A quick note from Susan Cain’s book, Bittersweet.
The book is largely a presentation of the positive nature of longing.
Chapter 2 of the book is called, “Why do We Long for ‘Perfect’ and Unconditional Love? (And What Does This Have to Do With Our Love of Sad Songs, Rainy Days and Even the Divine?).”
In the chapter, Cain quotes Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee at some length. Sufism is often described as a the mystical branch of Islam. Every major religion, including Christianity, has a mystical expression. Cain’s interest is to show how longing can be a gift, how longing itself, not simply the fulfillment of desire, shows us, at times, what it means to be human.
When I read the chapter, I felt the hopeful nature of what we often consider to be empty or painful. It is easy to know, even in relative comfort and security, an ever-present sense of something missing or lost. Unhealthy views of longing bring a good deal of emotional and mental anguish.
LVL, as Cain refers to Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, is quoted as saying that we long for the Beloved (God) and the Beloved longs for us. In my Christian faith, this moves me towards gratitude for the incarnation, God turning towards us in Jesus.
A quote from the chapter:
“If we follow the path of any pain, any psychological wounding, it will lead us to this one primal pain, the pain of separation. If we embrace the suffering, if we allow it to lead us deep within ourselves it will take us deeper than any psychological healing.”
LVL often quotes Rumi, the Sufi poet. Rumi’s grief is said to have inspired his poetry in which he said, “Longing is the core of the mystery. Longing itself brings the cure.”
Cain quotes a Rumi poem called “Love Dogs” in which a man who has been praying feels a sense of void, of prayer being a waste of time. In a dream, he then meets “the guide of souls” who asks the man why he stopped praying. The man says that he feels no reply. The guide of souls says to the man, “This longing you express is the return message. The grief you cry out from draws you toward union. Your pure sadness that wants help is the secret cup.”
Some might think that Sufi mysticism like this is “new age” thinking, but longing for peace, for the divine, for home, is a key part of Jewish and Christian faith as well. In evangelicalism there is often a suspicion of truth from any “non-Christian” source. This is a demonstration not of spiritual growth or progress, but of spiritual immaturity and fear.
Here is the beginning of the 63rd Psalm, “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.”
Cain, building from LVL and others, points out that in our current culture, longing is often directed to our closest relationships, as if a spouse or a good friend could fulfill all of our longings. This is, of course, an impossibility, one that hinders rather than cultivates healthy relationship. Here Cain quotes LVL again:
“Those who search for intimacy with others are reacting to this longing. They think another human will fulfill them, but how many of us have actually ever been totally fulfilled by another person, maybe for awhile, but not forever. We want something more fulfilling, more intimate. We want God.”
In my decades of work as a pastor, I have seen the blessing and burden of longing. I have seen relationships crack and break due to impossible expectations. I have seen people place their longings onto a church or onto a church leader, seemingly expecting those longings to be entirely addressed and becoming impatient or upset if they are not. It takes some spiritual maturity to help people live with longing rather than to speak as if a church or a person or a belief system can ever be entirely fulfilling.
It turns out that there is hope in longing.