The Journey of Desire (5)

As a doctor, I am concerned but not too surprised at how difficult it is for people to change their habits even when they say they want better health. Many people would agree that ......they should lose weight, or exercise regularly or watch their dietary intake........but not more than half (maybe even less) will do so in a consistent manner. What part does desire play in this? Is their desire for better health strong enough to overcome long ingrained habits? I suppose not. How can their desire for health lead to new ways of living? Knowing the positive benefits of good health does not seem to help much. Perhaps a strong warning about the risks they are facing might be more helpful!

In the spiritual life, desire plays a major part in helping us focus on and choose what is truly important. I did not realize it then, but about ten years ago, I expressed a deep desire when I asked the Lord: "Help me to love you more". It came at a time when I discovered that there was more to knowing God than regular church attendance and serving in a ministry. That desire has become a kind of journey marker for me: from then on, I have been willing to try out different spiritual disciplines that might help me know and love the Lord more. There are many struggles of course, but generally, my desire has been strong enough to sustain the practice of different spiritual disciplines. This does not imply that our discipline (effort) in any way forces God to give his graces.......in the end all is gift. The discipline merely places one in the right place, ready and open to receive God's gracious outpouring of grace.

Philip Sheldrake notes two common reactions from people he has taught in classes on the spirituality of desire:

" The first is, 'I have so many desires that I don't know what to do with them.' The variety of desires is also confusing. This makes our experience of desire appear ambiguous with no reliable means of distinguishing between the superficial and the deep, the healthy and the unhealthy ones. There are certainly many conflicts that we shall have to face if we decide to take our desires seriously. Perhaps we are tempted to feel that it would be safer to treat them all with equal suspicion and to try to live in reference to more objective values.

The second reaction goes something along these lines: 'I was taught not to have desires....or rather I was given the message from childhood onwards that it was important to fulfil the desires of certain other important people in my life.' These might be parents, teachers, our spouse, the church and, most powerfully of all, God. The teaching of the Christian church has tended to place a very strong emphasis on external sources of authority in contrast to our personal desires. Duty, faithfulness to the expectations of others, or self-denial in an almost literal sense of denying one's personality and tastes, all too easily became the criteria for spiritual progress."

I suspect this resonates deeply with how many people feel about 'desire'.