There is, in the belly of the beggar and the glutton, a constant longing and hunger. Not just a hunger for food but also a longing for plenty, for an end to the deprivation, for a confidence that one day, soon, the drought will end and there will be food not only for this day but for all days.

There is, in the heart of the lonely and the popular, a similar aching, a craving of companionship, of the sense of belonging. There is a need for knowing that there will be others, at least one, whose love and acceptance is constant, faithful, unswerving.

There is, in the body of the diseased and the athlete, a yearning for release. Not just for the cessation of pain and a freedom from suffering, but a desire for vim and vigor, for the restoration of vitality, for the surging strength of health and wholeness.

There is, in the soul of the lifeworn and the ambitious, an endless searching, a seeking of meaning and fulfillment, a sensing of purpose and value and accomplishment, a realization of dimension that cannot be fathomed by gram and meter.

What there is, at different points and different ways, is a holy and ancient notion that this world is not perfectly fitted to us, that it disappoints and fails us, that it confines us and binds us. We try to find some way of being filled in a world that empties, holding on to moments that cannot be grasped, hoping to feed flesh that is set on decay.

There was One who came, who walked upon this earth, who breathed its arid air, drank its sweat and poured his own blood into dust. It was he who showed us that it is the craving of this world’s nature that enslaves us, our attraction to its flimsy passing that binds us. In the hunger for righteousness, the longing for salvation, the liberation of forgiveness and the strength of humility, we are filled, nourished, released and made mighty.

It is always the way of this world to make snares of promises; it is always his promise to break those snares.

H. Arnett
3/25/10