The Qualification for the Spirit

For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed.” — ISA. xliv. 3,

£975 Y qualification for being made divine is my thirstiness, my sense of want. That which makes me capable of receiving God’s Spirit is not my feeling of boundlessness, but my struggle with limitations. That which makes me greater than the beasts of the field is not my superior strength, but my superior insight into my own weakness. My greatness is my sense of needs unsatisfied. Everything about me which makes me human is a form of thirst. My speculation is the thirst of my understanding. My love is the thirst of my heart. My aspiration is the thirst of my fancy. My prayer is the thirst of my spirit. I am a bundle of longings, and my longings are all prophecies. I could not long for anything if I had reached finality. Why do I seek so many things that are not here? Why do I not sing through the world as the bird sings through the firmament? It is because

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the firmament is the bird’s environment; the world is not my environment. If it were, I too would sing. But there is that within me which is not met by aught around me. My eye is not satisfied with its seeing, nor my ear with its hearing. My intellect is not filled with its knowledge, nor my heart with its love. I seek a perfect beauty, a perfect music, a perfect wisdom, a perfect soul. My thirst is the prophecy of an environment yet to be; I long for Thy Spirit, O Lord, and thereby I know that Thou too longest for me, Nothing but Thyself can enclose the aspirations of my heart, because nothing but myself can meet the desires of Thine. ‘I am incomplete without Thee, because without me Thy fulness has not come. Come to my heart and we shall dwell together, I in Thee and Thou in me. Come to my heart and its hungering shall be filled, and Thy love shall be satisfied, and we shall be one. Come to my heart and there shall be a union of earth and heaven; day and night shall meet together, omnipotence and frailty shall embrace each other. I hope for Thy Spirit because I thirst for Thee.