...but if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need.
I heard that line while I was in my car on my way home from dinner this evening. The dinner was great and it was good to spend time with that person before I head out to California. As I was driving home the song came on the radio, it is by far one of my favorites by the Stones, but it got me thinking about want and need and how the grey areas that surrounds that differentiating line can lead to interesting places within our lives.
The things we want in our lives and for our lives, can vary greatly from the genuinely good intentioned like family, a home, and a good job. Our wants can also take on another form that is geared towards our senses of pleasure and our desire to "feel good" which can in turn consume us. There is nothing wrong with wanting, as long as it flows along with the first line of wanting. However when our wanting leads to desire in things that are not ours we begin to covet, which will poison the mind and corrupt our actions.
On the surface the things we need can be very, very simple. We need food. We need water. We need shelter. We need clothing/protection from the elements. These are the basic needs that must be fulfilled for any human being to survive. Those needs are purely for survival, but what about the needs that makes our lives worth living, make our lives something more than just survival? We need community, a place where we belong. We needs friends to walk with us on our journey to God. We need suffering and loss, to make us stronger and keep joyful miracle life in perspective. Most of all, we need love. It is the love that we find in this world that will sustain us and lift us up. It is this love that helps us heal from our brokenness. It is this love that allows us to forgive those who transgress against us. This love goes beyond Eros, but it is the love that is truly unconditional, agape. That is the love that we all seek and yearn for. To know we belong to something bigger and better then ourselves makes this life more than just survival. Love may not be a basic need to survival, but I ask you this, have you ever seen anyone lead a happy and fulfilling life without love?
The question I often ask God is, am I getting what I want or getting what I need? The beauty of it is that in the heat of the moment what we get may be the very opposite of what we want, but in the bigger picture it may be exactly what we need. I know that when it came time to find out what seminary my bishop wanted me to consider I wanted it to be outside of New England. I was thinking New York City but never did I think he would want me to go to Berkeley, California. While I was psyched that I got what I wanted in getting out of Boston, I realized that this may very well be what i need. I wonder if my bishop, who has known me for years and has been witness to both my ups and my downs, somehow knew that given all of my current life situation heading to the complete opposite end of the country would be in my best interest. That would be pretty cool if he picked up on the same vibe that I was running with. However, there have been plenty of times when I didn't get what I wanted. I have been searching for a while for something that seems to continuously slips through my fingers like sand. Every time that I feel like I have found it, something invariably pops up and it slips away. Perhaps my time on the left coast will help lead me to find what I want and need.
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