A reflection on abundance, spiritual hunger, and our longing to belong
The other day I was sitting in the pharmacy section of my local grocery store, waiting for my annual flu shot, when I found myself staring at the shelves in front of me. Just the choices of cough drops were, to say the least, overwhelming. Cherry. Honey-lemon. Menthol. Extra-strength menthol. Sugar-free. Herbal. Organic. “Soothing.” “Cooling.” “Maximum strength.” Apparently even a sore throat now requires careful discernment.
And don’t get me started on the cereal aisle. How many different kinds of Cheerios does the world actually need?
As a species, we have waited a very long time for this moment. For most of human history, our ancestors lived with scarcity close at hand. Food could fail. Crops could disappear. Winter could kill you. Hunger was never far away.
And now, in approximately the last ninety seconds on the evolutionary clock, we have entered an age of abundance. We can walk into a grocery store and choose among fifteen varieties of yogurt: peach, vanilla, blueberry, cherry, strawberry, key lime, Greek, Icelandic, low-fat, no-fat, high-protein, probiotic, organic, and something involving chia seeds that looks suspiciously like wallpaper paste.
We have choices our grandparents could scarcely have imagined. And, of course, much of this abundance is a gift. I am grateful for grocery stores filled with food, pharmacies filled with medicines, and the extraordinary conveniences of modern life. I have no particular desire to return to the good old days when a toothache could kill you and dinner depended upon whether the turnips survived.
Still, I wonder whether all this abundance has done something to us. We have become very good at choosing. We choose what we eat, what we watch, what we listen to, what news confirms what we already believe, what music accompanies our walk, what gets delivered to our doorstep tomorrow morning. We swipe, scroll, click, customize, subscribe, unsubscribe, upgrade, and add to cart.
The promise beneath it all is subtle but powerful: somewhere out there is exactly what you need. The right cereal. The right phone. The right moisturizer. The right streaming service. The right diet. The right pillow. The right productivity download. The right cough drop. And perhaps, if we keep choosing carefully enough, the right life.
But there is a peculiar problem with abundance: having more choices does not necessarily leave us more satisfied. Sometimes it simply makes us more aware of what we might be missing. There is always another option. Another flavor. Another upgrade. Another life we might have lived.
Which makes me wonder whether some of our deepest hungers simply cannot be satisfied by more. We hunger to be known. We hunger to belong. We hunger for lives that matter. We hunger for forgiveness, tenderness, purpose, beauty, rest, and hope. We hunger to know that when everything unnecessary has been stripped away, there is still something beneath us that will hold.
And perhaps there is a spiritual hunger beneath all our other hungers. At a time when churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples are watching their numbers decline, spiritual hunger itself does not seem to be disappearing. If anything, people still seem hungry for meaning, belonging, silence, wonder, connection, and some assurance that their lives are part of something larger than themselves.
We have certainly found new ways to feed that hunger. Meditation apps. Prayer podcasts. Online worship. Daily inspirational emails. A favorite spiritual teacher tucked conveniently into our earbuds. Some of these can be genuinely helpful. I use a few myself. But I wonder sometimes whether they are enough.
An app can remind me to breathe, but can it teach me how to belong? A podcast can inspire me, but can it sit beside me when my heart is breaking? An algorithm can serve up precisely the spirituality I prefer, but can it challenge me to love the person I would rather avoid?
Perhaps spiritual hunger, like every deep hunger, requires more than something we consume. Perhaps it asks for relationship, community, practice, service, silence, mystery—and the occasional inconvenience of showing up for one another.
Maybe the question isn’t whether we have enough spiritual choices. Maybe the question is whether they are actually feeding us.
Sitting there waiting for my flu shot, surrounded by enough cough drops to see me comfortably through the next several incarnations, I found myself wondering whether the great challenge of our age is no longer simply finding what we need.
Perhaps it is remembering what we truly hunger for.
Because maybe what we need most has never come with a label, a price tag, or an expiration date. Then again, perhaps I simply wasn’t looking in the right aisle.
Reflection Questions
1) What am I truly hungry for at this season of my life—and what have I been using to satisfy that hunger?
2) Which spiritual practices, communities, or relationships actually nourish me, rather than simply comfort, distract, or inspire me for a moment?
3) Where might I be invited to move from consuming spirituality to practicing it—through presence, relationship, service, silence, or simply showing up?
