Chester Street Uniting Earth Ministry Lacuna Group


THOUGHTS - Casual musings on a particular topic

Posted: 20/04/2007


What is it that you want?

by Rashmi Dixit

Some Christian asked me what I want, in an email last year. I answered him this.... and thought I'd share it.

"The human heart is far more complex that the theologically correct answer and the question is rather personal so I am inclined to say that which we all want: love, acceptance, connection, validation, respect, security, community.  These things are what we are designed to need and we find an ultimate source in God.

In God, we can become so assured of these things that we lose ourselves to the world, so to speak, and find our connection in him ....as Jesus prayed, that we are in him and he in us and we in the Father.... and that can equip us to be, simply and purely, his agents in the world. I have read somewhere a long time ago, and believe it, too, that we are trying to find that ecstatic oneness we experienced as infants in our mother's arms....and I think we come full circle when are rejoined in God. This is why children are so profoundly affected by parents, they assign divinity to them and need to unlearn this and relearn the role of God...hence the common pastor's kid rebellion! I think this rebellion isn't so much a rejection of God but a rejection of parental divinity.

But I am not sure that many humans attain that purity via connection to God so easily. In the modern world, loneliness is a scurge and makes transcedence even harder; as we struggle to survive psychologically, we compromise spiritually. And the blessed who have family and community can sometimes function on a spiritually higher plane as their psychological needs are met and so they can divert some of their energies to higher things... and may tend to judge those who are not so blessed who are doing what they can to keep sane and afloat.

I don't think we experience all those things I mentioned above as to what I want, here, but we experience acquaintance with the source of these things and a hope for their ultimate fulfillment. All humans have the same drives and will use perverse and godly means of attaining them.... even Hitler wanted security and respect and tried to obtain these things by exploiting power."

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