You shed your fragrance about me; I drew breath and now I gasp for your sweet odour. I tasted you and now I hunger and thirst for you. You touched me and I am inflamed with love
(Confessions, Bk 6).
Augustine’s impassioned desire for god is also a hymn to cosmic love. It is the expression of a human being besotted with cosmic love. There is no object of this kind of desire. It is a love that does not discriminate between loving and being loved.
Given our benighted world today—a world not saturated in love but instead violated by power—is it possible to have an Augustinian experience of cosmic love?
Yes it is!
Individuals today who are opened up to the abyss will experience the terror of the nothing, but, if they are fortunate, will also be infused with the “sweet odour”. I believe that it is imperative for such individuals to speak their experience no matter the consequences. Almost all our suffering today is a consequence of thwarted cosmic desire—our desire for love and love’s desire for us.
And so, I speak….
lovesong
aching with a sap
coursing
through
my
body
sweet fiery liquid
every cell calls out a love song
i am calling for my lover
who calls for me
is this longing i feel
so different from
fulfilment?
