God’s Longing (for Christmas and then Good Friday)

It isn’t known when it began,

God’s longing,

Certainly no one mortal knows.

The angels might know,

But for most, it is still a heavenly secret,

A mystery of mysteries

Long hidden.

Some would say that it was always there

Has always been there

From the first instant,

Long before the big bang,

Banged!

Leading up to the first

Thought that caused

Creation to explode suddenly

Out of the emptiness and nothingness

Of all reality, which is still expanding,

Still growing

Still arising within us each.

Many would say, and I would be one,

That God’s longing is eternal.

It is a deep longing, a true longing,

A longing that lingers slowly

And perfectly

Stretching out far past our own imaginations,

However far back or forward we are able to imagine.

It is almost as if God suddenly awoke

And being alone,

In knowing loneliness from the beginning

Sighed deeply, sighed so deeply

In that loneliness,

That in breathing out

Some portion of God’s breath left

His body and being

To seed all creation.

Perhaps it was then, in that moment

When the breath of God first moved

Across the waters of earth

Or moved through the depths of

Nothingness giving birth to creation.

Or gave breath to both Adam and Eve,

And then to all humanity.

Sometimes a thought crosses my mind

A single thought born out of my own breath

As I breathe in deeply during meditation

And out once again quietly and stilly.

Sometimes it comes to me then, in a split second

That this was when God’s Holy Spirit first appeared

And continues to appear throughout all history.

I even imagine that in some secret way

My own loneliness and longing are helping to give birth

To God’s Holy Spirit

And the compassionate loving-kindness

That follows God’s gift to all humankind.

I know this much, that God’s longing for us runs so deep

And so true

That He gave up His only begotten Son, even unto death

So that we might come to know Him and He us.

And that by this miracle of love

God’s Holy Spirit comes to dwell and rest in us.

Ron Starbuck