God's Longing

It isn’t known when it began,
God’s longing,
Certainly no one mortal knows.
The angels might know,
But for most, it is still a heavenly secret,
A mystery of mysteries
Long hidden.

Some would say that it was always there
Has always been there
From the first instant,
Long before the big bang,
Banged!
Leading up to the first
Thought that caused
Creation to explode suddenly
Out of the emptiness and nothingness
Of all reality, which is still expanding,
Still growing
Still arising within us each.

Many would say, and I would be one,
That God’s longing is eternal.
It is a deep longing, a true longing,
A longing that lingers slowly
And perfectly
Stretching out far past our own imaginations,
However far back or forward we are able to imagine.
It is almost as if God suddenly awoke
And being alone,
In knowing loneliness from the beginning
Sighed deeply, sighed so deeply
In that loneliness,
That in breathing out
Some portion of God’s breath left
His body and being
To seed all creation.

Perhaps it was then, in that moment
When the breath of God first moved
Across the waters of earth
Or moved through the depths of
Nothingness giving birth to creation.
Or gave breath to both Adam and Eve,
And then to all humanity.

Sometimes a thought crosses my mind
A single thought born out of my own breath
As I breathe in deeply during meditation
And out once again quietly and stilly.

Sometimes it comes to me then, in a split second
That this was when God’s Holy Spirit first appeared
And continues to appear throughout all history.
I even imagine that in some secret way
My own loneliness and longing are helping to give birth
To God’s Holy Spirit
And the compassionate loving-kindness
That follows God’s gift to all humankind.
I know this much, that God’s longing for us runs so deep
And so true
That He gave up His only begotten Son, even unto death
So that we might come to know Him and He us.
And that by this miracle of love
God’s Holy Spirit comes to dwell and rest in us.


Ron Starbuck
Copyright 2008