Love & Abyss

Last week’s post included a link one of my older essays concerning depths of our desire. In that post I wrote riffed of Psalm 41(42) that spoke of the deep calling out to the deep, and how that line in the psalm speaks to the subjective dimension of faith, in particular our desire.

I spoke about how our being made in the image of God meant that our desire mirrors the depths of God’s own desire. In the same way that God’s desire knows no end, so too does our own.

Flowing from that, I drew upon Aquinas to show how the endless depths of desire within us means that nothing finite can satisfy us. I also wrote that in saying “deep is calling on deep” is not a literary flourish in that psalm. Instead, the psalm is describing what should be an ongoing posture in our lives: a calling upon that which is endless in God to satisfy that which is endless in us.

Whilst I was looking at desire in general in that post, it did not occur to me that what I wrote could be brought to bear on reflections of romantic love. I was reminded of this by the shoutout given to that post by Hope Johnson, who writes and podcasts over at Hope Unyielding.

Johnson’s podcast focuses on the experience of thirsting for romantic love, yet never finding it satisfied. Rather than mere angst, Johnson’s work is unique in that she reflects deeply on the implications of this experience and the wrestling that this experience brings about in light of her readings on Scripture and literature.

I am grateful for Johnson’s mention of my little essay in her episode, which can be listened to in full here.

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