I think the most important thing about going into classical music is that one must love it more than anything else in the world, and to feel that without it his life would be incomplete, so that he must have it at all costs, all expense, for the rest of his life.

(Daniel B. Wood, “The Sweet Sounds of Success,” The Houston Post, Wednesday, October 18, 1989).

What do I love more than anything else in the world?  What do I want more than anything else?  Most of us have mixed desires.  We want this … on the other hand we want that.  But beneath the mixed desires, what is my heart’s desire?  What do I want most of all?

• One day, during a brief stint teaching religion to high school seniors, I made the comment that what makes us happy is not a fancy stereo (this was in olden pre-mp3 days) or cool clothes or a new car.  One seventeen-year-old girl raised her hand and said, not in a smart-alecky tone, but very sincerely and obviously rather puzzled, “But that’s what makes me happy!”  (She has probably lived long enough by now to know better.)

• We know a woman who is addicted to crack cocaine.  What she wants more than anything is crack.  She wants it more than she wants light, heat, and water – so all of her utilities have been turned off now for several months.

• On Answerbag.com the question, “What do you want more than anything else in the world?” brings responses ranging from the superficial to the nearly sublime.  One person replies, “A brand new Colt SAA .45 cal. Buntline Special with a western holster rig.”  Another says, “To be content and know that my actions have affected the world in only positive ways.”

• When God appeared to Solomon in a dream and asked what he desired, Solomon requested an understanding heart, “able to discern between good and evil” (1 Kings 3:9).  God was pleased with Solomon’s request.  If Solomon had gone a bit deeper into his heart, however, he might have gotten in touch with an even more basic love, which for him was expressing itself in the longing for an understanding heart.  This is a desire which has been planted in each of our hearts whether or not we know it.

Out of this desire comes the following prayer by Julian of Norwich:

God, of your goodness give me yourself, for you are sufficient for me.  I cannot properly ask anything less, to be worthy of you.  If I were to ask less, I should always be in want. In you alone do I have all.

Come to this world so laden with sorrow,
dirtied with greed,
fractured by war and hate,
weighed down with anxiety.

Come to our hearts that sometimes long for you
and sometimes choose lesser things over your love.
Come to your beloved people
who don’t know how to receive you.

Come as you are to me,
into this murky heart that too often desires you
to come as someone you are not,
to your dim child who is not sure
to recognize you in your coming.
Brighten these eyes in your beauty, O Beauty,
and enliven the dullness of this mind, O lovely Truth.

Come, O come, Lord Jesus!

The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift. …
The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

(Revelation 22:17, 20)

What is so mysterious is that the monarch butterflies fly each year to a place they have never seen. There seems to be implanted in them the need and the desire for this location and these particular trees, as well as the instinct for arriving there. In fact, the previous ones to winter in those trees are long dead — it is several generations of their grandchildren who make the next trip.

We also have a desire implanted in us — the desire for God. Ordinarily what we long for is something we don’t already have, and it can seem this way with God, too: that we long for God because God is not there.But strangely enough, longing for God is a sign of the divine presence. God is there in our longing. We wouldn’t be longing at all, if God weren’t already present, touching us and implanting in our hearts the desire for the divine. The longing itself draws us toward the one who is truly already with us.

Therefore we can pray, “Come, Lord Jesus!” in confidence and peace, because Emmanuel, “God-with-us,” is present to us and in us as we call to him.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
(Psalm 130:5-7)

“I think,” he said, “the most important thing about going into classical music is that one must love it more than anything else in the world, and to feel that without it his life would be incomplete, so that he must have it at all costs, all expense, for the rest of his life.”

Jesus would probably have recognized the feeling. Here is how he describes the longing for the kingdom of heaven:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:44-46)

I was never inclined to practice the piano eight hours a day, so obviously the desire (not to mention the talent) needed to become a concert pianist was insufficient. But what about my desire for God’s kingdom (or “reign” as the Greek word basileia is probably more accurately translated)? What about my love for Jesus? (Origen described Jesus as ho autobasileia — in other words, Jesus is himself the reign of God.) Am I ready to run and sell all for the One who gave all for me? Or am I willing only to bargain and barter little bits of my heart?

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. (Philippians 3:7-9)

In fact, since our natural and deepest longing is for God, a lot of our lesser longings are actually misplaced. We may think it’s a new computer we want, when actually it is God we are longing for. After all, as St. Augustine says in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it comes to rest in you.”

What is more, our own longing is always in the context of God’s longing for us. God loves us before we can even begin to love God and implants in us our desire for God. So the two desires, God’s and ours, are in harmony. During Advent we are reminded of this intersection of two longings: God’s for us, and ours for God. Graciously these two longings meet in the One who is Emmanuel, “God with us.”

“I am the root and the descendant of David,
the bright morning star.”
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”
Amen.
Come, Lord Jesus!
(Revelation 22:16b-17, 20)

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

God, you are the Heart of my own heart. You are the One without which my heart would have no heart — I would be heartless. You are the Heart toward which my heart longs, the fulfillment of my heart’s desire and my heart’s very being.

And — too amazing for me to grasp — your Heart is the heart that longs for me, and has longed for me even before I could begin to desire you.

It is in your Heart that, at rare moments, I catch a glimpse of the world as it truly is. In your Heart I am given the grace, occasionally, to see myself more nearly as I am and the privilege of beholding others in your love.