Home

That which contracts has surely expanded.

That which grows weak has surely been strong.

That which fades has surely been bright. – Tao te Ching

He has made everything beautiful in its time. - Ecclessiastes 3:11

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting

The soul that rises with us, our Life’s Star

Hath had elsewhere it’s setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness – William Wordsworth

He has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done. – Ecclesiastes 3:11

Home. That’s what I’m thinking about. Home. Not bricks and mortar, much as I do love that place. No- home. You know what I’m talking about. That nagging sense that there is just some thing, some place more that we used to know and to which we’ll one day return.

And here’s what I’m thinking about home: if we all know this longing for it, then we’re just not of this world. Our souls come from a better place. I don’t know what part of us retains this fuzzy memory of somewhere else better, but we all know it, don’t we? It must be the radiance, the very joy of the Trinity. You can’t ever forget it once you’ve known it, and we’ve all known it, so that longing for home never disappears so long as we’re away.

 This sense of a long-lost joy has to be theophany- God making himself known. This is surely the eternity that He put in our hearts- his own joy- and it has made us beautiful for a time. He must delight in this. He’s so playful, isn’t he? He hides the most infinite thing, eternity, right in our fragile, finite hearts and the keys to wisdom in the hearts of children- the least (or most?) wise of people.

We’re away from home for now. We’re sailors weary of an all blue horizon, travellers who miss the home cooking from their place, displaced exiles wandering looking for belonging for too long. Chemo coming on Monday and my arm still hurting from surgery Thursday and Nora crying when I tell her I’m going to lose my hair all remind me that things are not as they should be. But we’ll return one day. To home. That which contracts has surely expanded, and will expand again. Beauty‘s time will return. The soul that has risen with us will rise again, and the eternity within our hearts will see us back home.

I know this is true. But for now, I just miss it. I miss home.