Thought for the Day

From John McQuiston II's Always We Begin Again, a wise little book inspired by the Rule of St. Benedict:

The second stage of humility
is to distrust our own will.
Our wants are insatiable,
and our will is the product of those wants.
Our pleasure,
our needs,
our wishes--
all are mere self-interest,
and the demands of self-interest are never ending...

Therefore the second stage of humility
is not to love our own will,
nor to find pleasure in the satisfaction of our own desires,
but to carry out the unfathomable purpose of our being,
to fulfill the design that can only be discovered
by overcoming our own cravings--
for the function of existence
and of our lives
is not ourselves.

I had a clear sense this week, in my own experiences, that this paradox is the crucible in which our humanity is transformed and made whole. The Buddha said it, too: I am unhappy when I don't get what I want, I am unhappy when I get what I don't want. He could have added, I am unhappy when I get what I want! Talk about a no-win situation!

Still, what is beyond the craving for more to consume--more experience, more stuff, more songs, more news, more food, more sex? I wonder what comes of enduring the craving. And why does the craving feel at its core like loneliness, a wordless longing for communion?