I remember the day I heard the word as though for the first time. I remember because I had been living with a feeling and I didn’t know what to call it. I wasn’t depressed. And I had no reason to be sadder than the average bear. Well, I was divorced. And I wasn’t dating anyone. But my pre-adolescent children were happy-(ish). And work was good.
The feeling was provoked by beauty. By music and art. It would come upon me standing beneath the sky: pink-gold at sunset or black velvet sparkling with stars. And sometimes thinking of a young man I once loved…
I could feel it in my entire being like an ache. An emptiness. A loss.
Yet as close and pervasive as this feeling was, I couldn’t name it.
So when I heard the word that day I was relieved because, suddenly, the feeling had a name and its name was “yearning.”
I was attending a presentation by Eric Booth, a Shakespearean actor and arts education advocate. He was demonstrating the importance of nurturing young audiences, cultivating their capacity to enter into the worlds created by artists through music and dance, theatre and painting. He explained how we—the audience—can have deep experiences with art by investing ourselves—our emotions and life experiences—in the worlds created on stage, in a symphony, stretched across the lines of a poem or the canvass of a painting. Through our emotions we make connections between our lives and art, and new meaning and understanding can arise through the encounter.
I recall the exercise Eric used to make his point; you can try it yourself now if you like:
Think about a time in your life when you were downhearted. When you felt like an outsider. Embarrassed or ashamed. Unworthy or abandoned. Something happened and you felt life was unfair, that others had it so much better. You wished you could be like they guy with more friends or the woman with more money.
Remember a time when you were so downcast that things that used to make you happy, that gave you joy, just didn’t anymore. A time it was hard to arise and face the day….Can you remember a time like that?
OK. Now conjure a thought of someone you love. It can be someone still living or long gone. Someone who was very kind to you. Or inspired you. Someone who gave you a sense of being at home. Accepted. Loved. Someone who, when you think of them, when you can see their face in your mind’s eye, you smile.
Picture them clearly. Imagine them in a favorite photo or sitting nearby.
Lucky you to have known the blessing of this person…
Now, listen again to the reading we heard earlier, Sonnet 29 by Wm. Shakespeare:
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessd,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least.
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Did this old language reach you at a new level?
Did connect to your experience?
By making the effort to invest your emotions and imagination into the world created by the artist, you took a risk.
And if the exercise was useful, you may have experienced a feeling of being understood by the poet. When we encounter art or nature or others on this level, we feel a connection. We feel met.
In a world that is imperfect and incomplete, we long to be met. To be seen and understood. That longing can arise in us as a sense of lack or loss, an impulse for something--or someone--more. We experience a sense of yearning.
Unfortunately, we can mistake this very real, very visceral sense of yearning as simply a physical emptiness. Mistaking it thusly, we strive to fill or feed the empty feeling. We mistake our yearning for the kind of hunger that can be fed with food; distracted with shopping; dulled with alcohol or drugs. We suspect this sense of lack might be filled with that elusive romantic relationship or at least deflected with a sexual one.
In our longing for a more-ness in our life, we get confused into thinking that it can be met with more of the same commodities of life. More stuff. Bigger stuff. Newer stuff. Different stuff.
Until we gain a clearer understanding of what we truly yearn for, our sense of lack and loss will persist. Connecting with the source of our yearning, we can embrace our lives and our purpose. As humans, we live and yearn.
Well into my adult years, given the opening in a conversation, I would sigh, “Someday, I want to live in Italy.”
Mine wasn’t a unique aspiration. Many people have a desire to live in another place. You may hope to live in Italy someday.
My yearning for a life in Italy was fed by a diet of Merchant and Ivory films, period movies with Maggie Smith as a nervously bold Englishwoman in linen dresses and straw hats, living in Florence or at a lakeside villa. I read Frances Mayes’ book Under the Tuscan Sun and its sequel. And the one after that. But even her vivid descriptions of bad plumbing, leaking roofs and difficult tradesmen did little to dampen my romantic notion of Mediterranean living.
People mostly nodded agreeably when I spoke of my someday yearning.
Finally though, a thoughtful friend bothered to ask me: Why do you want to live in Italy? What is in this dream that you are yearning for, exactly?
I tried to name it. I wanted colorful, cut flowers on a beautifully laid table; I wanted to go to the market every other day and buy fresh produce and meat and fish from friendly merchants; I wanted to take my time preparing simple, delicious food for family and friends who would gather round the table for leisurely meals and laughter and storytelling. It would be sunny and I would be lean and tan and relaxed and happy…
My wise friend probed deeper: How could you make your Italian life real, right now, right here?
Perhaps I’m just slow to insight, but I had never asked this question of myself. Now I saw that my Italian fantasy was a place-holder, a substitute marker for what I truly yearned for. Mistakenly, I believed my yearning could only be fulfilled in the future, in a far away place.
Distracted by the busy-ness and worries of my life, I was unable to make the creative connection between my intense sense of something lacking, and the guidance and truth ready to be revealed by my yearning in the present. But it took effort to explore it.
