The problem of our time is that we have forgotten how to desire. This is perhaps one of the most emblematic judgements of our contemporary situation. This overarching statement stems from the observation that nowadays we very rarely experience loss in our lifestyles; we seem to be lacking nothing.
We need only look at our difficulty of buying gifts for our loved ones to realise how difficult it has become to find something the other person simply does not have, materially speaking. I say we “seem” to lack nothing, because in actual fact, an inherent part of being human is an eternal dissatisfaction, a thirst for something deeper and more meaningful in life. The overwhelming experience of the pandemic has admittedly thrown into us a revitalised desire to meet and reconnect with others socially.
In actual fact, desire is always triggered by a lack of something, an unsatisfied need, the absence of a person we love, or of an object that we do not yet possess, ranging from the house of our dreams to the plate of food we have yet to eat. The common element in all these moments is that of an absence – a void that needs to be filled, satisfied, taken care of.
The word ‘desire’ has long held a negative connotation, especially in religious conversations. But in actual fact, the liturgical time of Advent, the four weeks of the liturgical year that precede Christmas, we all but try to avoid the subject. Jesus’s call to his disciples to “watch and pray” and to wait expectantly for his coming again, have an underlying theme of desire that we often find in the language of psalms, where the psalmist thirsts for the Lord like a dry, weary land without water, or yearns to revisit the Lord’s temple, the dwelling place of his presence.
The question is, are we still able to desire? There are indications that we might need to relearn how to. Our difficulty to experience or acknowledge loss in our times keeps us far from an experience of want and need, thus not triggering desire in our hearts. We might also have a sense of exhaustion or fear of disappointment regarding desires that have not materialised.
We see this in the way children are brought up. On the one hand there may be an incessant bestowal of toys and everything children dream about, but on the other hand they may experience neglect; these can both block the child from experiencing desire. Even in the experience of relationships and friendships, for true desire to be present there is always the need of presence and absence, closeness and distance.
For true desire to be present there is always the need of presence and absence, closeness and distance
St Augustine puts it beautifully in one of his homilies – he says that the heart that is capable of desiring is also capable of praying, and on the contrary, the heart that has stopped desiring is a heart that is frozen, silent, turned to stone. This season of Advent is a time to reawaken desire in our hearts. Even though it is daring to desire, to put one’s feet forward on uncertain ground, the reward is by far greater and more fruitful than a life of fearful and bitter mediocrity.