Prayer as the Door into Your Own Eternity
On That Day You Will Know as You Are Known
The Soul Is the Home of Memory
To Breathe in Your Soul Light
Praise Is Like Morning Sun on a Flower
Prayer Changes Space
Graced Vision Sees Between Things
“Behold, I Am the Ground of Thy Beseeching.”
Prayer Is Critical Vigilance
A Generous Heart Is Never Lonesome
The Beauty of the Prayer-Gift
To Frame Each Frontier of the Day with Prayer
To Be Great, Be Entire
To Create Your Own Prayer That Speaks Your Soul
My Own Prayer
6. Absence: Where Longing Still Lingers
The Subtle Trail of Absence
Absence and Presence Are Sisters
And the Earth Knew Absence
The Legend of Midhir and Etain
The Longing for Real Presence
The Homeless Mind
Psychology and Self-absence: Talking Ourselves Out
Brittle Language Numbs Longing
Beyond Being an Observer—Becoming a Participant
Memory Is Full of the Ruins of Presence
Ruins: Temples of Absence
The Absence of the Future
Towards a Philosophy of Loss
Grief: Longing for the Lost One
Grief Is a Journey That Knows Its Way
We Grieve for Ourselves
The Imagination and the Altars of Absence
The Artist as Permanent Pilgrim
The Ones We Never Hear From
Addiction: Obsessed Longing
The Emigrants
Language and Belonging
A Philosophy of Dúcas
Fundamentalism: False Longing and Forced Belonging
Cults and Sects
Our Longing for Community
The Shelter of Community
Towards a New Community
Divine Longing Transfigures Absence
A Blessing
Vespers
Suggested Further Reading
About the Author
Other Books by John O’Donohue
Copyright
About the Publisher
A
I WISH TO THANK: DIANE REVERAND, my editor at HarperCollins; Kim Witherspoon and her agency, for her confidence in the work and for its effective mediation; John Devitt, who read the manuscript and offered a creative and literary critique; Dr. Lelia Doolan, who gave a wonderfully encouraging and rigorous critical response to the text; David Whyte, for his brotherly care and our conversations about the world of the imagination; Barbara Conner, for all her work and support; and especially Marian O’Beirn, who suggested this book on longing and “our hunger to belong” and who read and reread successive drafts, keeping a critical eye on structure and content and whose friendship and inspiration are generosity itself; the memory of my former teachers Professor Gerard Watson and Professor Tom Marsh and Miceal O’Regan, O. P., for his wisdom of spirit; to my family, for the shelter, support, and understanding; to Conamara and Clare, for their mystical spirit which awakens such longing and offers such a tenderness of belonging. Agus do mo cáirde a thug foscadh, solas agus solás.
P
