Lent 8: Homesickness

For today's mumble, I am partially stealing Janet Morley's reflection on the poem "Homesick" by Carol Ann Duffy, which was the poem from Monday from her Lent book, "The Heart's Time" (which everyone should read!).

When we love, when we tell ourselves we do,
we are pining for first love, somewhen,
before we thought of wanting it.  When we rearrange
the rooms we end up living in, we are looking
for first light, the arrangement of light,
that time, before we knew to call it light.

Or talk of music, when we say
we cannot talk of it, but play again
C major, A flat minor, we are straining
for first sound, what we heard once,
then, in lost chords, wordless languages.

What country do we come from? This one?
The one where the sun burns
when we have night? The one
the moon chills; elsewhere, possible?

Why is our love imperfect,
music only echo of itself,
the light wrong?

We scratch in dust with sticks,
dying of homesickness
for when, where, what.

Carol Ann Duffy

I have noticed that it is possible to feel lonely, homesick or lost in any place - no matter how well you know it or how many people you know and love there.  There is a need deep down within us to belong, and we look for it around us.  When we do not find what we are looking for, we feel a strong desire for something/somewhere/someone else.

If we were looking for what we desire, not in our surroundings, but deep within us and in the One who we find there, then, in theory, we would never feel seriously homesick, lost or lonely in any place.  We are made for relationship and community, so we do need people around us too, but if we made our home in God then we would never be fully shaken into unbearable homesickness.

Jesus said, "If anyone loves me, they will obey my teaching.  My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them."  John 14: 23