“So, bro…what about you…how would you describe your past year in one word?”
“Navigational.”
In the midst of this catch-up with a trusted friend, I was more taken aback by his reply than I was expecting. His answer far more closely summarised my year than whatever vague reply I’d given beforehand. It got me thinking about all the decisions and hypothetical scenarios I’d frantically (and needlessly) been cycling between in my head all year.
Now firmly in my late 20s, I had deceived myself into thinking that most of the “soul-searching” and character development which made up the start of the decade was beyond me, that the core tenets of my personality, sense of self-image and purpose had for the most part been set in stone. However, for a reason which I couldn’t quite pin down, I felt lost. Maybe born out of my pride, I still had a lingering itch that there was more. For the first time since I was probably 17, I was having to make a decision which I’d been deferring for years. The hollow fear of the unknown, of questioning who I was and where I belonged had returned in a different disguise. I sensed that old gnawing fear that my ‘potential’ would never be fulfilled and that I’d have to settle for less than what I felt called to (even if I didn’t quite know what that was). The watershed moment of enlightenment hadn’t arrived when I thought it was due.
For all of us, at some point or another, the walls of our life begin to narrow, the limitations start to overshadow our expectations, and the temptation to escape – to forsake the reality of our lives…becomes all too inviting. We return to the idea we once had as children, that at some point an event would arise which could make sense of all we had lived throughJoshua Luke Smith
On reflecting on Rembrandt’s depiction of the prodigal son, Henri Nouwen builds on this hope for rest and arrival:
It had brought me into touch with something within me that lies far beyond the ups and downs of a busy life, something that represents the ongoing yearning of the human spirit, the yearning for a final return, an unambiguous sense of safety, a lasting home.Henri Nouwen
For a while I’d noticed this deep growing ache to experience the type of wholeness I remember having as a child. I had the sense that although I thought I knew and had experienced God in parts, the fullness of life was just out of reach. That I could never quite grasp what I needed to make me satisfied. Living outside of the gates, on the fringes in the outer courts, despite having heard and read lots about life in the Holy of Holies. A dull sense of emptiness was slowly growing cold in my heart, having not too long ago felt the warmth of His Presence. At the start of this year, Isaiah 61:3 was my hope in prayer:
To console those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for ashes, The oil of joy for mourning, The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness (Isaiah 61:3)
Story shapes our lives
Most good stories have some form of journey of lost and found. The Bible is full of examples; while not all of us go to the extremes of forsaking our earthly father for an early inheritance like the prodigal son or killing another man to sleep with their wife like King David, we cheat on God every day;
I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found. Why do I keep ignoring the place of true love and persist in looking for it elsewhere? Why do I keep leaving home where I am called a child of God, the Beloved of my Father? I am constantly surprised at how I keep taking the gifts God has given me my health, my intellectual and emotional gifts - and keep using them to impress people, receive affirmation and praise, and compete for rewards, instead of developing them for the glory of God. Yes, I often carry them off to a “distant country” and put them in the service of an exploiting world that does not know their true value. For many years I tried to get a glimpse of God by looking carefully at the varieties of human experience: loneliness and love, sorrow and joy, resentment and gratitude, war and peace… With my thoughts, feelings, emotions, and passions, I was constantly away from the place where God had chosen to make home.Henri Nouwen
That last sentence in particularly resonated with me. Growing up I was frequently told I was sensitive (maybe I still am). I thought and felt deeply, and always wondered, probably like most people, if I’d ever be fully understood. I struggled to understand or process a lot of the big emotions that I had and that sometimes led to a sense of isolation. I always had a desire to connect and find comfort in other people. Thank God, over time I’ve been given family and friends who see me as I am, but I think for all of us there will always be parts of our hearts which only God will see clearly. Ronald Rolheiser’s words would have been quite useful earlier in life:
Part of the language of love, though, is also the language of pain and loneliness. We yearn for full, all-consuming love and ecstatic union with God or with others. Reality, however, does not always deal in dreams and yearnings. Consequently, we go through life experiencing not just love, but frustration, restlessness, tension, and loneliness, as well. In life, all of us are somewhat frustrated in our deep desire to share our being and our richness with others. We live knowing that others do not fully know and understand us and that others can never fully know and understand us, that they are “out there” and we are “in here.” St. Paul calls this living as “through a glass, darkly,” a riddle, a veil, a mist of unreality that separates us from God and others, and from what is authentically real (1 Cor. 13:12-13).Ronald Rolheiser
Looking back at what else fed this feeling of never really being settled, a few things come to mind that are probably true for a lot of us – the classic diaspora blues: too British to be Egyptian, too Egyptian to be British. Moving fairly often for study and work. Constant uncertainty over what the future would hold. There was always some desire for somewhere other than the place I was in.
