Human Longing Makes Us Holy

I think John O'Donohue's books and thoughts are among the most profound of anything written since the creation of human beings. His poetic and deep-minded observations are life affirming, thought provoking, and meaningful. I believe the earth misses his presence walking upon it. Here is a bit of what I mean:

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"For too long, we have believed that the divine is outside us. This belief has strained our longing disastrously. This is so lonely since it is human longing that makes us holy. The most beautiful thing about us is our longing; this longing is spiritual and has great depth and wisdom. If you focus your longing on a faraway divinity, you put an unfair strain on your longing. Thus it often happens that the longing reaches out towards the distant divine, but, because it over-strains itself, it bends back to become cynicism, emptiness or negativity. This can destroy your sensibility. Yet we do not need to put any strain on our longing. If we believe that the body is in the soul and the soul is divine ground, then the presence of the divine is completely here, close with us."

by John O'Donohue from "Anam Cara"