Longing, Desire and Belovedness. Oh my!

“The people who know God well—mystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God—always meet a lover, not a dictator.” R Rohr

"It is not with many thoughts or words He hears us, but in the silence of our longings." Teresa of Avila

As I’m reading from this book, I look around Starbucks nervously to see if people can tell I’m blushing. Ripening, appetites, mouths that touch. Oh my! (I feel my cheeks pinken just typing these words.) I'm reading the passionate prayers of the mystics, like Teresa and John. Today, these are my people. But they weren't always.
 
My journey to belovedness began with this visual psalm I created under the care of my spiritual director/counselor/artful guide Debbie Miller. At a time when I felt flat-lined emotionally, she asked me to find an image that represented where I was. I could not move from cognition/left brain/”truth” to experience/right brain/honesty. 
 
I picked an image of a sprig triumphantly sprouting in a cracked and dry desert. I will survive! it proclaimed. “Try again,” Debbie said with a gentle smile. In time, I found a “little Judy” who stood before various backdrops and offered visual psalms of candor and desire. This is one of them. She could say what adult Judy couldn't. (Looking now at her--many years later--moves me to compassion and admiration for her bravery and honesty.)

The woman in this Glimt painting captured me. I was taken with the flowers in her hair, her curled toes, her expression of embraced delight. Who will ravish me like this? rose uncomfortably to my lips from my thawing, lonely heart. If felt like a lament and a sigh at once. 
 
As this desperation softened my heart, love began to slowly, warmly make its way in. I had tasted the desire and longing of the mystics, the desperation. And love met me there. As I mentioned, it was the beginning of my journey to beloved.
 
This Lent, what might it look like to allow desire to have its way in you?

JUDY