Following Our Longings

Like a needle in a hay stack…

Like the eye of the needle…

What must we do to discover our destinies?

Now.  Today.  In this time.

Not the old paces and faces we bring like our flannel pajamas to the day’s zoom meetings.  Not the narratives already completed.

We all know the longing for that “something more” that the theologian Ronald Rolheiser calls “this Holy Longing.”   The “thing” that will complete us, make us whole.

Like a needle in a haystack…

Like the eye of the needle…

So much of the anticipation of Christmas, I think, is bound up in this longing — that the bright lights and piney rooms, the naps and carols will deliver us into a fullness of being that a hard year has gradually ebbed away.

This longing isn’t child’s play.  It is deadly serious.  it is the quest for meaning, direction, fulfillment.  It is a path loaded with landmines if we fail to honor its deep-in-the-night nudges, its irrepressible demands.

For years, a passion of mine was British needlework and quilts.  Until my life of writing, parenting, teaching college students, and sitting with seriously prayerful adults in spiritual direction occupied many waking hours, I was a student of this rich tradition – from the Bayeux Tapestry to the needlepoint kneelers in Anglican churches, to those who continue to innovate at the highest artisanal standards today, turning to found natural objects and lost industrial practices breathing new life into a deeply inspiring craft form.

Recently I had the time to open an issue of one of Britain’s leading fiber journals.  There, among the featured avante gard, was a profile of Cas Holmes, a pioneer more than twenty years ago, a bold innovator in the use of natural objects and personal symbolism in works that today hang all over the world.

One comment stopped me cold.

“I’ve spent most of my time growing into myself,” she said.

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Isn’t this the central call and challenge for each of us?

In the early years, life is an adventure of trial and error.  But at some point we opt into patterns of being and doing that define us — commitments, obligations, habits.  We do the best we can — supporting ourselves, paying the bills, raising children, writing books, fending off disaster, and managing some pleasure and delight along the way.

But one of two things often become true:  We become pot bound.  Or we bolt like plants that haven’t been intentionally pruned for intentional growth.  We stop “growing into ourselves.”

Advent offers the invitation and the risks of pregnancy.  Like the story of Mary and the wise men who set out to witness a “new thing,” anything new in life is inextricably bound to the brokenness and errors and false starts from which is emerges.  But it is the way of all life to stumble before we learn to walk.

Cas Holmes has never stopped discovering, adapting, and remaining open to the inspiration of her gifts.  Today she continues to produce her own work, and offers pop-up workshops for homeless adults and immigrants in venues that meet them where they are: at soup kitchens and drop-in centers.

One important thread of Cas’s growth – as a woman and an artist — entailed taking ownership of her gypsy heritage, in a culture that for a long time had nothing but distrust and distaste for the Roma.  Even as she became one of the most celebrated fiber artists in the world, she carried with her – as Mary would — the mark of stigma, the wound which has made her such an empathic and brilliant teacher of others with “differences.”

For my friend Ellen, growing into herself meant coming out at the age of nearly 40, a mother with a teenage son.  For Paul, it meant leaving a career in finance to join an intentional community.

Imagine what star dwells within you, guiding you through the dark season.  Or the voice of an improbable angel, gladdening you when you approach your truths, cautioning you when you are about to veer off again.

Perhaps you will remember teachers, as important to you as Cas Holmes was to me, among the lapsed or forgotten dreams you might return to?  What threads – dropped for the expediency of your busily DEFINED days are calling to be picked up again?  What new darkness is inviting you to trust the walk by starlight?

For my part, this Advent I have dug out old swatches of muslin, embroidery floss, and dyes.

I’m not sure what will become of all of it.  I don’t know yet whether my “thread work” will be literal or metaphorical.  But I will allow it to act on me, in trust, as a goad and a powerful reminder that I must be on pilgrimage if I am to continue to grow into myself.

Advent gives us this.  To become wholeheartedly present and alive in the world requires risking the truths of our longings, the pursuit of our own stars.