Unseparated

Hunger for God.
What is it?
Is it the reason for the ache deep in me that nothing seems to completely soothe? Reading that Holy Word, soaking it into my bones, seems to soften it. Lifting my face to the sky that seems to hold my Maker, lifting my consciousness to He Who is the object of my hunger, and so must be every answer I need-that fills me up, short moments at a time.
But who could know what the ache is? How can it be something that nothing tangible could fill, not words and not touch. It is always there.
I want to know why. Why, why, why do my days seem to fill with almost bitter yearning for a God who could break me? Who bends me until I think I will break.
The bitter becomes sweet with time, but still, it is an unanswered question. This hunger, this yearning, is different than any other. No bread can fill it, no human companionship, no vision.
I know the answer lies somewhere in my own creation. I am made to yearn for something more, but the sweet yearning grew into aching melancholy the day our ancestors first turned away from the Answer.

The hunger is what makes fellowship with Jesus so sweet. It is good. It rescues us from looking only inward rather than upward. I recognize that. But what is it?

I didn't expect to ever know. I thought it was a lifelong quest, a question that would rasp out between pants when I finally reached the Great White Throne. I was right. I will always be searching, but a part of it has been given to me through a story and a friendship and five week trek through Europe.

I read Michael O'Brien's Island of the World on trains and piazza steps and hotel beds. While I read the story of Josip, the epic, stirring, illuminating story of Josip, I thought about many things.
First, what is this hunger for God.
Second, why is it inescapably easy to connect with certain people. I dislike how this sounds. It does nothing to capture the magic of a true kindred spirit.
Third, what is love, what is love, what is love. I don't know why that is third. Josip did not distract me from that question. I don't purpose to talk about that, but perhaps it will appear.

So, hunger for God, and hunger for certain people.
I have a friend. I tell her that beneath her, through her, runs a deep current of...muchness. Words fail me. Being with her is like breathing in a rich, earthy, healing scent. I understand her somehow, and feel understood, just by lying next to her on a blanket, staring up at the stars. We do not have everything in common. Our passions are not the same, though similar in ways. Something about us is drawn together, something deep within.

I read Island slowly because I had to pause often to place each message of truth where it belonged. Josip undertakes his final journey, and his words to one he loves shocked me like a lightening bolt, an answer to my questions of yearning and connection.

"A man is himself and no other," Josip says. "He is an island in the sea of being. And each island is as no other. The islands are connected because they have come forth from the sea, and the sea flows between them. It separates them yet unites them, if they learn to swim."

We are all separate. We are all islands, never fully understood by another island. 

I pondered the other islands that surround me, and my thoughts stumbled on God, from whom I have come forth. He is the sea, He is the air, He is the way to unseparate myself, slowly, from those I love and long to love. He and I are unseparated.  He understands me, this lonely island. He allows me to understand Him, carefully, perfectly, making sure not to break me before He is finished with me.

This is the longing. I am made to be one with others. I am made to be one with my Maker. Always, whether I have tasted His perfect fellowship or not, even before I surrendered to His will, my very being longs to be one with Him. He understands me perfectly! How crazy! Nuts. Cashew, as my friend Sue would say.

And these people that float around me...sometimes the closer I get, the more I realize how separated we are. Compared to the unseparateness I can have with the Father. And yet the joy of kindred minds, hearts, and spirits is a great, great gift. A treasure I am unworthy to hold, but will cherish with gratitude.

I said I didn't purpose to discuss love and what it is, but I cannot resist. We float as lonely islands, growing close to and understanding those God has given us to understand. The loneliness is softened by these gifts. Just now, a great gift I have been given is to have a young man ask to understand me. To be close to me. When I look across the waves around me, I am most days so surrounded by islands that look back with love, I must strive to see the sea. But the islands ever move, sending the foaming sea far up my shores, and the unseparateness of my land and the God-Who-is-the-Sea is sweet, sweet fellowship.