Once I named my yearnings, I gained an understanding of the more-ness I wanted in my life. I yearned for more beauty, more tranquility, more laughter, more time with family and friends. Having named it and seen it clearly, I could begin creating that more-ness in my life here and now.
Through this exercise in naming the yearning I entered a new level of connection with my own life and with meaning.
I’ll tell you another story. A very wealthy man once asked me: what would you do if you had a million dollars? At the time, I was working two part-time jobs and had child support from my ex-husband, so I was OK financially. Some months seemed to have longer stretches between paychecks than others…
The wealthy man must have asked me during one of the long months because I still remember the fear in my answer. I said: I would stop worrying.
I thought about that answer for a long time afterwards. I berated myself for having such a tight-hearted (but, frankly, honest) answer. Then I got curious.
What was I really worried about? I wasn’t going to starve or be homeless. My children weren’t going to love me less because they couldn’t have an expensive video game. And my friends weren’t going to disappear because I wasn’t making a lot of money.
Gradually, I saw that worry was a different kind of emotional place-holder. It was a stumbling block. Worry distracted me from connecting with my yearning for something deeper. It’s hard to feel gratitude, joy or love if one is feeling worry.
So I did the questioning exercise again. If I had a million dollars and I stopped worrying, then what? Well, I thought, I would be more relaxed. I would have more balance in my life. More time for family and friends. I would laugh more and be happier….
Wait! This list sounded just like the one my Italian yearning generated. I was still yearning for the same things!
Why should that surprise us? Why should any of us be surprised that we find ourselves yearning for the same things throughout our lives?
If we are not careful--that is, if we are not full of care for our yearnings--we can fall into a trap of misunderstanding. We can continue to mistake our yearnings and try to fill them or feed them in destructive ways. In ways that not only do not satisfy the yearning, they do damage to our selves and our souls, and possibly to those around us. We might become greedy or stingy, angry or jealous. And these are not attractive qualities in a lover.
I had a spiritual director who listened to me berate myself over a repeated failing. Let’s say it was being critical of myself or someone else. I do feel sad that I have a tendency to be a critic. One day as I was going on being critical and then being sad, my spiritual director clapped his hands and said, “O, goody!”
“What?! You are interrupting my painful and habitual lament with clapping and saying, ‘O, goody?’”
“Yes!” he exclaimed. “This is very good!”
“How can this be good?” I asked. “I am critical and I feel sad. I don’t see how this is good.”
“Oh, but it is,” he insisted. “You see, every time you notice that you are critical or notice that you are sad, you have the great opportunity to become aware and to practice compassion towards yourself and others!”
You may be interested to know that the word yearning is defined as “having an intense feeling of lack or loss.” And there is no question that when someone we love deeply is gone from us, we live with an intense feeling of lack or loss…
But the older, archaic meaning is listed as compassion; to be filled with a warm feeling.
Going back to my story of about worrying and the million dollars…I found space in my heart to ask myself: What if I just skipped the part about having a million dollars and just stopped worrying? What yearning might I discover was hidden beneath the worry?
It was a bit of a spiritual journey from there. I detected a yearning for peace. And under that? A yearning for rest. And under that? A yearning for wisdom. And under that? A yearning to be of service. Under that? A yearning for connection with the Divine. And under that? To know I am loved and can extend my love to others.
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
In the busy-ness of our lives, when we are fearful, judgmental or critical, we can mistake our yearning for a loss, a lack, an emptiness. When we are distracted by the noise of the marketplace and the call of our hungers, our addictions, we can miss the opportunity to connect with our yearning, to name it, and to welcome it as a teacher and guide--something that will point us in the direction of love.
When Jesus was hanging on the cross, dying a tortuous death, it is said he cried out: “I am thirsty!”
The story goes that “A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.” (John 19: 29)
I think the wine-bearers misunderstood Jesus’ yearning. They were distracted by the pain and suffering they witnessed on the execution grounds. Misguided by the helplessness and fear that strangled their hearts. They did not connect with the world Jesus was striving to create through his life and teachings: the Beloved Community.
His life had been dedicated to healing and to teaching the way of compassion for all—especially the poor and the outcast. He heard the cries of the lonely and dispossessed. He yearned for justice and thirsted for righteousness.
Justice and righteousness.
Compassion and love.
In an imperfect and incomplete world, let us not mistake our yearnings.
Let us be like artists, busy with the work of yearning, creating moments of connection and beauty and peace.
When we extend our compassion to the least of these; when we righteously persist in the work of justice; when we open our hearts to forgiveness; when we reach out in kindness, when we love--we can experience the restoration of righteousness.
When we get down under our worry and fear and connect with our yearning, name it and know it for what it is, we can clap our hands in gratitude, welcoming the teaching that comes again and again: Here is our chance to extend our compassion to ourselves and others. Not in some distant future, but here and now.
Happily think on this and then--
like a lark rising at the break of day
out of this broken earth--
let your heart sing hymns to the Divine,
for you have been loved from the start.
Remembering this sweet love
may you be enriched and uplifted,
and scorn to change your state with kings.
May it be so. Amen.
