ON CONNECTION & CONTINUITY
The Greatest Yearning Of Our Souls
AS OUR ELDEST GRANDCHILD is navigating the world, we are drawn into her wonder. A number of months ago she extended her then pudgy little finger to me and simply said: "connection." She was looking for me to reach out and do the same. I learned this corresponded to restoring a kind of relational distance. It struck me as something quite poetic and powerful. Michelangelo's famous painting comes to mind, the one crowning the most consequential place of worship in the world. Our original connection with God. Source of all life and goodness.
CONNECTION is the deepest yearning of our souls. To be truly known, as to know. Not just for a brief moment, or in superficial ways, but in a constant state, in ways truly deep and meaningful. As a way of life. The currency of divine and human life flowing through our souls. The essence of the Trinity, in which each of us are fashioned. And alone in which we will find our fulfillment. Outside of which we will only languish.
CONNECTION is bigger than what we may or may not experience. As important as sensory experience is to God, revealed in His taking on flesh and dignifying all of physical existence, Connection is a deeper, more essential thing. Transcending our senses. Our nature. Even in the darkest night. (“Dark Night of the Soul” by St John of the Cross) As Jesus evidenced in the Garden.
WHAT A TREMENDOUS GIFT it would be to know that God's unsurpassed love for us, His very presence, His deep and profound interest in our lives, His abiding within us, cannot be reduced to our experience. Such sure apprehension beckons our virtuous cultivation.
The fire meant to forge such character, perspective, the way we feel and think, is sensory privation.
IN HIS CLASSIC, “Liturgy and Personality,” Dietrich von Hildebrand addresses this concept of continuity. With more Christian programs and opportunities than ever before, as we partake of one after the other, as one year becomes another, it's worth considering: How have these resulted in us cultivating a constant state or disposition of Connection with God? How is it revealed in our dark nights, deserts and storms?
THIS ONGOING CONNECTION to God is the basis of all other meaningful connections in our lives. More, cultivation of this is the only basis for true, authentic intimacy with others. There is no greater pursuit. It is the very essence of the Trinity. Therefore, all of relational existence.
LOOKING AROUND, looking at the data, there's no question that such cultivation is under siege. With more forms of connection than ever before, people are living in profound state of disconnection. Ever pining for that dopamine dispenser in our pockets to make good on its promise to satiate that which can only be satisfied by the Eternal God.
THE SHIFT COMES in recognizing the absurdity. The insanity. The shift comes in believing the formidable witness of saints throughout history who demonstrated the path to peace. Each one evidences, in the midst of their own darknesses, a decision to take God at His word. To make time for silence, knowing it would require some work. Cultivating the habit of turning their inner ear toward heaven. Being patient to allow the spinning mind to slow down. For the stormy seas to subside.
In absence of sensory experience of God, with formidable cultural influences and circumstances battering us, Jesus is with us. In such circumstances He is inviting us to faith. Not just in easy, contrived, safe, fleeting moments, but a deep, rooted confidence. He is in our boats. In our souls. He is overall. All the time.
LORD JESUS CHRIST,
Thank you for reaching out. Thank you for being Connection. Particularly in the storms and darkness of night. Forge in me a life of cultivating Connection. Be my soul pursuit.