“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
but those who drink of the water that I will give them
will never be thirsty. The water that I will give
will become in you a spring of water gushing up with eternal life.”
—John 4.13-14
I bustle through this world
at the urge of my wanting.
I rummage through my life
under quiet compulsion,
a longing so easily ignored
or twisted into a thousand quests,
the impulse to reach for that thing,
to have, to feel—oh, sometimes
to have or feel anything at all.
A pig, sometimes, wedging my snout
under every promising bit of sod.
We all bump into each other,
hunting, a little desperate. Thirsty.
But be still. Feel its tide.
The pull to root.
A root seeking deeper, deeper.
A panther, beautiful in its quietness,
crouching for water.
A great river of emptiness
seeking its sea.
The nothing that doesn’t want
to be replaced but met.
The hollow you have cupped out
for yourself in me. This thirst,
this scary part of me, is most alive,
most faithfully pointed toward life
—most easily bent otherwise—
but faithful to endure, to lure me
to quit all other reaching,
to keep leaning toward you,
to keep kneeling and tasting
this gift, this partaking, this living,
this, here, now: you,
in this breath,
flowing.
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Listen to the audio recording:
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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