Real Food

My consciousness awakes slightly before the break of dawn, but my physical body refuses blatantly to rise with it. So, I lay stretched out in bed with a cotton cover sheet trying hopelessly to protect myself from the unruffled wind of an electric standing fan.

Lying crookedly flat on my stomach, I feel the pangs of physical hunger, craving to be satisfied with food. I also become mindful of another stinging hunger – skin hunger, that desire for non-sexual physical human contact.

At this moment, the opportunity to placate both hungers is absent. Realizing this painful reality, my consciousness returns to sleep and, interestingly, allows for the generation of a few dreams, all of which are related to physical hunger. Unable to be gratified physically, my unconscious friend inadequately fills the proverbial void. When I fully arise to befriend the new day, both pangs of hunger remain unsatisfied – no physical food, no physical touch.

Yet, the satisfaction of both hunger points to my need for ultimate satisfaction beyond the stomach and the skin, to the Divine – my Real Food.

But, both hungers need to be incarnated.

“. . . we are healthily sexual when we have love, community, communion, family, friendship, affection, creativity, joy, delight, humour, and self-transcendence in our lives” (Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing).