As far back as I can remember, I would realize, from time to time, a deeply felt sense of longing. Perhaps, when I was no more than three or four years old, it captured me in the blue lights on the Christmas tree. Once, as a young man gazing in the night at the endless field of stars, it seemed to draw out something from the very depths of my soul. Whether it is emptiness or fullness, I could not say. It abides, often hidden; but always evoked in the gifts of love throughout my life.

I am convinced this longing is a precious gift – a North Star guiding our journeys. But in the events of life’s capricious storms, it can feel hidden, fractured, fragmented and lost. And it cries out, often silently, as an awful, empty ache.

There is a tradition in which each person is called to work toward the restoration of the world. Whatever that may mean to some, for me it has always been a challenge for the restoration of broken and fragmented relationships – the conduits of meaning in our lives: the call of broken longings; of cries unheeded in the nights of our woundedness.

The challenge to restore the world is the challenge to step into the places where longings are lost and fragmented … within our selves or between us; the places of lost or fragmented desire – to allow the longing once again.

The longing can only be found and restored between us.

***

She could barely speak without being spoken to. She felt herself without interest or anything to say. Her longing had evaporated in the witness of her mother’s suicide and the awful time after – when she could cry only when alone; unnoticed in the grief and pain of those around her. She was five years old.

But the longing, though hidden, was still there in an occasional, fleeting glance. In the brief meetings of our eyes; waiting for an occurrence that neither of us could know exactly when or how.

We seek restoration, in the unclaimed spaces of our lives together. It awaits us in the darkness of uncertainty and risk where we may dare to light a candle; in a moment of meeting – where we may find together the grace of our longing.

This is our calling: the allowance of our longing and the recovery of wonder.

***

Tikkun ha-Olam

העולם חה תיקון

in a window

against the winter night’s howling

light little candles

swear seven times

that love

even with no image of its future

is not in vain

may these flames bring

warmth

against winter’s cold

light

against the night’s darkness

and hope

against the breaking of our hearts desire

after James Donnelly

Chanukah

in Love and knowledge:

the quest for personal meaning

©  2014 James Donnelly, DSW.LCSW

All rights reserved

South Garden Press, New York

For thoughts and comments, please e mail to: jdonnellydsw@gmail.com