satisfaction and insatiability
being filled at the lord’s table
All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.-Ecclesiastes 1:7-8
All of us are born insatiable. We have an infinite appetite for beauty, goodness, and truth. The writer of Ecclesiastes puts this in terms of sense experience: “the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.”
Does the musician wake up one day content to never hear another note again? Does the lover stop longing to see the beauty of the beloved?
If someone wakes up listless, not wanting to eat, unmotivated to get out of bed, we think there is something wrong with that person. A human who ceases to desire is sick or deficient in some way.
While there can be a shadow side to the insatiable nature of human desire, I believe it is a feature, not a bug.
the religious solution to insatiability: “don’t want!”
Oftentimes, religious types will tell you all the things you are not supposed to want. When I was in middle school, I was told it was sinful to listen to all that grunge rock that had won my affection. In a moment of extreme piety, while at a church camp, I committed to giving up all my CDs. To this day, I regret all the Pearl Jam and Soundgarden I chucked in the trash bin.
Growing up in church, I never doubted there were many things I was not supposed to desire. But rarely was I encouraged to want. Desire is dangerous—better to lobotomize than let the heart want things that might possibly maybe potentially lead to sin.
In my experience, the religious solution to human insatiability is to deny desire, to cut that part of your humanity out of you. The religious solution is simply to yell, “Don’t want!”
That may work for a time, and it may produce results of a kind. But it does not lead to a fully flourishing life. In fact, it can make you like that sickly person who ceases to desire altogether.
The world presents itself as a healthy alternative to all this morbid religious repression. Instead of denying yourself, you can get as much as you can, as long as you don’t hurt anyone in the process.
The trouble with this is that it still doesn’t satisfy. If we are insatiable—if human desire is infinite—then no finite thing on this earth can content us. We’re set free to long for more, but are guaranteed to never find what we’re looking for.
a divine invitation to insatiable people
We were made to want infinitely, because we were made to want the Infinite One. We were created to long for and be satisfied by God Himself.
Rather than quench desire (and our ability to live fully human lives with it!), we should hear the advice of theologian William Cavanaugh: “The solution to the restlessness of desire is to cultivate a desire for God, the Eternal, in whom our hearts will find rest.”1
When we eat normal food, our bodies digest it and integrate it into ourselves. Hence the maxim, “You are what you eat.”
But the Lord’s Supper is different. When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we don’t simply digest that spiritual food like we would the normal kind. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the act of eating and drinking incorporates us more fully into Christ. In the eucharist, we become what we eat.
In his Confessions, St. Augustine hears Christ say to us:
“I am the food of the fully grown; grow and you will feed on me. And you will not change me into you like the food your flesh eats, but you will be changed into me.”2
Receiving Christ, we become one with Him. Eating and drinking, we become one with all our brothers and sisters—the Church—who share this meal.
Our insatiability is a feature, not a bug. We are driven by desire until we come to the only food that satisfies: Christ Himself. “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35).
You and I were made to want so that our heart’s longings would draw us into God and find their satisfaction in Him. Desire itself is sacramental.
What are you longing for that can’t fill you? How can you, in Cavanaugh’s words, cultivate a desire for God? If you have ideas for how to do that, please share in the comments!
William Cavanaugh, Being Consumed, 90.
Confessions, VII.x.16
I too have tossed so many CDs into the trash 😂
Desiring God in this noisy, busy world can be so difficult! And I have it hardwired in me to immediately go to a mentality of “what needs to be removed” instead of how can I taste and see Christ more.
But I’ve been trying small shifts, starting with some basic habits/spiritual disciplines. I find though that it will easily spiral me into the “do I feel enough/think enough” mindset rather than just doing with faith that God will draw near to me as I draw near to Him.
Also, the Bono picture was 👌🏼
Great thoughts. Yes, we are unsatiable creatures. And we make ourselves miserable pretending we aren't when God created us to be people who enjoy and thrill and play.
I think I'm learning that it's ok to admit to myself that we want things (security, glory, fun, etc) and that the desire for those things are good. Its hard to believe that God is the only place where we can find those desires satisfied. I don't know how that works.
But I'm encouraged by the image of communion because it reminds me that I don't have to figure it out. I can just come and participate in him. It is God saying to taste and see and to come and eat. And He can be the one who does the work of giving satisfaction.