The Expansionist Podcast
Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake invite you to listen in on a continuing conversation about expanding spirituality, the Divine Feminine, and the transforming impact of living attuned to Wisdom, Spirit and Love.
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The Expansionist Podcast
Following Our Souls Deepest Longings
This stirring episode join a continuing conversation exploring longings and how they shape, our human experience and our divine connections, and have the potential to illuminate our life's true calling.
Personal narratives that resonate with anyone who's ever sought something just out of reach, Heather Drake shares how a childhood longing for paternal presence bloomed into a broader understanding of family and community. Journey with us as we contemplate the ways in which these deeply ingrained desires shape our identities, relationships, and spiritual quests for belonging. We unearth the significance of mirroring and engaging dialogues in the pursuit of recognizing our truest desires, fostering a sense of belonging within an inclusive congregation, and the spiritual nourishment found in acknowledging our yearnings.
As we draw this episode to a close, we rest in the transformative power of our longings, invoking the poetic wisdom of John O'Donohue to guide us. We ponder how the courage to traverse the unknown, propelled by the whispers of our hearts, can yield a life rich with love, creativity, and friendships that echo the depths of our souls. So, we invite you to embrace this exploration as more than a conversation; it's an opportunity to honor the profound longings that are calling us toward our divine destinies.
Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit and love.
Speaker 2:I am so excited to be in this space with you today to just share our heart about a topic that we have held for months and months, and maybe even years, as women, and maybe even longer than years. What would that be? Decades as people of faith, right, and I think this is an exciting topic, not just as women, but this season that we are finding ourselves in as we learn to expand, to widen our thinking about theology and in ways that that spirit might be leading us. I think longing is a topic that we are going to maybe start with today, but maybe we will find other opportunities to bring this conversation back. So welcome.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for this space and for the time to maybe demystify longing or at least make it normal, or actually rewilded again, awakened to this wild longing that we all have, and each of it may be different, unique, but that we are people in our humanity, fashioned in the image of a God who also has longings, in the image of a God who also has longings.
Speaker 1:And so being able to say I am in touch with, or I know, or I am at least on a path to discovering my longing, being able to listen for the voice of longing or feel the pull of longing and take out like the hooky spooky um, take out like the hooky spooky but be able to say here is where I recognize divine connection, or I recognize attachment to our eternal parents, or I recognize holy or sacred, but honoring, longing for what it is, not only in ourselves but in others, and cultivating communities and conversations that allow us to hold these beautiful, sacred thoughts of what is it like to know, respect and own our longing.
Speaker 2:Wow, it's going to be a fun conversation. I can already tell.
Speaker 1:And certainly certainly not one that we'll be able to do in 30 minutes or 35. But what if we could rewild the idea that each person yeah, what does that mean?
Speaker 2:to you? What is rewild longing? What is tell us about that?
Speaker 1:Because I think people have talked about it, but it's always been like at least how I have understood it it's been like a sad thing, like, oh, they long for something they can't have, or it's been relegated to things of people with longings should just get over them or they should do something about them. And I often wonder if, really, what we're talking about is desire and not necessarily a longing. Talking about is desire and not necessarily a longing, or if we've just, you know, we've taken longings and we've put it in a neat little box and we said this is what it is, you can choose to take one as you go or not. You know, and I don't think that's what longing is. I think it's part of the fabric, of the expression of God in each one of us and it is an eternal longing and I think that you know again, this is my opinion, but it does bring us back to connection, to the divine and to the very center of ourselves, and I suspect it's for the betterment of the whole world.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, that's a beautiful introduction to rewilding longing.
Speaker 2:I love that and I think for me as well.
Speaker 2:Longing and I've written about this a couple of times and had conversations with people over the last 20 some years introducing them to their purpose or their mission in life and longing, in my opinion, is somehow attached to purpose and it goes back to that beautiful passage in First Testament on when you were in your mother's womb.
Speaker 2:I saw you and I often ask people what did God see in that space? What did God place there? What did God fashion in the womb that you were going to come out into this world with this uniqueness, with this fingerprint, with this intelligence and this wild imagination of what you were going to do or be in the world. And then somehow we get into education and we start this kindergarten track, we get into junior high. By the time we're in high school I think we have lost our purpose. It has kind of like been beaten out of us in a way, because there is a mold or there's expectation or there's some other track that we're supposed to be following, and so longing got pushed some other direction, and so longing got pushed some other direction.
