Thirst

Jeff Crosby, author of The Language of the Soul, introduced me to the Portuguese word saudade (sow-dodge-ee). The word is hard to translate but appears repeatedly in samba, jazz, and bossa nova music and has its own Spotify channel. What does it mean? Linguists say it is untranslatable, but a consensus describes it as a soul deep desire, a yearning for something other than the present. Another way to say it would be a “soul thirst.” 

The man on the middle cross says, “I thirst.”  Of course he does. His exhausted, tortured body hanging in the midday sun is beyond parched, but is that all he means? He has been thirsty His whole life; a thirst that led him to the Temple in Jerusalem at age 12 when his family was caravanning back to their small town. When his mom and dad finally tracked him down, knee deep in Scripture scrolls and deep discussion with seasoned rabbis, they asked,” Why did you wander off?”  He was thirsty for Someone; He explained He needed to be in His Father’s house. 

When He grows up His thirst drew Him away from Nazareth life, beyond small town expectations and family obligations and took Him to John the Baptist preaching on Jordan’s shore. Jesus plunged in head-over-heels, baptized into God’s call for His life, something bigger than a carpenter’s shop and more than faithful synagogue attendance. That thirst pushed him into the wilderness for 40 days as He wrestled with how to quench that “soul thirst” with God’s will and ways. He walked out of the desert having tapped into “living waters” that he then poured out for anyone thirsty enough to ask for it. “If anyone is thirsty, come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, streams of living water will flow from within him” (John 7:37-38). 

One of our basic needs is to stay hydrated; We are creatures who thirst. But there are deeper thirsts and desires, God-given and God blessed, that must be addressed too. Thomas Aquinas states that every sinful behavior is rooted in a legitimate God-given thirst. The most important question we ask in our struggles and stress is what am I really thirsty for? Am I attending to that soul-thirst or spritzing a superficial craving? 

C.S. Lewis confronts our tendency to serve our self-destructive sweet tooth rather than satisfy the yearnings of our soul. “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” 

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Jesus, I invite you to uncover my true desires. Enable me to trust Your guidance on how to best quench that thirst. As the deer pants for water, so my soul longs for you O God (Psalm 42:1). SAUDADE! Amen.