Friday, March 18, 2011

An Incarnated Thirst

"O come to the Fountain all you who are thirsty." (Isaiah 55:1)

"We must begin with the beginning: you. As a human being, a spirit-in-the-flesh, you are a thirst (noun, not an adjective). Every single choice you make all day long is proof that you seek, you desire, you want, you lack. Nothing is ever enough. You always want more of delightful experiences, and when the same experiences begin to wear thin and bore you, you seek new ones as well as heightened intensities of the old. You are engaged in an endless whirl. Always you seek, desire, want, lack. Furthermore, you may have noticed that even after the most thrilling experiences (a success, a vacation, a party, a date, a dance), when you are quiet and alone, you perceive deep down a small voice saying, "Is this all there is?" Nothing is enough: not praise, not success, not youth, not love. You are a thirst in the flesh, an incarnated thirst. You yearn for endless beauty and joy, endless love and delight, endless security and happiness--and an immortality in which to enjoy it all. You cannot help being an incarnated thirst. Nor can I. We were born that way and we will die that way. We may differ in how we seek to slake our thirst. Some go up blind alleys. Others go to the Fountain. But all seek."
--Thomas Dubay, "...And You Are Christ's": The Charism of Virginity and the Celibate Life

 

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