Speaker 1:I think even in the church sometimes we're not as versed in talking about longing, maybe as we could be, it was given to us at birth, but then it's not part of the product. Maybe that's an American way or a Western culture way, like coming and allowing the fact that perhaps we've forgotten how magic, how spirit we actually are.
Speaker 1:And so when you go back to that scripture and it says I knew you when I was knitting you together in your mother's womb, yeah, just that idea. That leads me to think of the story in Genesis where it says where the spirit hovered over the waters and the world was formed and void, and just that, even in the crafting of us, the same spirit that offered that at creation, offered her creativity, offered it to each one of us, that at creation offered her creativity, offered it to each one of us. And what part of spirit the longing even of spirit.
Speaker 1:Do we need to reawaken, to Do we need to go? Oh, that is the magic, or that is the hope, or that is the longing that reminds me of my true self, of the essence of which I was made, reminds me of how I am made in the image of God and how God intends to be seen in the earth in beautiful ways that connect us not only to our longing for the eternal parents, but also our longing for each other and our longing for wholeness, our longing for. I think sometimes when I hear a person's longing, it's often in the question of is this all there is? Is there more? Is there something else? Why am I here? All of those things though they can have pat answers and they can be often satisfied with a temporary, it leans into me as a question of longing and I hear the sacred calling in that, and there's other texts and verses and poems that remind us that this is part of our humanity, that we long, and I appreciate what you said.
Speaker 1:Like very, very early in us it's often boxed out of us Like you don't need that here, where we've already decided how you can be productive in our society and now, or we, not just in the school system, but often in religious areas, where we say I see your gift and we want to monopolize on it. We will take that gift, Thank you very much, and we will. We will monetize that and we will use it for ourselves as opposed to going. What internal intelligence do you have, what gift of God do you have and how can we help you live in that longing is very different than how can we help your ministry or how can we help you be more effective, for us.
Speaker 1:And so uh. I I value the purpose and the mission statement, but going back, if I think even further to our mother's womb and going what did spirit see? I think that's a brilliant question, because I think we know. I think that somehow we've forgotten.
Speaker 2:And I wonder if we start asking these questions that lead us we think they're going to lead us closer to understanding longing, but sometimes they become a distraction. Like is longing a dream? Is it real? Is it true, right? Does everybody have a dream? Is longing in my heart, in my soul, is it in my body? Like where is this longing? Where is it housed? Is it longing in my heart, in my soul? Is it in my body? Like where is this longing? Where is it housed? Is it just in my mind? Do I think about this non-stop, right? Or or is it um? Or is longing that sound that we hear when a train is far off in a distance, or a morning dove? Or is longing this invitation to come closer to spirit or to come closer to God?
Speaker 2:But we're not quite sure how to do that, because longing seems like this you said in the basement, which I love that image, and sometimes I think people have actually held it. They've held longing in their hands and they've put it in a box. They've put the lid on it, tied a bow around it and put it in the attic. Right, because they're going to pass that longing on, maybe to their children. Right, it's like, okay, I didn't fulfill my purpose and I still have this desire to be an astronaut, or I still have this desire to be a chef, or I have this desire, but I put that longing, I put that desire in a box with a bow in the attic and I'll get it out sometime when I have children, when my career's solid. I think we do this and so, consequently, how do we talk about longing when it's in the basement or in the attic? I know you have an answer to that.
Speaker 1:I do and well, at least I have my opinion of the answer or my idea of it. I think one of the things is we have to normalize using our treasures, like we have good things and then we put them away for a rainy day or for later use, we forget. We have like this utilitarian type of lives where we go to work, we wake up, we perform something, we go toward a goal. That's very different than saying use the good china now. It's very different than saying, if this is a beautiful piece of art, don't put it in the attic. And then when someone buys your house years later after you're dead, they find this treasure that you have not been using the whole time.
