forgiven much, loving more

But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.
                                                            Luke 7:47

Saint Augustine once said the God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them. If your hands are full, they are full of the things to which we are addicted. And not only our hands, but our hearts, minds, and attention are clogged with addiction. Our addictions fill up the spaces within us, spaces where grace might flow.
                                                            Gerald G. May, from Addiction & Grace

There is, within the heart of our being, a deep desire, a holy longing. It has been given many names by many people. It is a desire for fulfillment, for connection, for wholeness, for understanding, for meaning, for wakefulness, for salvation, for enlightenment, for love, for......

We are not always conscious or aware of this desire. Or, perhaps a better way of phrasing that would be to say that we are not always aware of its depth and breadth. Perhaps we get an inkling of it whenever we seek to satisfy it in the shallow waters of our living. We may seek fortune, notoriety, influence, professional success, or the security of relationships, only to find that in the end none of these fully satisfy, and some more than others fall woefully short. In our moments of disappointment or despair we may reach for other things to satisfy our holy longing:  entertainment, sexual pleasure, substances like alcohol or drugs to "take the edge off," eating, religious practices, or perhaps buckling down and filling up our hours with worthy work.

In these efforts we may come to find our deep desire misplaced, and attached--and perhaps fully addicted--to patterns and things and people that can never fully offer the satisfaction we long for.

Those who understand this best are those who have done the difficult, agonizing and honest work of recognizing their own attachments and addictions, and who have sought forgiveness. The recognition of our own attachments and addictions is humbling work, and it cannot be done alone. As any person in recovery will tell you, it cannot be accomplished as an individual act of will. We live in need of grace that transcends our own being. This is the heart of the gospel message, though sadly the Christian church has all too often turned faith and religion into another full smorgasbord of attachments and addictions which can also become barriers to our true desire and its greatest fulfillment.

It is said that once when Jesus was eating in the home of a Pharisee, a woman entered and began to anoint his feet. The host and Jesus' companions were troubled by this. After confronting his host's lack of hospitality, and affirming the way the woman has welcomed him, Jesus says, "Her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little."

Our need for forgiveness is connected to our capacity to receive and offer love. That is a humbling message.

Until we are willing to walk the path--the lifelong journey--of recognizing and releasing our attachments and addictions, and welcome the forgiveness of our neighbor and of God, something within us remains closed. Love is not able to freely flow.

This is not the same thing as saying, "Woe is me, I'm such a lowly worm crawling through a giant dung heap!" It is instead a message of great hope and possibility. To gradually recognize and release attachments and addictions is to move closer and closer to the truth of our being in God, which means moving closer to the full satisfaction of our desires.

The moment we begin this path, the moment we even begin to express a desire to be on this path, we touch that holy longing within us, and love begins to make its way in, and out.