and painful knowledge of His nearness and His farness. Oh, how we need Him to change us! How we need Him to heal us! How I want to be able to touch the hem of his garment; how I want to weep on his feet!

I refrain from love, because it hurts. When I allow myself to feel all the love I am capable of for Matthew, it comes together with the knowledge that I do not know for how long I have him near me. It comes together with the knowledge of all the sinful brokenness that still keeps us from loving and encountering each other fully and purely and being revealed to one another completely. The closer we come to one another, the more keenly I am aware of what still holds us back.

The early church must have been so aware of this hurt, this sweet pain, this paradox of Christ's presence and absence, of longing for His return, and the consolation of His presence through the Holy Spirit, in the breaking of the bread, in their fellowship in His name.

Is it out of this that they prayed, "Come, Lord Jesus!"?

Somehow this time of waiting is special, His absent presence with us even better, He said, because we have the Holy Spirit. How? Is it because, in our longing, we are stretched to grow toward Him, like daisies straining their little green stems so taut towards the far sky? Is it because, in suffering we are purified?

How will I grow, how will I be purified, when I do so much to avoid this good suffering, and the feeling of lack? I numb myself with little activities to fill up my potential solitude--puzzles and games on our laptop, complaining and self-pity, inane conversations with unsuspecting people over whatever jumps into my head to ramble about.

I went into the house of prayer and I could take none of this with me. Nothing but myself, my thoughts, and the bodily sensations and impulses that come, for me, when my heart's radar is casting about for the right frequency for prayer.

A sudden desire to be weightless, to be lifted from the ground.

"Lift me up!"

"Lift me up!"

A desire to curl up on the floor at the foot of the icon and stay there, and sleep.

A thirst.

Homesickness for something, I can never quite put my finger on.

Come, Lord Jesus!