Even if we don’t physically hide from God like Adam and Eve or run away like Jonah, where do our hearts go? Where do they point? What is their posture? Where do our imaginations lead us? How many times have I felt detached, disconnected from myself and reality because I’ve missed what God has put right in front of me.
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
(Psalm 139:7-10)
Much of the below is based around the ancient Greek myth (and recent film), The Odyssey. You don’t need to have seen it for the reflections to make sense (I hope), but it definitely helps!
What Odysseus can teach us about homecoming
So firstly, why are we so adamant on leaving home?
Maybe like Odysseus, we deceive ourselves into our own Troys, of “just” wars or adventures which falsely promise us the chance to become greater heroes of our story.
Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. (Matthew 24:11-12)
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. (Luke 1:51)
One of the key questions the film explored was whether Odysseus ever really wanted to return home.
Again, like Odysseus, even when the war is finished, we continue to find more trials at sea despite their obvious danger. We’re obsessed with maintaining our status as seekers and searchers, even when God has already given us the answers we’ve asked for – the anticipation of ‘discovering’ some new life-changing revelation keeps us running, aimlessly knocking on different doors in the hope they give us another ‘experiential high’ which could make us stronger and wiser.
Some suggest that Odysseus idolised the idea of homecoming more than returning itself; it had become the whole organising principle of his entire identity that if it was ever taken away, he’d lose his whole reason for being. His trials at sea were a 10-year act of procrastination, a grand escape; from the traumas of the war he had pursued, the guilt of his soldiers’ deaths, the loving wife and son he had abandoned.
It is much easier to keep on running than to face the challenge of change that God so often convicts us with. Overstimulated, we become dizzy with distractions, more and more disoriented by the cries of the sirens, the multitude of voices and opinions we’re bombarded with, of people and places we try to escape into through our screens, though they resemble a mere shadow of the Beauty which we could behold in God. We keep travelling because we mistake movement for progress, and experiences for identity.
You pity the moth confusing a lamp for the moon, yet here you are confusing a screen for the worldJay Alto
The sirens taunted Odysseus with the fear that returning home might all be in vain – that both he and Ithaca had changed so much it would no longer feel like home, and that everything he’d once wished for could never be possible again. They tormented him with the lie that the fullness of his life was irretrievable.
Satan often tries to tell that same lie – that all is lost and we’ve squandered our only chance of salvation. Without Christ that may well be the case, but thankfully that’s not the reality we live in even if we often act like it is. Even if home has changed and our circumstances are never quite the same, that doesn’t matter. We return from our trials with gifts, with perspectives which give new colour to our lives. Home is not merely a previous time or place but where God is if we simply obey Him:
If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. (John 14:23)
There is an irrefutable Voice, deep within each of us, which continues to call us back. In the end, like Odysseus on his sinking ship, we surrender to the sea of God’s boundless love which swallows up every fear and lie we’d been told.
At the centre of our being is a point…untouched by sin and illusion…a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point…of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written in us. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely… the gate of heaven is everywhere.Thomas Merton
Be at peace with your own soul; then heaven and earth will be at peace with you. Enter eagerly into the treasure house that is within you, and so you will see the things that are in heaven; for there is but one single entry to them both. The ladder that leads to the kingdom is hidden within your soul. Flee from sin, dive into yourself, and in your soul you will discover the stairs by which to ascendSt. Isaac the Syrian
Home is where the heart is
The Kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:21)
I grew up thinking that most answers to the big questions I had to be somewhere far away. I’m not sure where I got this from – maybe it was Disney or Hollywood which led me to believe that something dramatic had to happen for me to ‘find’ myself. However, in the words of writer-poet Joshua Luke Smith, the life you long for is hidden in the life you already have. The door of heaven is in us; there are windows to the Eternal all around us if only we had the purity of heart to see them (Matthew 5:8). Jeremiah also urged the people of Israel to see that even in the most unexpected place, under Babylonian captivity, they had what they needed to flourish:
Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit… seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace. (Jeremiah 29:5&7)
Our circumstances don’t always seem the most glamorous or story-worthy but who are we to say that one place or path is more Holy or Sacred than another? More plentiful in its blessings or grace? If God has ordained it as the means for my Salvation, then why would I possibly want anything else?
