But what I actually want is getting hazier and hazier these days. I want it all—kisses and prayers, sex and contemplation—I want Elijah and God. I want the right to hunger and to crave, but I also want to be a monk, to find those crisp, keen moments of joy that can only be cracked open through the fires of showing up day after day after day. From denial and effort and rejecting all else that isn’t a holy life. Why can’t I have both? All? Why do I have to choose?
