From the Unknown Regions

Fiiiinally here’s the much talked about post! I had planned to share something else today, but then I went back to read from my archives and once more, this piece pulled me into loving it. So here goes:

How can God be insignificant, how can His words be insignificant, when we, inexplicably, are persistently drawn to worship something? Why are people, even those who are separated by distance and culture, all drawn to worship something? This desire is not like eating, the desire for things or for recognition. For those, we can foresee the pleasures of having them. The desire to relate with someone unseen, unknown… we have no idea what he’ll be like until we draw near, so how are we drawn to someone even while we are unaware of any physical attractions he might have? If, while still on our journey to meet him, we are asked whether he has any physical attractions at all, all we could give is a vacant stare, yet our resolve remains – “I will chase him! I will chase him still!”

When people are happy, we exprr joy by doing things whose benefits cannot be foreseen, yet those actions are satisfying. By showing your teeth amiably, wrinkling your eyes and throwing hands and feet in the air, you achieve nothing, you’ve only done what comes naturally. Yes, expressing this emotion brings even more joy, but remember that those happy actions were not calculated to increase our joy, they just happen to do so. If to be happy is a core desire of all humans, could it be that to do things we can’t really explain, that have benefits we can’t foresee, but which are expressions of what we deeply feel, is what would really like to be doing? Are our fulfilled selves concealed in the regions of those desires we can’t explain? Could it be from there God calls out to us, voice spreading out like a ripple, echoing on the crests of that ripple. Is this not satisfaction? To be happy with no strived-for cause? To be, and in your being have all you want present inside you, to know and to be happy to know that it’s all there?

Maybe our happiness, and our inexplicable desire to express it, tells us something of our desire for God. Perhaps we don’t need to explain why we want him. What we need is to accept that we do want him.

Enjoy your week! 

– Storyteller