It seems almost everyone with whom I’ve had honest, meaningful conversations over the years—and many of these are people of faith--all have a deep-down sense of incompleteness or dissatisfaction, regardless of how content they are with their jobs, home life, social activities, etc.

I’ve sometimes felt a nagging sense that I should be doing something more in life--not necessarily something different, but something more. That I’m not reaching my full potential. Am I simply an overachiever? Incorrigible malcontent? Why, no matter how much I try to live in the present and maintain a thankful attitude, can I not seem to shake this “other” something?

I used to feel that this restlessness, this insatiable hunger for something greater, was a flaw in my personality or a mark of how far I still had to go in my spiritual evolution. But something I read recently gave me new insight into this.

In April I attended the biennial Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids, MI, where I had the pleasure of listening to some of my favorite writers discuss how their faith informs their art. Luci Shaw, who was a dear friend of Madelyn L’Engle’s, turned out to be one of the highlights of the conference for me. I picked up her book, Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination, and Spirit. In it she addresses the shadow side of faith and art. She quotes psychologist and theologian Gerald May:

“We have this idea that everyone should be totally independent, totally whole, totally together spiritually, and totally fulfilled. That is a myth. In reality, our lack of fulfillment is the most precious gift we have. It is the source of our passion, our creativity, our search for God. All the best of life comes out of our human yearning—our not being satisfied. Certainly Scripture and religious tradition point out that we are not to be satisfied. We are meant to go on looking and seeking.”

Never before had I thought of that nettlesome sense of internal dissatisfaction as a precious gift, that the best things in life might in fact come from it. Our pervasive hunger and search for something more is perhaps the strongest evidence that there is something more, that our life’s purpose is perhaps to find, connect, and unite with it. Luci Shaw’s poem “What We Say We Want” beautifully speaks to this longing for what she describes as a “supreme and burning intimacy”:

What do we say when 
that hunger harrows our bodies?
I desire you. But it’s not
that, or not only that.

Desire is the word we use as an excuse
for all the pain, a white flag
dropped into the battle that rages
between urgency and fulfillment.

A time of exhaustion comes
when nothing is left to want;

or when what we still want
is too large to name.

I’m not suggesting we should wallow in our restlessness or dissatisfaction. These uncomfortable emotional states can be the very impetus we need to seek a positive change in ourselves, in our world. But nor do I think we should grow impatient or weary when “hunger harrows our bodies.”

A man's face is his autobiography.  
A woman's face is her work of fiction.– Oscar Wilde

There are things all of us tuck away inside us, pieces of us we want to, or feel we must, hide or nurture or protect. We women are especially good at this. Maybe experience has taught us how judgmental and harsh people can be, especially women toward each other, and so we choose silence over sharing. Maybe we’ve had our hearts broken too many times and are afraid to open ourselves up again. Maybe we have given so much, for so long, that we finally decide to hold something back for ourselves. Maybe we don’t want to be understood entirely. Maybe, just maybe, our mystery is our greatest source of power.

I always appreciate when a male artist can tap into this mysterious and elusive essence of Woman; when he doesn’t judge or fear it, doesn’t try to understand or name or define it, but simply honors it.

Henri Matisse liked doing portraits of women because he apparently believed they held the key to the mystery of life. In hisPortrait of Mlle Yvonne Landsberg (1914), for example, the subject’s mask-like face hints of her impassiveness, her unknowableness. The arcs radiating from her body, like wings, and the protective placement of her hands seem to draw attention to both her etherealness and sexuality.

Rilke, who had a remarkable empathy for women, was also able to capture a woman’s mysterious, interior world, as seen in this poem:

WOMAN’S LAMENT I 
And the last perhaps will not return 
And knows me not although I burn.
Ah the trees overhang glowingly
And I feel no one feeling me.

Bruce Springsteen’s “Secret Garden” is another great example:

SECRET GARDEN
She'll let you in her house
If you come knockin' late at night
She'll let you in her mouth
If the words you say are right
If you pay the price
She'll let you deep inside
But there's a secret garden she hides

She'll let you in her car
To go drivin' round
She'll let you into the parts of herself
That'll bring you down
She'll let you in her heart
If you got a hammer and a vise
But into her secret garden, don't think twice

You've gone a million miles
How far'd you get
To that place where you can't remember
And you can't forget

She'll lead you down a path
There'll be tenderness in the air
She'll let you come just far enough
So you know she's really there
She'll look at you and smile
And her eyes will say
She's got a secret garden
Where everything you want
Where everything you need
Will always stay
A million miles away

CLICK HERE FOR BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN PERFORMING "Secret Garden"