Lent Day 9: One Thing

Another of the songs based on Psalm 27 I've taken into my heart is "This Alone," by Tim Manion (of St. Louis Jesuits fame). Please, if you don't know the piece, listen to it here.

The refrain is based on verse 4 of the psalm:

One thing I asked of the Lord,
    that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord,
    and to inquire in [God's] temple.  ~Psalm 27:4

I learned this song as a member of the choir at Saint Ignatius of Loyola Church, on the Boston College campus. As I listen to this recording, one particular line jumps out at me, as if the writer were not only setting the psalm, but also placing it in dialogue with his own life:

"For one day within your temple
    heals every day alone."

I know this song called to me. I usually tell the story of my call to ordained ministry by talking about a particular day in the fall of 1988, an experience that was enhanced (probably, enabled) by an Amy Grant song. If I listen to these lyrics, though, I realize I had many "little calls" along the way. In high school I went on a retreat and felt a shock of recognition that there was a way of living I hadn't fully considered, or even understood yet. In college I was invited on the freshman retreat and found more of that alluring promise of abundant life. I set out to take a graduate degree in pursuit of one profession, but the degree itself-- an MA in Pastoral Ministry-- strongly suggested something else entirely.

While I was in that program I was invited to help lead a retreat for undergraduates. I wrote a paraphrase of Psalm 84 for the retreat. For the verse (10b) that reads,

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
    than live in the tents of wickedness...

I wrote,

O let me in;
I would polish the doorknobs.

There was always a longing, insistent, and the container that seemed to hold it was my faith or church or retreat experiences.

I always felt the pang of those words, including Manion's addition one day within God's holy place "heals every day alone." There I was, a person with some friends, loving family, married to my college sweetheart, but I still resonated with an aloneness that came from fearing separation from God, alienation from God's holy places.

Augustine of Hippo wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.” I believe that is the exact loneliness described in the song:  the soul's restlessness until it finds rest in God. I don't believe being a pastor means that a person has necessarily found that particular rest; heaven knows my days are not fully taken up basking blissfully in God's presence. And no matter your occupation, it's possible (sometimes, even easy) to allow the busy-ness to crowd out that rest. (When did you last take a day off?)

That one thing... abundant life in the presence of God... if it's missing, might just be the thing that underlies all our unease, our sense that things are not quite right. The strange thing is: the more we connect with that longing, the more acute it becomes, even if we do find ourselves basking in the joy of God's presence from time to time. The very first question of the Westminster Catechism (in its non-inclusive language) suggests it is the supreme goal for each human life:

Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

It's the one thing. I am-- we are-- lonely for God. God welcomes our loneliness, and uses it to draw us closer.