The Practice of Yearning

Wednesday of the First Week of Advent

O God, you are my God; eagerly I seek you; 

my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you,

as in a barren and dry land where there is no water.

Psalm 63:1

I wake to frost covering the yard, the cold of the season having finally arrived. The dusting of white is its own kind of barrenness, signaling, among other things, the need to bundle up before venturing outside.

Bundling up is also good preparation before venturing fully into the season of Advent. I want to wrap myself in comfy reflections and warm traditions to ward off the chill of a world which is not at all interested in the sweetness of newborn salvation. I want to hold my hope close to the warmth of my heartbeat and protect myself from cold indifference and the cruelty that seems to creep into daily life.

And so I remind myself that eagerly seeking God and yearning for the mystery of the incarnation are the practices that will sustain me. For now, they are enough.