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Dr Gemma Simmonds |
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Good morning. The poet Don Marquis had a character, Archy the cockroach, who is a natural philosopher. In the poem entitled The Moth Archie reflects on the folly of a moth who is so attracted to the light that he ends up burning himself in it. When Archie questions the sense of this suicidal attraction, the moth replies that he would rather live a short life of passionate beauty than a long one of boring sameness.
When the moth immolates himself on the bright blaze of a cigar lighter, Archy muses that he would rather settle for half the happiness and twice the longevity, but, he says,
‘at the same time I wish
there was something I wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself’.
Saint Augustine of Hippo might be called the patron saint of desire. After all, he once wrote a prayer, ‘Lord, give me chastity, but not yet’. He taught that being in touch with our deepest desires can lead us to the God who is the ultimate goal of all true desire. Archy the cockroach reflects that passionate desires can lead us into danger, but a life lived without passion is hardly worth living. It must be true passion, the longing for life’s deepest potential rather than pointless craving for trivialities. Perhaps the secret is to find deep joy and satisfaction in the quiet quality of living as well as the intense moments, embracing what one writer has called the Sacrament of the Present Moment.
God of all moments, both the quiet and the passionate, teach us to seek and find you at the heart of all our desires, especially in each present moment, since you are the end of all our the end of all our longing. Amen.