I often asked myself why God had preferences, why all souls did not receive an equal measure of grace…Our Lord has deigned to explain this mystery to me. He showed me the book of nature, and I understood that every flower created by Him is beautiful, that the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the violet or the sweet simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would lose its springtide beauty, and the fields would no longer be enamelled with lovely hues. And so it is in the world of souls, Our Lord’s living garden. He has been pleased to create great Saints who may be compared to the lily and the rose, but He has also created lesser ones, who must be content to be daisies or simple violets flowering at His Feet, and whose mission it is to gladden His Divine Eyes when He deigns to look down on them. And the more gladly they do His Will the greater is their perfection.St. Thérèse of Lisieux
Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)
Ultimately, at the root of all my outward searching was a deeper doubt: whether I was truly, wholly loved by God. This sounds obvious - of course, I knew I was loved by God because I’d been told this all my life. But the more I watched the movements and desires of my heart the more it became clear I didn’t really believe it.
I remember listening to a talk on Moses which impacted me profoundly; both Moses and his fellow Israelites had been delivered from the ten plagues and across the wilderness only to meet the Red Sea with Pharaoh and his chariots closely behind them. While Moses trusted God would remain faithful, the people of Israel doubted. Why? They did not doubt God’s power; they doubted His love. Despite having seen His Hand multiple times they somehow believed that time would be the exception to the rule, that His Love was finite and His Grace would run dry. How often do we believe this?
Beneath that doubt of God’s love is pride. A pride which says we are somehow beyond His love…too ‘righteous’ to admit we have fallen in need of Him. Our selfish ambition struggles to know what to do when the expectations we have built are not met.
Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18)
There is no fear in the person who is truly humble. What stands most fundamentally opposed to love is fear: the fear of suffering, of rejection, of being alone, of losing control, of life not turning out as we had hoped. Fear is what leads us to hide away from God so we can try and preserve the caricatures we’ve invented of ourselves.
Maybe without ever saying it explicitly, I believed that fulfilment would come if life unfolded according to my plans. And when that inevitably didn’t happen, despondency entered. I turned further inward and was soon met with despair. In order to become poor in spirit, I needed to give up the narrative that I was the main character of my story and instead let God write a far more beautiful one.
Can I accept that I am worth looking for? Do I believe that there is a real desire in God to simply be with me?
Here lies the core of my spiritual struggle: the struggle against self-rejection, self-contempt, and self-loathing…I can easily be seduced to buy things, meet people, or go places that promise a radical change in self-concept even though they are totally incapable of bringing this about…
The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not How am I to know God?" but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?”
God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.Henri Nouwen
We are called to give thanks - in every condition, concerning every condition, and in every condition. Only then can we stop making ourselves the centre attention and be brought out of our dark holes of self-obsession and into the bright light of communion with God and each other. Our hearts must acquire the disposition of humility; for so long as we imagine we are rich, we cannot be aware of being loved.
Humility is the raiment of the Godhead. The Word who became human clothed himself in it, and he spoke to us in our body. Everyone who has been clothed with humility has truly been made like unto Him who came down from his own exaltedness and hid the splendour of his majesty and concealed his glory with humility, lest creation be utterly consumed by the contemplation of himSt. Isaac the Syrian
Where do we go from here
So…am I ‘Home’? Do I feel like I’ve arrived? Am I at rest?
Well…not completely. But I definitely feel like I’m on the road back. More grounded, more whole, less disconnected and more rooted in the place that I’m in. Even if I don’t know exactly where I’m going, I know Who I belong to.
It is indeed a lifetimes work to receive God’s love and forgivenessPeter Bouteneff
Accepting God as our true Home means understanding that Home is far greater than finding a cultural identity, a career path, or even a group of people or a spouse who understand and accept us. It is to grow daily into a deeper relationship with Him, to be more aware of His Presence and Love in every moment and encounter. It is to accept that only He can truly Know us. Only He will call us sons and daughters, co-workers in His Kingdom. He is the only constant.
The more humility is cultivated, the more fertile the ground is for His Love to grow in us. The more freely we can receive His Gifts and freely give to each other. Right in front of me are a beautifully loving family, incredible friends, a rock of a Church. To be faithful to God, to invest deeply in the people He has placed in my life and be a steward of what He has entrusted me with is all and everything I can do. The ordinary, everyday, is the arena in which our Salvation is worked out.
In the end, maybe we will never truly feel settled on earth, for we are ultimately sojourners here. Not everything may perfectly align or ‘click’ into place how we want. And maybe that’s intentional - so that our hearts will always know that He is the only Place we can rest in, for we are citizens of Heaven.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
For those who say such things declare plainly that they
seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return.
But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country.
Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
(Hebrews 11:13-16)
Written by
A Hopeful Sojourner on His Way
