God at the Ritz by Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete. It is a very good read, especially for the type of person who in the mood to consider truth in terms more rooted in human experience than in traditional theology. The premise of the book was to respond to hard questions put to this highly educated physicist-priest by secular interviewers for whom belief in God by intelligent people a bit of an oxymoron.
Anyway, I regret that I got my copy from the library and could not mark it up, so that I could go back and think about much of what he said. But one particular point of his has stuck with me nonetheless: his discussion of what he calls the reduction of desire. He gives an example of being delivered by car to his overnight guest lodgings, a residence for priests. He tells how his driver went right passed the perfect parking spot right in front of the door, because of a sign stating "Reserved for Residents," and drove quite some distance away. He tried to argue that as a priest who was to reside in that place over night, with only luggage to drop off, surely they had a right to park there! He states that the fact that his driver was not even attracted by the spot shows she suffered from "reduction of desire," when what our hearts long for is so pummeled out of us that we no longer question what the world around us tells us to accept as a given.
Then he tells another story about watching an interview on TV with a famous writer who had since died. His companions watching with him were thrilled by the interview; Albacete was depressed. Neither had the faintest reason why the other felt what to them was obviously the only fitting emotion. His companions were inspired by this man's heroism to do this interview while knowing he was dying of cancer. Albacete was depressed because the man died and his writing career would never again produce a new brilliant work.
He states:
...if we suppress the desires of the heart, then there is no hope of ever coming to resolve some of the great differences that divide us. Moreover, if we suppress them, we are opening ourselves to manipulation by powers that are otherwise threatened by those desires of the heart.
I think this concept of his has stayed with me in part because I take issue with his examples, but also because I resonate strongly with his conclusion. The whole issue of the parking was answered for me when I saw him in person and realized that his physical circumstances make walking more than a few yards a significant challenge. Accepting the fact that people die and are finite does not seem a spiritual problem to me, either. However, it's intriguing -- suppression of desire destroying hope for resolving differences. Suppression of desire leaving me vulnerable to manipulation. Those are very compelling thoughts.
I'm going now to my mental photo album, and looking at "desire" snapshots of my life. There's that poem I wrote in my late teens. The opening lines say "A longing leaps within my soul, and I run to crush it..." This was once so synonymous with my life that, I hate to say, I spent my late teen years thinking about suicide almost daily. Yeah, I know all about suppression of desire. Then there were the baby steps with which God led me. In college the Lord told me "Don't only notice your need, but seek to fulfill it." Then after I came into the Church, about five years later still, I went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I saw a beautiful t-shirt in a gift shop and reflexively (and uncharacteristically) gasped, "Oh! I want one of those!" My tone of voice must have been childlike or hesitating, because one older woman responded with deep care, "Honey, you just go right ahead and get it, then."
My, my I am going on tonight, am I not.
All this pondering is just to ask myself, how much am I really allowing the desires of my heart to serve as wings lifting me into God's plan for me? How equipped am I to model self-mastery of desire for my children? Do I know how to generously and joyously say yes to the desires of my heart for all that is good?
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