anticipation

“…but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”

-u2

 

I thought it a good idea at the time. The front porch was high enough off of the ground to allow adequate air time without the danger of subsequent broken bones or personal disfigurement. A running start down the hallway would prevent the hard right turn into the living room from hindering my overall speed and my Superman costume would do the rest. I suppose, in retrospect, that I should have scouted out the territory more rigorously, but boyish ambition and glee got the better of me. I was in mid-air sporting a pose of heroic masculinity before I saw all the guests sitting at tables in the yard, forks poised at their open mouths, their eyes wide with a mix of astonishment and amusement. The inglorious distance between the ground and my feet expanded and in my heart I understood the old adage, Eheu, quam volucris laetitia!¹

My infant cry was first heard in Tucson, Arizona, but I was scampering barefoot in Kenya, Africa before my sixth birthday. In a strange career move, Dad secured a post as missionary doctor in rural Africa. The small hospital was located at the base of Mt. Elgon and the view was amazing. I could scamper a few houses down and look over a wide valley that spread its agrarian patchwork quilt over the distant Ugandan border. My imagination was nurtured in tropical climes so remote that even seeing airplanes over that part of the world was a rare and distant event. I used to scramble up the Guava tree and onto the tin roof of our house at the slightest sound of an airplane: a sound as thin and far off as an extended exhale of breath from pursed lips. I would lie down on my back and search the azure sky, learning early to look well past the sound itself for any shimmer of light that might betray the gravity-defying object hurtling through the heavens.

So when I received a gift from the states and unwrapped my first and only authentic Superman outfit, it seemed only natural to give it a test run. The power of flight, after all, was in my own hands. I was sure that the bright cape would somehow transform my skinny, pale body, indeed, even my boyish character, into something different. I longed for something better than regular me, but that longing met only disappointment.

I haven’t changed much since then. No, I don’t don the cape and spandex suit any more, but I still wrestle with the same longings. My life is characterized by inconsolable longing, I mean, a really persistent hunger. I long for meaning in my life, for significance and purpose, for freedom and the ability to change. I long to be loved and to have someone to love. I long for spiritual flight, even happiness—which I have a sneaking suspicion would be satisfied by having freedom and purpose and love—but happiness likes to play Hide-and-Seek. You know what I really want? I want to be whole. I want to be more than I am right now. I can only assume that I’m not alone in this longing. We turn out in hordes to buy the next book on finding purpose and significance. A glance at the year’s top ten books and music betrays our dominant need for meaning, but a perennial disappointment seems to be the capstone of our efforts.

With all of the money and effort put into finding significance, why are there still so many broken lives? Why does the thirst for significance only increase? Why does disappointment lurk around almost every corner? Like people trying to hold a fist full of water, many of us hope that this time, this time will be the last time we are let down. So a young girl dreams of finding her prince, but twenty years after marrying him, she leaves for another prince. So a boy stays up at night dreaming of a sleek technological toy by which he can harness the admiration of his peers and leverage his way into the global marketplace, only to chuck the gadget for a newer model within a year. So a man squanders his life anticipating the next promised land: after high school, college; after college, a career; after a career, retirement. But college is a litany of coursework, his career is a grind, and retirement proves a bore.

Satisfaction eludes us both on the outside and the inside. We plunge our hands into water, we plunge them in up to the wrist and, staring into the basin, we wonder what we’ve missed². Yes, we meet disappointment even within ourselves. Our New Year’s resolutions turn rancid within only a few weeks and the dedication to be a better human being usually fizzles out within hours. What we promised to forget keeps tapping on the mind’s window and what we promised to remember has fled the building. Like the psalmist, we cry out, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” And like the psalmist, many of us still wake up downcast, nagged by disappointment, and the praise remains a heartless mumble on our lips.

The mildew of letdown also strikes family. How often are family members insincere with each other? Where they expect joy, they uncover bitterness. They offer lip service to forgiveness and wink at ungratefulness. More often than not, they drag their chains of bitterness and refuse to leave them behind. So many of us pretend to be all grown up, but our spirit throws tantrums when it feels under-appreciated or misunderstood or crossed. People slap each other in boxes, duct tape them shut, and smack a label on top: “She did it again,” we mutter. “He always thinks that,” we say. “He’s always so arrogant,” we complain, and although the failure happened many years ago, it is easily trotted out for the entire family to revisit annually. And then we wake up in the shower, suddenly realizing that we’re stewing over the same person again and have no idea how we got in the shower or how long we’ve been standing beneath its spray.

Healing. We want healing and we look under every stone to find it.