Desire: Not Just for Coyotes and Disney Princesses

Peter Rollins wrote a blog post the other day about what happens when we actually get what we desire. He used a pretty funny cartoon clip of Wile E. Coyote finally catching and killing the Roadrunner, and then going through a massive identity crisis because he no longer had a dream to live for.

This has been something I’ve thought about a lot the past few years—I’m the kind of person who would maybe delay gratification forever, just because I don’t want to deal with the letdown of the day after my birthday, or Christmas, or vacation, or even the end of the brilliant book I’m reading.

And that’s why I pretty much cried my way through the recent Disney princess movie, Tangled. All Rapunzel wants is to get out of her house and see these beautiful floating lanterns that appear among the stars every year on her birthday—to see them up close and find out what they’re made of. She finally finds herself in a boat with a cute guy, waiting for the lanterns to drift up into the sky, and suddenly she’s not sure she wants it to happen at all. Her anxiety—so familiar to us all—has her trapped between the fear of being let down by her actualized dream and the fear of what to do next, even if the dream is everything she’d hoped for. I remember having that exact feeling the night before my first trip to Europe. What would my life be, without this shining wish?

What I like about Peter Rollins’s blog—and the movie Tangled—is that he finds a way around the three clear options: “getting what we want and despairing, not getting what we want and despairing, constantly chasing what we want and despairing.” Rollins says the fourth possibility is finding and being with the one we love. This trumps the alternatives that inevitably lead to despair because in the other we are constantly finding, discovering, wondering. He says it’s like one of those black circles that cartoon characters use as “portals into an unending void. The circle is small enough to fold up and put in our pocket and yet, when placed on the ground we can jump into it. In the same way the flesh of our beloved takes up so little space and yet it is the very site of an inner universe without end.”

At the end of Tangled, Rapunzel and her beloved (who before only desired autonomy and wealth) confess that the other is their new dream. At first I was frustrated, thinking that Disney was telling little girls to stop chasing adventures and just settle on a man as their greatest dream instead. But maybe they were onto something deeper. Magical lanterns, holidays in Europe, superfast desert birds…they all have their end. But Rollins is right—the other is and always will be a mystery, no matter how many times we eat dinner with them, wake up in bed next to them, or take care of them when they’re sick.

But most of all, these ideas have me thinking about God—probably because our relationship has been the most intimate of my life. God is the ultimate Other, the “vast and endless ocean” who keeps surprising me. I walk toward the edge of his love only to find that the border is still a million miles away. One door leads to a thousand others, which lead to ten thousand more. The inside is bigger than the outside. Desire—it’s a funny thing. An ache that doesn’t leave, a hollow that never fills…yet it is on the wings of desire that we move toward, yet at the same time with, our Beloved.

Acquiring the Taste

Here’s a poem I wrote for a final project last quarter, responding to our course on the Old Testament writings (Chronicles, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Job, and Daniel).

Acquiring a Taste

Reality is like a fine wine, I read.
It will not appeal to children.
The Writings are like fine wine,
And I came with the palate of a child.

But I was ready for a coming-of-age
And willed myself to take small sips,
So one day I might enjoy the taste
Without dilution,
Without deletion.

He doesn’t always speak
He doesn’t always answer
He doesn’t always heal
He doesn’t always reign.

But then

He comes in wisdom
He comes in a whirlwind
He comes in a kiss
He comes in laughter.

Can I one day rejoice not only in the drinking
But in the seasons and rhythms of the winemaking?

The long waiting and hoping,
The toil under the cruel sun,
Humility arriving like
A cool breeze.

These days of discipline I will not despise.

Your feet crush my expectations and entitlement.
In your ceaseless treading I sense a pattern:
Your complicated steps are a dance.

One day at your table I will lift my glass to you
And salute the beauty of your movement.

We will lock eyes
and drink deeply.

I Wanna Be Deserted

Whether introvert or extravert, time spent alone to reflect on our own lives is vital, for without it we lose a sense of exactly who we are. In the incessant business of modern life—rushing to and from work, dropping kids off, catching trains and gasping to get to meetings—we often lack quality time to simply be, to solidify the boundaries of our selves and resist the city’s attempts to count us as simply part of the crowd.

Kester Brewin,
Other: Loving Self, God and Neighbour in a World of Fractures

I’ve been puzzled these past three weeks of holiday as I’ve withdrawn more than I ever have. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve had other times when I’ve withdrawn, but those seasons were darkened by depression and paralyzing fears of rejection.

This Christmas, I’ve withdrawn to find a place for my soul to rest.

The autumn months were full of pondering heavy concepts and also deep, uprooting work in my spirit—rest was elusive while friends, work, and various stimuli were plentiful. My current puzzlement comes from my long-held belief that I am, in fact, an extrovert. It’s true—I am energized and recharged when I spend time with people, whether it’s a low-key dinner party, a night out dancing, or just mingling for 20 minutes after church.

But I noticed that, while I might have enough energy when I’m getting my socializing needs met, my time alone (and when I say alone, I mean with God) is what anchors me. Brewin states it perfectly when he says this time of “simply being” actually solidifies our boundaries. When I spend too much time with people and rush from a class to an errand to work to a party, I start to feel floppy and amorphous.

One of the most difficult parts of my life here at Fuller is sharing a 2-bedroom apartment with three other women. I have no place where I am guaranteed uninterrupted time to be alone. I do care for each of my roommates, but an apartment to myself for three weeks was a true gift. I’m trying not to be scared as I think about the upcoming quarter and picture the walls of my life closing in on me again. Brewin’s words later in the chapter give me much hope, as he talks about Heidegger’s concept of lichtung, the clearing within the soul where we are granted passage to the other, and access to our own being. Brewin says:

Jesus spent time in the desert and returned, yet in Heidegger’s sense it is not that we come upon these ‘clearings’ at various times along our journey, rather that the clearing already exists within us and we need to become better aware of it. In other words, it is not necessary for us to spend days fasting under the fierce light of the desert sun; rather, we must carry that desert place, that differently lit place, within us and learn to pause periodically to centre our vision on it. It is only here, as Heidegger points out, that we will begin to be able to engage both with others, and with the core of ourselves.

This winter, perhaps I can carry a bit of the desert with me, and learn to retreat to it as I did during my Advent solitude. Then, in the midst of a crowded life I can slip through a door in the air and find myself in a windswept valley, where I will let my heart breathe in the open space, link fingers with my desert savior, and just be.

Flood Watch

An intense inner desire is already the sign of his presence in our hearts. The rest is the work of the Holy Spirit. –Brennan Manning

Spring up, O Well
–or don’t.
What will I do
when the dam
built by fear
finally breaks?
A strong sweet
ache wells up
from the deepest
place where
only echoes of
other depths
sing in the
emptiness.
I perch on
an outcropping,
vigilant,
waiting
for the moment
for the flood
for the cataract
unleashed.
I know it will
demand of me
a leap.
My heart races
all the time now.
Who camps out
on a precipice?
Where will this
torrent take me?
Where will I next
set up my tent?