The Longing

Beneath the noise and errands of everyday life, there is a longing, a yearning. What precisely we long for is not always clear; indeed, perhaps it is many things. Or perhaps it is finally one thing, the One that is behind and beneath all things. Paul Hooker probes this longing in the poem cycle of this book, exploring poetically the yearning that underlies life, love, work, worship, and faith itself. In the collections "Traditions" and "Transitions," he explores that longing in both biblical and experiential contexts. And in the concluding essay, "Sightings of the Holy," he meditates on four poems and the glimpses they provide of the Holy, a reality accessible only out of the corners of one's eyes.