The Longing
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare
to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
~From THE INVITATION, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
The words above jumped off the page of the book, THE INVITATION, that I am currently reading. Yes, I thought, I could have written this myself! This is exactly how I feel, all the time, when I go to parties, when I meet someone new, when I ask “How are you?”
What I really mean is, “What is your deepest desire?” “What do you yearn for in the darkest hours of the night when the clock is ticking and you think that no one is listening?
I get so weary of small talk. So weary of yammering on about this thing and that thing, and who got this and who made the latest ranking in the newest version of “Who’s the Best at Everything?”
But I never get tired of listening about what matters to your heart. What you care about, what you long for, what inspires you, what you are passionate about…so passionate in fact that you are willing to march forth and become more than your fear ever would allowed you to be before.
I’ll never tire of listening to your honest struggles or about how you wrestle the obstacles to the ground that stand between you and your passion, nor tire of helping and encouraging you to overcome your fears, nor will I shy away from supporting you when you become fragile and frightened and think that life has handed you more than you could possibly bear. I will listen, support, do my best to inspire, encourage and love.
I want passionate friendships. I want honest, heartfelt, supportive friends that can talk to each other about the deepest parts of their hearts and know that they will not face judgement, not incite ridicule, not endure rejection, but can rest in faith, knowing they are safe and sound in the arms of love.
When I say I am shy, I guess I mean that I am not really very good at small talk. I want deep talk. When there is just chatter, I don’t often know what to say. I melt into the wall and observe the motions, the little signals and I wonder…
What’s going on in there? How are you? What do you ache for? And do you dare to dream?
