How To Satisfy Your Spiritual Hunger
Where do you turn to satisfy your spiritual hunger?
When you experience spiritual hunger where do you turn to satisfy it? The answer may be as close as 6 feet away. Or even closer.
Many people find a fount of spiritual blessing in places like a forest path, or a bird sanctuary, a temple, or an art museum.
A lot of what we are looking for has been described as holy or mystical or even ‘out of this world,’ and we have been known to book holidays and travel to foreign lands to explore these places.
What is it we are hungry for?
When I smell a chocolate cake baking I can tell you exactly what I am hungry for…in my stomach. And after I eat the cake I discover a whole new world of hunger.
I am hungry for self-discipline and forgiveness, I yearn for strength to turn away sooner and I want to understand why!
Why did I eat it? Why am I still hungry?
When we are still hungry after eating enough to satisfy an elephant, what we are feeling cannot be satisfied with the consumption of calories. What we are really feeling is spiritual hunger. I never thought it was fair that my body doesn’t seem to know the difference!
Where to satisfy spiritual hunger
If spiritual hunger isn’t satisfied with chocolate cake, and there isn’t a temple with stained glass windows right next door offering something sacred or mystical to feed a hungry heart, where can we turn?
Years ago I spent an extended period of time in a rehab facility followed by confinement at home.
With the exception of a couple of visits from a chaplain, there seemed to be no apparent solution to my hunger for something to feed my spirit. (You can listen to a recording of that experience here)
I looked around me and what did I see? I knew it wasn’t a matter of finding the holy, or God, or Mystery, for the sacred has never been lost.
It was a case of learning to recognize it all about me.
There is nothing like confinement to home or hospital to give us the eyes to see the sacred, but we have to learn how.
Come with me through an ordinary day and see where I find spiritual sustenance when my soul is hungry.
In the kitchen
As I wash the dishes I make large soap bubbles in the dishwater. They are evidence of mystery, of things not seen, and are gone in the twinkling of an eye.
If I lightly touch the surface of one with the other, they seem to ‘kiss’ and then poof! They vanish quickly and take their beauty and mystery of existence with them.
Life is like a soap bubble— fragile, beautiful, ephemeral, and mystical.
Holding up an empty glass, I ponder what it means to be totally empty…to be open to being used for whatever the bearer wishes to use it for.
If I were that glass I may be filled with something to nourish others, or I may be turned on my head to cut out cookie dough.
I am not in charge. I can only surrender.
If I were a cup filled with soapy water I realize I cannot be filled anymore without being emptied out first.
I know that an experience of feeling empty and useless often happens just before I discover something new.
Satisfying spiritual hunger at the bakery
One place I love to go is a bakery. I can walk away without paying a dime. (In theory, anyway!)
When I step into the warmth of a room filled with freshly baked loaves of bread and pies and chocolate chip cookies I am bathed in aromas that permeate my pores, much like being in the presence of divine love that envelops my whole being.
Did I say I can walk away without paying a dime? I am so filled with the ineffable that I would donate my last two cents to support anyone called to such a mission.
At the market
I have a very practical way to know when it is time to go to the market. The ‘rule of bananas’. Ripe bananas last just four days so that is the approximate schedule for grocery shopping. It is also the rate in which my spirit is quaking with hunger.
So how does an ordinary banana strengthen my soul? Soul food is not about potassium or cream pie.
My soul is strengthened when I envision the farmer who planted, tended, and harvested the bananas. I say a prayer of thanks.
And then I add the truck driver, the young man who cleans the warehouse, the stockboy at the grocery store, and the cashier. I read somewhere that there are 110 people behind every bite of food we eat.
I often use this as a thanksgiving before a meal, especially if little children are present. The only problem is, that they can get carried away while dinner gets cold waiting for them to acknowledge all the people who are behind what is on their plate.
Filling spiritual hunger from wherever you sit
So what are the common, ordinary things in your life? How does the spirit speak to you through them throughout the day?
From where you are sitting, there is a wealth of wisdom and insight waiting for you to access it.
Take a pen and piece of paper, and look around you at a distance of about 6 feet. Write down everything you see and give thanks for all of these blessings.
In a spirit of gratitude for the gift of writing, ask each item what wisdom or insight they are holding for you at this moment.
As I sit here writing now I see a lot of clutter on my desktop. I pause and listen. Soon a question arises in my soul…
“What clutter is in my heart and how does that interfere with my mission?”
And from there, another question emerges —“What IS my mission?” The longer I sit, and the more willing I am to listen, the deeper I go into Mystery.
It isn’t long before my craving for more chocolate cake is replaced by a craving for spiritual food without my even thinking about it. I guess it is time to head for the bakery. To inhale.
To give thanks.
To feed my soul along the way.
Be sure to sign up to receive reflections from
TheReflectivePen every Sunday morning
