Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Latter-day Saint
“This longing . . . IS the return message.”

“This longing . . . IS the return message.”

Last updated on: December 1, 2017 at 3:44 pm by Dan Peterson

“This longing . . . IS the return message.” 2017-12-01T15:44:45-07:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I received this photo a couple of hours ago from friends at Jimmy’s Bazaar in East Jerusalem. BYU’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies — you can see it here, spilling down Mount Scopus (essentially the Mount of Olives) from the upper left, with the tower of the Augusta Victoria Hospital to its right — has just turned on its Christmas lights for the first time this year.

Thanks to Russell Stevenson for reminding me of this choice passage from Orson Pratt’s essay on “The Absurdities of Immaterialism”:

“If, at death, his followers are to be made like him, they will enjoy, with some of the modern Pagans, all the beauties of annihilation. To be made like him! Admirable thought! How transcendently sublime to behold an innumerable multitude of unextended nothings, casting their crowns at the feet of the great, unextended, infinite Nothing, filling all space, and yet ‘without parts!’ There will be no danger of quarrelling for want of room.”

***

Once again, something from the great thirteenth-century Sufi mystic poet Jalal al-Din Rumi:

One night a man was crying,

Allah! Allah!

His lips grew sweet with the praising,

until a cynic said,

“So! I have heard you

calling out, but have you ever

gotten any response?”

The man had no answer to that.

He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.

He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,

in a thick, green foliage.

“Why did you stop praising?”

“Because I’ve never heard anything back.”

“This longing

you express is the return message.” [1]

***

Some notes, including Thomas Carlyle’s translation from the German of E.T.A. Hoffman’s The Golden Pot:

Gracious reader, may I venture to ask you a question? Have you ever had hours, perhaps even days or weeks, in which all your customary activities did nothing but cause you vexation and dissatisfaction; when everything that you usually consider worthy and important seemed trivial and worthless? At such a time you did not know what to do or where to turn. A dim feeling pervaded your breast that you had higher desires that must be fulfilled, desires that transcended the pleasures of this world, yet desires which your spirit, like a cowed child, did not even dare to utter. In this longing for an unknown Something, which longing hovered above you no matter where you were, like an airy dream with thin transparent forms that melted away each time you tried to examine them, you had no voice for the world about you. You passed to and fro with troubled look, like a hopeless lover, and no matter what you saw being attempted or attained in the bustle of varied existence, it awakened no sorrow or joy in you. It was as if you had no share in this sublunary world.[2]

Many, if not all of us, have, at one time or another, felt as Hoffmann describes the student Anselmus here: “He felt that an unknown Something was awakening in his inmost soul, and calling forth that rapturous pain, which is even the mood of longing that announces a loftier existence to man.”[3]

[1] Coleman Barks, with John Moyne, trans., The Essential Rumi (Edison NJ: Castle Books, 1997), 155.

[2] E.T.A. Hoffmann, The Nutcracker and The Golden Pot (New York: Dover Publications, 1993), 17. The Golden Pot was published in 1814; Carlyle’s English translation appeared in 1827.

[3] Hoffmann, The Nutcracker and The Golden Pot, 18.

Posted from Park City, Utah

Uncategorized

Previous Post

December 1, 2017

The Good News

Next Post

December 1, 2017 The Big Bang and a few subsequent things

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

In Revelation, what do the souls under the altar cry out for?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Mercy for their persecutors The return of Christ Justice and vengeance for their blood Peace on earth