Speaker 1:There are so many treasures in the world around us and in ourselves that are for the use of for every day, for us to experience the divine, for us to experience true living, for us to quench the thirst that we ourselves are living with and then to offer this beautiful holy water to everyone else as well. But I think that the way that we get our treasures out of the basement and out of the attic is to live life with a lot less maybe walls or compartments, for us to live together in community, but also for us to find, come back and come home to our true selves, maybe to give up ideas that say our lives are going to be a product that we can manage or that we have come up with, that our lives are ones deeply connected to spirit, deeply connected to the whole of humanity and deeply connected to the work that God intends to do through the whole world, through us, through the kingdom coming just like it is in heaven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, beautiful thoughts. I wonder too, heather, if, as women, these roles, these expected roles to be a mother, to be a wife, in particular we just jump into these places and maybe we're not considering our longing, but we jump in and we make the best of it and we get in and then we're like this isn't what I longed for. I still feel this longing. I mean, you and I have had these conversations and we've had them with other people, right, like I feel trapped. I'm stuck here now, I can't move and sometimes, Shelly.
Speaker 1:The truth is that people didn't only jump into these places. Sometimes they were pushed into them by culture, by family, by, you know uh, just a circumstance or a need. And so can you be a successful parent and a person in a relationship that has a good marriage, even if that's not what you long for. Yes, but there's a way to integrate that in everything. You can also find yourself very unhappy and take a road toward longing, but you can also find yourself very fulfilled and still hear the echo that there is something more.
Speaker 1:But I love that you're bringing us to question the fact that our femininity, or our connection to the divine parent, our connection to the sacred feminine, our connection even more to ourselves, to the grounding of nature, to recognizing the witness of the Holy Spirit everywhere, these things require us to listen to those ancient echoes that say this was always the plan. Fellowship with God and with each other, fellowship with our truest selves, connection, wholeness, love being expanded. This has been the plan since the very beginning. And how do we live our lives? Rewilding this longing. Sometimes I feel like a lot of our society is very much oriented around factory. We're all going to be the same. Here's your particular script, here's what you'll do, here's how you'll be happy in your life.
Speaker 1:Here's a few trinkets for you to keep you occupied, or here's a few things, goals that will set, and maybe you can achieve that and then you'll be happy. As opposed to giving people the power to be able to hear the echo, to respond to it and to have peace in the in-between Because to connect with your longing doesn't necessarily mean the longing will be fulfilled but to be able to have the capacity to hear the ancient echoes and to know where we are presently and then even to speak or to live into the future and how we set other people free and how we provide communities that allow us to learn how to move and live and be in spirit, these kind of things are ways to hold very complicated, very messy, very complex humanity and say, like God says, it's all very good.
Speaker 2:You mentioned something just a few minutes ago about longing may not ever be fulfilled, yeah, and so in our conversations we've talked about that as being an eternal place. Because one of the ways that I that I think about longing as this eternal um, knowing or uh, expansion is, is that the closer that I get to the longing, the more beautiful it opens and it evolves. Right, it expands, it literally reaches another dimension. And so when you said desire, we confuse desire with longing, because desire oh, I'm hungry for tacos, I can go get that right now. I'm desiring chocolate, cake or cheesecake or something delicious I can achieve that pretty quick.
Speaker 2:Longing, I don't think we achieve it. I think it takes time. It takes time for our longing to become known to us. Maybe we know it when we're small, small, and it gets kind of pushed out of us as the the more educated we get. Um, but you know, I feel like the longing is this eternal space, is that it invites me to go deeper and wider. And that's what makes it longing, because if it could be achieved, if it could be, I got the stamp, I got the t-shirt, I got the book, I'm good, right, I've arrived. But it just doesn't happen that way. I believe it really takes time to reveal that in ourselves and to really understand it.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I think has been helpful in identifying longing is kind of going back and looking at first longings but also having conversations around longing. Sometimes we need mirroring mirroring each other's light, someone to say, I see this in you, I have witnessed this in you, and to be open in having conversations or facilitating conversations, where we get to verbalize or to listen or to learn to listen to someone who is maybe more experienced further down the road and maybe it takes a whole lifetime to kind of come to an awareness of our longings, but part of it is the beauty or the excitement or the challenge of uncovering it.
