absence >> yearning

We're currently in the middle of a record heatwave here in Adelaide (for any time of the year, let alone the first month of Autumn). Today is the 15th day in a row that we have had a temperature over 35C (95F). That's a lot of heat in anyone's language...

I'm unashamedly a summer person - I much prefer to get around in shorts and a t-shirt than anything else, and love the sunshine, daylight savings, warmth. Yet something funny has happened in the last few days (something which normally happens every summer at some point for me - I'm developing a yearning for winter! I'd really love to have a rainy day (we're in the middle of a drought here, as well), a cold night where we could switch the heater on, get into some trakkies, snuggle under a blanket and watch a good movie or read a good book. (I know it won't last - give me a few days of cold wind, driving rain and I'll be back on the summer bandwagon)

But it made me think - perhaps our yearnings are shaped a lot by absence, rather than presence (or perhaps a combination of the absence of one thing with the constant presence of the opposite?). During this heatwave, it's been the absence of cool, of rain, while living in the constant presence of heat (some nights it hasn't dipped below 30C) that has given me a yearning for winter. Conversely, in winter, when the sun is more absent, when warmth and light also go missing, and rain and darkness become constant companions, this produces a yearning for summer.

Does that give a new understanding to the purpose of lent, which finishes this weekend with Easter? The idea of fasting during lent is also about absence - about deliberately removing something from our presence. And when that yearning kicks in, we are to turn not to a yearning for whatever it is we are fasting from, but rather to a greater yearning for more of God in our lives.

May you know more of God's presence in your life, as we begin this Holy Week.