On Hunger
Canon Thomas H. Conley,
Executive Director
Yes, there is enough physical hunger on the planet to cause “compassion fatigue.” We see the pictures of children in some distant country with bloated, distended bellies, haunting eyes, fragile, exposed ribs and frail, skin-and-bones physiques. We say a prayer for them, or ignore them, or give to a children’s fund to buy a gram of rice or a crust of bread. We go about our business.
If this is not enough to tax our frustrated spirits, there are other hungers, hungers that fester in the well-fed, the wealthy, the well-off, the “worried well,” and the poor. These hungers reside in the CEO, the busy VP, the soccer mom, the harried housewife, the frazzled doctor, the lucrative lawyer and Indian Chief from any/every tribe. These hungers are nestled in the emerging and fully adolescent, the young person, the college whiz kid, the high-achieving, nail-gnawing graduate student. They become ironically evident in the bulimic or anorexic.
What are these hungers? They are universal. They frequently masquerade as questions, but hungers they are. There is the haunting feeling that I am not good enough, not productive enough, not perfect enough, not thin enough, and not smart enough. There is the “what if” I had waited to get married? Would life be different if I had met this “right one” two years later? What if we had not become premaritally pregnant? Can I get over the abortion that now haunts me with guilt and hammers me with remorse?
What will make me good enough to love, to deserve good things in life, to have life treat me well? Why cannot brothers of the same blood and sisters of a common heritage get along without the acting out, the furious tirades, and the pouting, childish ways? Why do I need to be so controlling, or why am I so compliant in being controlled, and where do I put the resentment that swells in my breast when I let someone “get away with it”? Why do I change jobs so often, and why do those pesky office relationships lead to the same result over and over and over again: anger, fear, frustration and a subsequent firing? What script am I playing out of, and when did I write it? I don’t remember ever writing it, but I am forever rehearsing it, and when the time comes, I obediently recite it verbatim.
Why do I smoke pot or use “meth” or heroine or ecstasy to alter my inner state? What is wrong with being me as I am, just as I am? Why do I need to be the class clown or the retiring, shy one in the back of the class? Or the smart ass, or the bully? Why do I want to control my wife and children when I cannot control my own rages, my own demons? When did my love for my mate turn rancid, distant and now openly hostile and recriminatory? Why can’t I love my new baby and why, in the face of new life I am depressed and despondent and do not want to touch the nascent life that depends on me?
Why am I so afraid of everything, or too many things, or just one thing that dominates my thinking? Is there a way to find happiness and fulfillment in a world that is so screwed up and frightening? Why do I have so many feelings of insecurity and restlessness? Will I ever be happy?
These are just some of the questions that haunt us as the human family. These questions seem to cross ethnic boundaries, linger in all bloodlines, and loom around the various corners and intersections that our lives encounter.
I have been a therapist/minister/priest almost 50 years, and these and a host of other questions and hungers have come my way. Some of them have been my hungers as well…maybe most of them. I will leave this world knowing that I have heard just about every one of these hungers; most I have been able to assuage, help and abate. Others I have not. But we all need a place, a sacred, private place where it is O.K. to ask these questions, deal with the hungers and obtain some morsels of sustenance on the journey. That is why I do what I do; it is why at 72 years, I “come about” every morning excited about the day, and the ones I will see. I meditate daily, and that gives me some “food” to bring with me to satisfy some of the hungers that come to my/our place– a sacred place– for feeding and nurture, warmth and care. This Center is such a place for these human hungers to be addressed. It is why it was founded in 2001, and why it exists today.
Hungry, anyone? I–we– at the Center hope to see you soon. There is a wonderful buffet here!
