The Yearning

Laying in the winter grass on the hill above my house when we lived in the San Fernando Valley, staring up at the sky for long moments—even as much as an hour. And this sweet burst of longing would rise up in my heart like a song from a distant Kingdom, another land, a place that had no connection to the earth beneath my feet—but existed somewhere beyond the clouds and fathomless blue. I was only 8 or 9 or 10 then. Hungering for what I could not name.

And then I was older, driving my first car to the Santa Monica Beach in the winter season, hunting for the hunger I first felt up on that hill. Looking for it in the empty sand the lonely sea and endless sky. The people were sparse then, and the sky was huge. The beach went on forever—or so it seemed. And there, in the vacancy and crash of waves and the feel of warm sand sifting through my toes, the longing would well up inside me again… nameless still.

And then I was 27, standing among the dunes and moors at the tip of Cape Cod, in a place called Race Point—wild and woolly, on the cusp of winter, and in the rush of wind and sea I tasted the sweetness and the ache yet again, but this time I knew The One who beckoned me in this way.

And I spoke His Name again and again in thanksgiving and with tears.

A few years later I stood in a field outside the church where I was going to give a Sunday morning concert. The many tongues of prayer had chased me out into the field where I could hear the stillness and feel the Presence of the One my soul loved. The silence was weighty and full, deep and centering, as my heart calmed because I knew my Lord was near.

And just this week I was talking with a dear friend on the phone. We spoke for a good long time and covered a lot of ground. But our conversation came to rest on the glory of God… Ha Kavod.

We talked about our encounters with that moment in time when even the air seemed to carry a weight all its own, and awe overcame us. My friend would lay down in that glory. And I would feel so full the silence would penetrate my very soul.

And, even as we spoke, tears I had not cried in quite a while welled up in my eyes as I felt the weight of yearning once again—and the deep silence I had not tasted for so long filled me. No words, just the knowing and the realization of how much I have missed Him in this way.

“As the deer pants for water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. Where can I find him to come and stand before him?”

 —Psalm 42: 1-2 TLB

-Sally Klein O'Connor

11/13/23