Longing

    It's so sad... Hotmail has blocked my access to my email account because of the spamming issue. I'm not so attached to my address but more to all of my contacts and emails that I've saved over time. I'm supposed to receive a verification code so I can get back in but so far I haven't received it. I imagine this sort of thing happens a lot and so it will be awhile before Hotmail gets around to it. It feels like something is missing in the morning when I go through my routine. It just goes to show you how dependent I've become on email. I'm sure this break is a good thing.

    I have just begun reading The Holy Longing by Ronald Rolheiser, who is an Oblate of Mary Immaculate, a missionary organization within the Catholic Church. This is the text my deacon wants to use in our bible study. I've only read a few pages but already I'm intrigued. He writes,

It is no easy task to walk this earth and find peace. Inside of us, it would seem, something is at odds with the very rhythm of things and we are forever restless, dissatisfied, frustrated, and aching. [...] Put more simply, there is within us a fundamental dis-ease, an unquenchable fire that renders us incapable, in this life, of ever coming to full peace.

I can relate to this! It feels like I've always struggled with some sort of restlessness. I have this feeling that there has to be more to life than this, that I've been destined for something great. It makes no sense because I'm a wife, a mother, a homeowner, educated... the list goes on. So why this "dis-ease"? St. Augustine answers, "You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." (Hence the title "Holy Longing", I'm sure. But I haven't gotten that far!)

    So how do we deal with this longing, this restlessness in the day-to-day? Our spirituality, according to Rolheiser. But what about non-religious people? How do they deal? He notes,

Spirituality is not something on the fringes, an option for those with a particular bent. None of us has a choice. Everyone has to have a spirituality and everyone does have one, either a life-giving one or a destructive one. Spirituality is not about serenely picking or rationally choosing certain spiritual activities like going to church, praying or meditating, reading spiritual books, or setting off on some explicit spiritual quest.[...] Spirituality is more about whether or not we can sleep at night than about whether or not we go to church. It is about being integrated or falling apart, about being within community or being lonely. [...] What shapes our actions is our spirituality.

It was very helpful to read this explanation of spirituality. It's hard, these days, to really understand what it is. I believed it was for the devout but this makes more sense. We all have souls or spirits and therefore, we all must have spirituality, i.e. the things we do (or don't do) for our souls. It's kind of like jogging for your body, or reading for your mind. These are ways to keep them healthy but not the only ways to do so. Furthermore, if I'm a couch potato or if I stop reading, my body and my mind will go weak and eventually cease altogether. 

  I think the following is also important:

The opposite of being spiritual is to have no energy, is to have lost all zest for living. The opposite of a spiritual person would be someone who has lost his or her identity, namely, the person who at a certain point does not know who he or she is anymore.

This sounds so sad. Initially it made me think of depression and losing any interest in living. But just because you're not suicidal, doesn't mean your spirit is okay. People do experience crises, whether they happen at a particular age (e.g. mid-life crisis) or after a particular event (a death, a job loss, etc.), or at a stage in life where they just kind of...stop and wonder, "Is this it?" It can and does happen to many people from all walks of life.

Anywho, this is what I've read up until now and I'm sure I'll find more nuggets to share soon.