Speaker 1:To know this is our connection, and I agree with you that it takes, you know, different moments for all kinds of people. I know some people who are born, or who appear to have been born, with such a connection to their longing that they will not be swayed from it. They know from the time. They're tiny, tiny. And I know other people that we've had conversations with, you and I both, who are really advanced in age and really haven't even taken the time to think about it. When we ask about those kinds of questions, they're like, yeah, I never even thought about it, I just did. I played the script. Whatever was handed to me, that's what I had. And so I think the invitation by the Holy Spirit is for all of us to expand our ways of thinking about longing, maybe give them over to something greater, or allow a better translation or a bigger imagination to come into what is it possible that I was given in connection to longing? How was I intended to connect to the very source of love, back to our eternal parents, back to God, back to spirit, and how has that maybe even been pointing me in directions that maybe I didn't even know about? You and I had a conversation and we were talking about our longings and one of the ways that I recognized it in a conversation that you would ask what was my first longing. And I know that I had a longing, and I was well before school age, so I would say about three because I wasn't even in a preschool yet and my dad was away in the Vietnam War and I was home with my mom and a very young brother and my grandparents lived with us and I remember a deep longing for my father, not a desire please come home. I want a family that I can remember, because at that point I really didn't have many even memories of this family that I was wanting. I wanted my dad to be home and when my dad came back from Vietnam he wasn't able to father us or to participate in the family. His own brokenness, his own tragedy, tragedy. And so I grew up wanting him in our lives and not just wanting a father.
Speaker 1:And I come back to that as a longing, because it wasn't my father in particular that I wanted. What I wanted was this sense of connection to family, was belonging, and throughout my school years, belonging, and throughout my school years I had times where my father would say that he would come and he wasn't able to actually follow through on that promise. And such a deep regret for me, such a deep pain for me in wanting something that was not even achievable, and even then, all the way through high school. And I am married now and have children and still long for this relationship with my father, and even after his and there have been times, I think, like five or six times in an entire lifetime, you know his lifetime that he was able to connect, but they were very brief and they certainly weren't fulfilling in what I believe a father should be or what my father even wanted to be. It wasn't what I experienced.
Speaker 1:What I experienced was a lot of big feelings toward wanting something and someone's inability to give me what I wanted, and I think it set me up for awareness of this longing and how I could come to something more, and I continue to offer that to myself and to others. There is more in our belonging, but this sadness that was also gifted to me, in this longing that my father was not able to be present, that he was not able to cooperate or be a part of my life, um, and then, in the grief of him dying and recognizing, I had to grieve, a hope, a hope that he would return to us and that of the world and for the connection to God that make us family. And so for me it has been so hopeful to be able to return to that longing and say it's not that Steven Rasmussen failed, it's not that he failed in being my father. It is that in that longing that he was offered a grace to be able to participate. But what I desire is more than what one single person could ever give me, and so in that grieving and in that recognition, there's a lot of release that I can give to my father to be able to say I recognize what I wanted for you was way more than just a person, and being able to turn that over to spirit and say what does it look like? How is that fleshed out in my life as a local pastor?
Speaker 1:Something that's been so important to me and I tie it to that longing was we make great sacrifices to have very open community. Everyone comes to the table table physically and also spiritually. This expansive idea that family is so much bigger than what we could have imagined, those are the things that I think bring us back to longing. We want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend, and if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionistheologycom.
Speaker 2:Thank, you for this story, for sure, of your first longing. And as I'm listening to you, I'm wondering you know those that will listen to this podcast. I wonder what their first longing, you know what that's going to stir in them? So, first and foremost, you know, thank you for that openness to bring your first longing here and share it with the world, so to speak. Longing here and share it with the world, so to speak. And also, I want to say that the thing that I know about you and your mission is, ultimately, it is about radical hospitality. Right, like you say that it's a family and maybe it's, you know, your, your local family, your um, your, your own um, children and a partner. But then it reaches into a faith family, and then maybe this global expression as well. Right, this, this way to um, way to show hospitality.
Speaker 2:So this longing started as, wow, I miss my dad, I want to see my dad, I need to. There's this strand in me that is not getting met, no matter what I do or no matter how I think about it. But now fast forward to this, the season that you're in and that's evolved. Your longing is continuing to touch people every week. I don't even know the number right? I'm not even sure. And so my thinking, my personal thinking, is that our longing is always bigger, always bigger than the task at hand or to the problem at hand, to maybe even what's going on in the world at times in the world at times. But making space to identify that that very first one could be a clue as to how is this longing, how does it unfurl over time and still propel me, or you in this case, propel you to offer this longing and serve it on a plate so that others can eat and taste that this is good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that imagery of taste and see that this is good. How do you know? I've had people come to my house and I've said, are you hungry? And they said no. And I've still said, well, try this. And then they've said, well, I didn't even know I was hungry until I tried that. And because maybe if all you've had is cardboard food, or maybe you've not had something of spirit, maybe you've had a religion or an experience with a church but you have not tasted the wild goodness of spirit, then maybe you just need to come to a table at least these are the stories that I tell myself.
