We are people of desire. We want things

We are people of desire. We want things. We long for things. It is primal to our nature to yearn. As Saint Augustine reflected, “The whole life of the good Christian is a holy longing. . . . That is our life, to be trained by longing.”

We have been at it as a race for as long as we have been on the planet. We begin at birth with our embodied desires for breath, nourishment, warmth, and physical security. These are linked to an emotional desire for nurture that begins in childhood, extends through adulthood, and is mediated…