Our Deepest Desires

“You want it. You want it bad. Sometimes so much it hurts. You can taste it. You feel like you would do anything to get it. Go further than they’d suspect. Twist your soul and crush what’s in your way. Then you get it. And something happens. You become the object of your desire. And it feels incredible.”

     Three guesses as to what the above is saying we want so badly that it hurts, and that, when we get it, feels so satisfying. I thought it was an appeal to our need to be loved, or for our longing for some spiritual attainment. Needless to say I was surprised when I learned that that statement is an advertisement for perfume that appeared in the window of a Macy’s department store! Yikes! Ouch! OMG! Can it be that those advertising gurus who have their finger on the pulse of what drives our sense of satisfaction and gratification are right in thinking that perfume can do the trick?

     I‘d like to think that the object of our deepest desires has more to do with the character of our soul than the aroma of our body. Would that we longed for matters spiritual as much as we do those of a less ultimate nature. I’m not saying that what makes us appealing to others is not important, or that I am above such things, but to imagine that statements like “twist our soul” and “crush what’s in your way” actually name the strength of our desire for what is so peripheral, so temporary, so shallow, is truly disturbing.

     The quote from Macy’s appears in the book Sabbath by minister and therapist Wayne Muller. The term Sabbath usually refers to taking time off, a break in the action that so dominates our lives. But we might also consider it as a breaking away from those less than significant things that lure us from what matters most, a time to free ourselves from what can satisfy only on the surface.