"I Wanna Go Home..."

When I went off to college after graduating from high school, it was the farthest I had ever been from home.  In fact, when I had traveled the 260 miles to visit the college before making my decision, I thought for sure that we were driving off the end of the world.  Not so!

I was reminded of my Grandfather who loved to tell the story of his neighbor who had traveled 21 miles north of home by horse and wagon.  After he returned home, he said to my Grandfather, "Man, Joe, if the world stretches as far to the south as it does to the north, it is really a big one!"

However, the emotional distance was even farther.  When my parents left after delivering me to the college campus, I became very homesick.  I was unable to sleep, or eat.  Studying was impossible.  I felt cut off from anything familiar, comfortable or secure.  It was a new experience for me, and I didn't like it.  I was truly sick.

My parents traveled the long distance on several weekends to support me, encourage me, and try to help me adjust to this new reality in my life.  However, after one such weekend visit in October, they left for home late Sunday, only to have me sign out of the college on Tuesday, mail all my stuff to my parents' address, and then hitchhike home.  I showed up at their front door late Tuesday evening much to their surprise.

After spending a couple of days around home, I soon discovered that all my friends were gone off to school.  Everyone around there was taken up with their own life and activities.  There was no future to hanging around my birthplace.  Life was moving on in the world in which I had grown up, and I didn't fit in there anymore.  So I decided to "tough it out" and go back to college.  But I will never laugh at, or ridicule anyone who struggles with homesickness.  It is a REAL malady.

With the hindsight of these many years (remember we celebrated our 50th anniversary of graduation!), I have come to recognize and appreciate the longing for home that lies deep within the human heart.  The hunger which God has built into our spirits can only be satisfied with the Divine Presence.  As the Psalmist says:  "As the deer longs for running water, so my soul thirsts for you, my God.  Athirst is my soul for God, the living god.  When shall I go and behold the face of God?"  (Ps 42:2-3)

Yet, I am also aware of the many times that I have tried to quench that thirst with things, people, activity, stuff.  I came away feeling like I did above when I went home from college and found no future there.  I recall the words of St Augustine back in the 5th century:  "Our hearts are restless, O Lord, and they will not rest until they rest in You."  (Confessions)

When, or in what circumstances have you found this same thirsting, this same restlessness, this same homesickness in your life?  How do you deal with it?