Restless in Quarantine
Restless in Quarantine
In the movie Sleepless in Seattle a husband (Sam) loses his dear wife to cancer. A part of him is taken. His son (Noah) is left without a loving mother. He longs for ultimate fulfillment. A girlfriend (Annie Reed) begins doubting the man she is dating is the right fit for her. She too is longing for ultimate fulfillment. Eventually, thanks to Noah (Sam’s son), and fate, they meet up… Assumedly, their longing is requited. And that’s the best the world has to offer!
Now that the quarantine has become norm, if you are like me, certain longings are beginning to come to the surface. It takes a while for longings to sprout. Longings are shy. We keep them in the dark. But forced isolation, or willing solitude are fertile ground for longings to appear. Even the most religious people, the holiest of people, have longings in this world. David did: As the deer longs for water I long for God. Nicodemus, in his shy way, come to Jesus by night because his soul was restless. Augustine, nearly 1600 years ago, confessed a restlessness in his soul, a longing for God, the ultimate resting place. He said it this way: “My soul is restless until I find my rest in you, God.”
There is an odd, uneasy longing that drives us continually toward the Ultimate. Like Sam and Annie, we spend our days and nights in a vague loneliness for someone or something to make us feel complete. Some of us divert this desire. C. S. Lewis captures this diversion in The Weight of Glory
Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.
Evelyn Underhill speaks of such a yearning as “Godsickness,” akin to homesickness, the push toward an unnamed destiny. Godsickness is a good kind of virus to have. Infect every cell of my being! Emilie Griffin identified this heart sickness for God as a longing to pray: “This longing to pray is in itself a kind of prayer. Awkwardly felt, not well-shaped, and often misunderstood, this wanting seems to be no more than a lack, or better described, a hunger. The hunger is a blessing but we may not know it. Jesus must have guessed that people felt awkward about their godly yearnings. To comfort them he said, as we read in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”
So yearn, yearn, yearn little Christ. You were made to long for God. It’s a built-in trigger God tucked away deep in our souls to direct our attention and affection toward him. So I pray: “Awaken this longing in me Holy Spirit. King Jesus, I accept your nudge ‘to come to me and find my rest.’ Dear God, I’m hungry and thirsty for righteousness. You promised I will be satisfied. Thank God!”