desire, ET, and a tragically forgetful bride

where do you hide a scary alien?
what would a chaste bride do on her wedding night if she didn't realize it was her wedding night?
what does out culture do with desire?

in an attempt to hide the extra-terrestial her brother coaxed into her room, young drew barrymoore covered the odd looking stranger with odd looking stuffed animals. maybe if he is hidden in excess, he will not be seen.

isn't this what we do with desire in our consumeristic culture? there is one true desire: God. for whatever fallen reason, we flee and fear this desire. we hide it behind a plethora of substitute desire and lust thinking, maybe we'll stop seeing it. we step back and look at our collage of desire and squit our eyes? is it still there? of course it is. and so our collection of lusts grows exponentially, always seeking new highs. we are addicted. finally, we have it so hidden that it is like that 90's fad - magic eye. if we work really hard and stare long enough, and if we really want to see it, then we can find our desire amist the camoflaging army of cheaper, satiable desires - but only if we want. then, finally, it's lost completely, and if ever we could stop and find an approximation of rest in our frenzy to satiate the myriad of sirens enticing us to fulfill our million desires - if we could rest, then we would rest easy, knowing that we have made our desire utterly lost.


what would happen if a chaste bride waited for the wedding night then, with uncontainable passion and anticipation, somehow forgot that the wedding had happened - somehow forgot that tonight was the wedding night?
maybe she would run around in an increasingly tattered and dirtied wedding dress finding lovers, like a whore rather than a bride.

is this not also what we do with our desire? our desire is for consumation, only we don't know that it is here. we may intellectually say "the kingdom has come," but, we have no real knowledge that the kingdom has come - that the wedding night is here. so, longing for comsumation, we simply consume.

Lord, that we could know that the kingdom has come! That we would see you as our husband.

So what is ministry? What is it to awaken life in those around us?

the desire for God is a living thing, something that will not settle to be hidden amidst dusty, lifeless stuffed animals. God is a jealous and loving husband who will not sit by as his hungry wife seeks to placate her desire with lesser lovers. the desire for God will be seen. as ministers, we speak the words and live the lives and pray the prayers that invite desire to step out of cultural camoflauge. we live our lives hoping to realize, ourselves, that the wedding night has come and our true love longs for us and, as we realize that ourselves, we invite others into the consumation of the kingdom.

maybe ministry can be seen as living in our own desire and calling forth and highlighting desire in those we serve?

what would this mean to a vein of faith that has systematically repressed desire?

what would it be to not hide, but embrace that desire that we still desperately fear?