Love, Hunger, and Ruminations

Tonight during my adoration hour I was doing some reading from the 2007 Spiritual Exercises (of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation). I was reading along, jotting notes, underlining, taking it all in.

Then I came to the questions discussed in the Sunday morning assembly and came across these startling, surprising, unpleasant but in a good way statements!

Q: How can we look at our need with sympathy and not as a phase to get over? In other words, how can we maintain that our hunger won't be eliminated by food, and that having a bit of an appetite allows us to enjoy the meal more?

A: (Fr. Carron) Who has the problem of getting rid of hunger? Someone with no food. Does someone with food have the problem of getting rid of pleasure, of desire, or does he want to have desire in order to enjoy his food?

Now, I understand that at heart what is being discussed is more than food. The discussion is in the context of our desire for God, for the Mystery, being blunted by the Lie of resistance to Beauty, to Truth. But I was really struck by putting the discussion in concrete terms of food.

Carron goes on in his answer to say:

The same holds for the need to be loved. Who has the problem of getting over the phase of being loved, of needing to be loved? Someone who hasn't met his beloved...

The disciples didn't have this problem. In fact, from the start His presence showed itself to be so decisive that when they got up the next day, they caught themselves desiring to go see Him. It didn't even cross their minds to worry about getting over this desire....

That's why this is what I desire for myself, and I wish for you what I wish for myself, namely, that desire, that need, not be a phase to get over, because this would mean that we haven't met anything we need in order to live. We meet many people in life who talk about Christ until they are blue in the face, but how many people do you know who need Christ in order to live? To live!! To get up in the morning, to go to work, to look at themselves, to look at their own need... To live! Otherwise what does it matter to me if I'm Christian?

Now. Here's how this hits me. Since becoming pregnant with my daughter, which has been about 3.5 years now, I have finished almost every meal with the words, spoken or unspoken, "What else can I eat?" I am at a healthy weight, so I'm not concerned with packing on pounds, but I feel like I am in a chronic state of hunger, and I find it very dissatisfying. In fact, just the other day I was talking to my husband about this experience. I was poking at the idea that there was something other than physical hunger going on. It's like I imagine some food out there that I could eat and find very satisfying and I would feel good and full (for I know there are several foods that I enjoy which could make me feel bad and full).

Fr. Carron's words hit me in a very literal and practical way. Hunger exists so that we can enjoy eating. Sometimes I expect about as much enjoyment from eating as I do from putting gas in the car. Perhaps it is because I have no detectable Italian genes. Perhaps it is because it is winter and I don't get that feeling that my food has just come out of the warm soil. But perhaps it links in with his other comments, about love.

I have a different answer to his question. Who has the problem of getting over being loved? Someone who has grown up with serious "scarcity" issues. For reasons large and small, people who have not known the love of a human community. Those who have taken it for granted for years that they do not have what they need, even when they have been in Christ. People who have been religious (to use this term as the culture, not Giussani, does) but whose connection to the Power Source has come detached. Me, for a large chunk of my Christian life.

God is in the business of restoration. Working on that conversion story I mentioned has been so enlightening to me. I can see the hand of God restoring me. And now, I see He even wants me to enjoy some good food! See, I do know how to enjoy food, and I am even capable of making food that is enjoyable. But there's time, and there's cost (especially these days!) and there's effort and there's planning. Ah, but there is joy! And there are people! My husband first seemed to take his attraction to me seriously after I made him banana muffins one day, and he enjoyed the small unique touches to my cooking which living in Japan had marked me with (long since gone, I think). And my children! What person has stronger recollections about Mom and home than Mom's cooking, whether good or bad?

Food preparation is such a human endeavor, and my attitude towards it tells me something about my humanity.

Hmm... Lately my son has taken to complaining loudly and bitterly about any food that is new to or disliked by him that I present for dinner. At first, it really made me angry. To avoid my own anger and the painful feeling of rejection I've turned to presenting boring food that children will eat. Hmm...

Perhaps a vat of tuna casserole for those who must, and some adventurous foods pursued and prepared with love is exactly what is in order for my spiritual life right now!