TO THE LIMITS OF YOUR LONGING

Dr. Matthew Anderson

www.DrAusa.com
DrA@DrAusa.com

One of the greatest spiritual poets of the last century, Rainer Maria Rilke, wrote these words. Be with them for a moment and see what they do to your soul.

“God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
Go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
And make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you; beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.”

(from Rilke’s Book Of Hours – Love Poems to God)

God asks us to “Go to the limits of your longing”. To the limits. Of our longing.
And it is that way that He asks us to embody Him.

Question: Do you trust your own longing that much?

Question: Do you ever visit your limits? Do you know the edges of yourself? Have you the courage to risk living this way?

Question: Do you have any desire to embody God in and by the way you live your life?

Question: Do you imagine that truly being alive could be anything less than this?

Now what? “Let everything happen to you”. This means that running and hiding from life is not an option. It means that God created us to be alive, fully alive, and to participate completely in whatever shows up. He, God, asks us to be just like Him, a full participator in all that this life is – beauty and terror.

This idea – let everything happen to you – scares the hell out of most of us. We are certain that we cannot live this way. We want insurance policies for everything. Safety is our creed, protection is our watchword and fear is our guide. We want a manageable life and a quiet neighborhood to come home to and children that never get sick or fail at school or soccer and jobs that pay a good wage and a heart that seldom feels broken or ecstatically in love.

The trouble is God. Yes God is Himself the trouble. He has made a life that cannot possibly be lived the way we try to live it. He has made a life that must be lived the way He lives – full out, full on, fully present.

Full out, full on and fully present is living. This is living. Anything less than this is not, is not living.

Yet we do try, we do try to do it our way and half way and the hard way which we tell ourselves is really the easy way. But it never works and it gets far harder than it often needs to be because we hold on so tightly and don’t breathe and then tense our muscles and our hearts until they spasm out of our control. And we hurt and curse God and feel betrayed or abandoned and completely miss the point and the life itself that calls us to dance.

“Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me.” This means that stopping and hiding and giving in to fear causes us to lose connection to God. It is in constriction that we become lost. Constriction is the disguised toxin that offers us release from fear and hurt but actually produces the very thing it promised to alleviate.

The key, the solution, the antidote, the break-out and break-through choice is to surrender to life. This sort of surrender is not a defeat but a happy embrace. It is not an eyes and head down shuffle but a head back arms open dance. It is an act beyond hope or hopelessness, beyond failure or success. It is a simple, unqualified YES.

“If you believe that
No is where your power is,
Then you have experienced
Only the shadow of power.

The Power
To move mountains.
Heal the sick,
Raise the dead
And
Create aliveness
Exists only in
YES!”

Finally, when all the shouting and suffering and hiding and denying and frantic searching for release has been exhausted you are left with only two choices – YES or NO. No is what you have said up til now. Now try YES.