Speaker 1:You need to come to a table where their feast is all heaped up, where every delicious thing is available, and maybe it will be an appetizer for you, maybe it will inspire something more. But one of the things that identifying longing my own longing has done is it has allowed an expansiveness in even being generous and gentle with other people, recognizing that their longings may not be the same as mine.
Speaker 1:Sure, well, they probably aren't, perhaps you know there are other people who also have this longing for everyone come home, everyone just gather around the table, and that, to me, is one of the reasons why practicing the Eucharist is so important, or these rituals that tell us come back to the table, because ultimately what drives us to the table is hunger. We don't necessarily come to the table out of duty. We come because there is more, and so I think longing brings us to the table. But even to be able to say the longing to be at the table, to serve the tableator who says if you're thirsty, come to the waters that do not run dry. If you're hungry, come and eat and do not buy. It's all here. You don't have to perform this.
Speaker 1:You just come, and so identifying our longings, I think that ultimately, if everything went as planned, should lead us into mission, should lead us into purpose, but sometimes it doesn't, or we've not been taught how to listen to the echo and then say where does that resonate in you, how is the spirit calling you or how do you see yourself participating in what the spirit is doing in the whole world? And I think sometimes we have to find tools or people or experiences that will help us to be able to identify mission and purpose and ways that we can actually live out of our truest selves, instead out of a performative script.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we can put some of those links in the show notes, particularly around the Path book by Lori Beth Jones. That, I think, is a great resource for getting started in understanding. You know, why am I here? What is my purpose? What was I created for and to be in the world. Sometimes just answering the questions in the path is a door opener. It's a threshold that people can cross into a larger portal of understanding of their own personal longing.
Speaker 2:But if, if, if there's, if there's people that are listening that are like, wow, I've had this longing for a long time and this is like the second podcast I've ever heard people talking about longing, then okay, then we've got some tools and resources for that. But what I want you to talk about just for a minute is the. You know, is there just one longing, right? Do we have this one longing and then it evolves or it branches into other areas? Or is it that the longing for family, or radical hospitality, or the restoration of women in your mission, right? It feels to me like it's all connected to that same sort of longing. And so I've had people say, well, can I have more than one longing? Well, I guess it depends on how much time you have in your day Like how are you going to watch this longing unfurl or transform the lives in front of you? So talk to us a little bit about that for a second. Is there more than one, or does it branch?
Speaker 1:I certainly would never tell someone they can't have more than one because I again just not that prideful, I don't know. I don't know that for you, but I would say that my experience and in the experience of talking with other people about their longings is very often we hear echoes of our longings. But if we've been raised in a tight family unit or culture, we can also end up hearing echoes of our parents' longings or of the culture's longings for us. So it's really important to do the deep heart work and go. Is this a longing that was given to me by someone else who didn't do their job or didn't participate in the way that they were supposed to?
Speaker 2:It's the one in the attic in the basement, right it came back.
Speaker 1:And so when someone says I have lots of longings, that's possible and, like you said, I don't know how many lifetimes it will take you to live out those longings.
Speaker 1:But I'm reminded of one time we grew up in the Midwest. I grew up there, I know that you did too, but I grew up in the Chicagoland area in the 70s. I was in school and there was a blizzard in 1970. It was so bad, I mean, the snow was well beyond my head in many, many places, and so it became treacherous and dangerous for us, as small people, to navigate this.
Speaker 1:Now, this wasn't going to be forever, but for this amount of time it was going to be bad for us to try to take care of ourselves or go outside. We still had school, because you know it's Chicago, you're not getting off much school for a blizzard. Who cares? People have lived through blizzards before. But when the snow is above your head, you can't see, and when you know you're out without a parent or grandparent and you're doing your chores and the things that we had to do is just a bit overwhelming.
