The Bread of Life

I am in a complicated stage of life right now.  I’ve shared often about the isolation I feel in my vocation and the daily living of my life, and while the particular circumstances have changed over the years, the general feeling remains.  I often feel alone, like I don’t really belong, like regular community is hard to achieve in the midst of such a full and busy life (especially when everyone else is just as busy).  Living in the country away from the center of where everything seems to being going on adds a new dimension to this hurt, as I see all around me communities thriving, and feel the pain of being just on the outside. 



Truth be told, this is a burden I have lived with my whole life.  I have a tendency to feel on the outside, even when I’m not.  When I was in school, I always wished I was one of the popular kids. When my husband and I first started dating, I thought everyone liked him better than me.  And now, as an adult, I think this is how it manifests itself.  So this week I have been trying to focus not on what others have, but on being happy for them, and looking at my own life and what God has given me, and how that leads me to grace in its own particular way.  Yesterday at a certain point I realized that part of what I desire is esteem and approval, and so I prayed that God would help me to be happy with a secret, hidden life.  


I love John of the Cross so much, and have often thought that his writings on the Dark Night of the Soul parallel so much with motherhood, and for me especially the trajectory I am on – this sort of secret, secluded path that is hidden from the world.  A path of suffering and loneliness, but also infinite possibility for union with God that might not be possible if I was closer to people, and could pacify these deep desires by hanging out with people more.  


Another work I recently began reading is Catherine Doherty’s “Poustinia – Encountering God in Silence, Solitude and Prayer,” which touches on much of the same thing, and encourages me to journey inward in the face of these insecurities.  “So the Poustinik,” she writes, “usually selected a secluded spot in a clearing in the woods.  He sought the really hidden places of his world – mountains, forests, woods – places where he was really alone with God.  Thus his human horizons were somewhat limited so his spiritual horizons could grow without distraction.”  In two short lines I feel like Catherine Doherty at once summarizes my life, and gives me something to strive for and not fight against when living out these circumstances God calls me to.


And yet, often I still struggle.  I slip back into this, “but what if?” state of mind.  More than anything, what I desire is true friendship, true connection.  I lament what is past, moments of life that were sweet and bustling with what I realize now I took for granted – friends who were always around, and always open.  As life changes and people move on, I go from trying to make peace with it all, to really missing it and wanting it back.


And so this morning’s Gospel reading really opened my heart.  It is the Bread of Life discourse, and in it the disciples are asking for a sign from Him, so they can believe Him, like when Moses gave them Manna.  I am not typically an ultimatum-giving kind of person, and on the surface I don’t think I’ve ever asked Jesus for a sign. But on further reflection, I do think that I experienced something in my community when I was younger that served as a sign of Christ, much like the manna in the desert, and that in many ways I cling to that now, and want it back.


The disciples ask Him, like I do very often,  “give us this bread always." Let me live in this circumstance where you were so present, so real to me.  What’s wrong with wanting this?


Nothing.  It’s not wrong to desire the goodness you have lived before, and to know that it is possible now. But for me, the real eye opener is where I am putting my focus. In short, what is the bread of life?  These relationships I have lived in the past, the ones I still desire now, are so very sweet, and so good.  But they are not the bread of life, any more than manna from Heaven is our salvation.  They are merely a vessel through which the bread of life touches us.  And He can touch us just as much in the absence of these vessels.  In the secret quiet solitude of the hidden life of motherhood.  In the Dark Night through which He calls us into more intimate union with Him.


“Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst’.” When I heard this, I realized there is still so much I hunger and thirst for. And I wonder if I was not in this particular stage of life, would I even know this hunger? Or would I placate myself with other things and convince myself that these are union with Christ?  It is hard to feel alone, and I don’t think anyone, in any walk of life is immune to it. But for me, having a vocation that takes so much out of me and doesn’t allow me to make any quick changes that I think will solve the problem forces me to look at it head on as something given to me by God.  My constant desire to loved, affirmed and included is a wound that continues to draw me to Jesus, who is the only One that can fill this longing.


Give me always this bread that satisfies. And thank you for the grace of feeling this hunger.