Speaker 1:And this visual that came to my mind when it came to longing was my grandfather tied um a nylon rope around the bottom of our handrail at the back porch. You get on the stairs then and he tied it to a unattached garage which was, you know, past. You couldn't see it because of the snow where it was, but in order to get to that garage that's how we got into cars, that's how we you know the tools were there, other shovels, things had to be done get us to the garage, to the house, and so he tied this and said if you keep your hand on this, you can get safely between these two places.
Speaker 2:Beautiful.
Speaker 1:Even if you can't see where you're going. And I thought of that when we were talking about longing, because I was thinking are there ways for us to stay attached to our true leave one home and then come back home? Or allows us to spend time in the garage but also brings us back home? And even if we can't see it, can we trust that someone who loved us put it there? Can we trust that love gave us the longing not to infuriate us, not to agitate us or make us unhappy, but to bring us back home to God and to the original source of love?
Speaker 1:And so when I listen to people's longings, it helps me to be able to remember that many, sometimes again, maybe because it's so wild it's hard to define, but longing sometimes has little branches or trees or extensions, and we have heard echoes of other people's longings. But what rings true for us, in the deepest part of us? I think part of that is what makes us really feel like we come alive, and more than what makes us feel like we come alive and more than what makes us feel like we come alive. But what have we heard as an inner witness for years and years? And some of us have ignored it, ignored it and live our lives, but I think that wholeness requires us to lean into longing. As much as I am a firm believer, there are two truths that I am holding onto with both hands. It is longing and belovedness, and I believe that an intersection with those two things, with the spirit that can be a beautiful threading that can be a threefold cord that is not easily broken.
Speaker 1:Understanding what the longing is understanding my connection, my own belovedness, and that I'm beloved, whether I ever get in touch with that longing or not.
Speaker 2:But the longing is an invitation, I believe, into a life of the spirit that we may not get to experience unless we're open to rewilding the sacred voice in us that says you're meant for something so much more, such a beautiful image of the rope or the nylon whatever that was that stretched across, and how you reminded us that, even if we can't see it, it's still there, right, it's something that we can rest in, that truth that the Divine Mother put the rope, stretched it across and said I have already put this in you, heather, I have already put this in you, shelley, and this is not going to go away, but I'm going to keep it here. It's going to be stretched out. If you take a divergent path or if you lose your way, or if there's a trauma or a loss, it's still going to be connected. And I feel, like Heather, that that is.
Speaker 2:That is the wooing, that is the movement of spirit that reminds us look over here, you've forgotten something, right? Not screaming at us, but that still small voice that says I have created you, I saw you, I knit you together in your mother's womb and I took great pleasure and great care in that formation. And when you enter this world, these are your unique fingerprints that no one else has. So when you touch that rope, that is your rope, that is your connection, this longing to, to create a better world or, um, you know, to expand love to, to witness the spirit moving in our lives, um in our families, right, such beautiful um. Thank you for that. That beautiful image of the string of the rope. It helps us capture longing in a beautiful way.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that I think of when I consider that particular event was it still required me to do the walking. It still required me to be brave and to get off the porch to go toward that and, like I said, when the snow is all around you and you just cannot see, didn't see the end destination, but to be able to trust the love that put up the plan. You know our lives will require us to still live them. Longing doesn't live a life for us.
Speaker 1:But if we can keep one hand on the longing, metaphorically, and make the steps toward the life that we want to live, or the life that we want to build, to be able to usher in the kingdom of God, all of the goodness, all of the mercy that the world is in such need of. I want to again thank you for this conversation. We certainly aren't finished, Thank you. I wanted to close with some words from John O'Donohue, A Book of Blessing on the longing. So I would like to bless us by using his words Blessed be the longing that brought you here and quickens your soul with wonder.
Speaker 1:May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire that disturbs you when you have settled for something safe. May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease to discover the new direction your longing wants you to take. May the forms of your belonging in love, creativity and friendship be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul. May the one you long for long for you. May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire. May a secret providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling, and may your mind inhabit your life with the sureness in which your body inhabits the world. May your heart never be haunted by ghost structures of old damage and may you come to accept your longing as divine urgency. May you know the urgency with which God longs for you. It was our joy to have you listen to our conversation today. If you would like further information or for more content, visit us at expansionisttheologycom.