c. the longing

“I do not know how others are, but I, when I think of [...] my childhood home, my parents’  home [...], even now, my heart jumps for joy!…” Ion Creanga Childhood Memories

I do not know how others are, but I , when I see how the sea meets the skies; when I see the graceful silhouette of a seagull, flying in the boundless, clear sky; when I listen to the music of the forest birds in the springtime; when I admire a flower with dew, early morning; when I smell the freshly cut grass hay in a summer day, in the countryside; when I watch a baby playing and laughing; or when other simple and unexpected beauties appear on my way, then my soul warms with delight and my heart jumps for joy! But a delight and joy that brings with it a deep, home-felt longing. A longing that is also sweet, as a fragrance of happiness…

“How can everything be so beautiful, but so cruel, so senseless and futile in the same time?” C.S. Lewis Suprised by joy

We live running, we work and again work , we struggle to survive in a dirty, evil, unfair, ruthless world; stressed by the pressure of the  speed age we live in; worked out by the incresing demands that “a decent and civilized life” now requires; we live running, in a hurry to reach!!… where? to the old age? then to cemetery? And our children after us, they will continue the same rush and exhausting struggle to the same end!  Yes, how cruel, senseless and futile this life is!

But, from time to time, while we run through this  rushed and stressful  life, simple and unexpected beauties arise in our way, like indicators, signs towards happiness.

It is like this:  when you are on a tiring journey,  a stranger  away from home;  feeling dusty, dirty,  tired and hungry;   feeling that the rush is endless and unexpectedly a sign with the name of  your  home town shows  up,  saying that your home is not that far. And you feel better, less alone and stranger, the fatigue and the rushing make sens.  You feel the smell of home and this gives  you  strength.Like the migratory  birds, when they feel the smell of home, they overcome the fatigue and sore with  renewed  strength. They are called and guided by the longing after home.

A parenthesis : The migration of birds is an argument against evolution. Instead of adapting to the local conditions, they face greater dangers, storms,  freeze, hunger and great efforts, contradicting their  instinct of survival. All their instincts seem te fade when they feel the “call”. Because all creation hides in it symbols, signs and indicators towards Him, towards Home.

Who says that he or she never felt this longing in his/her heart;  that all these are fairytales;  that for every longing and desire there is fulfillment in this here and now world, maybe he or she is right. I did believe this once. But not anymore, not me anymore. Nothing in this present world can fulfill the deepest longing in my heart. Yes, my heart can jump for joy when I meet the beauties left here as signs towards Home, but my heart knows it is not Home yet… If only the meeting of  signs and the shaking of the soul’ waters touched by the desire,  bring delight and happiness, how is going to be, when I will reach Home?…

“The unfulfilled deep desire  [for God] is itself  more desirable than any satisfaction, than any fulfillment” and “I was sick with desire, a condition better than health” C.S. Lewis in Surprised by joy

I just finished reading the book and I loved it, that’s why I keep quoting from it . While reading it I felt saying: “What a story! Did you felt like this? I always thought I am the only one who does!” C.S.Lewis in “The author preface to Surprised by joy”. I also was an atheist once, but even then , when I was trying to run away from God, the longing , deep inside, would call and would not leave me alone…

And even after I was found by Him, I crossed the deserts , when the longing would be silent , after it was ignored and rejected under the pressure of runing , of the serious matters of  the adult I thought I was…though nothing can be as important as the longing…And the longing was silent for a while, or two, or more, until…(BECAUSE HE LOVES ME SOOO MUCH!) a sign, or a song would make my heart jump and make me cry:  where are your deep longings, o, my heart? where is that deep desire after HIM, after your BELOVED? when in love with HIM, my heart would be thirsty  for His Presence, as a dying man in the desert after water? And then the longing is singing again in my heart, and the joy is visiting me again, because  HE is faithful and HE gives living water to the thirsty soul. And here , we just taste a little from what we will have plenty at Home. That Home I dream of, I long for, where He is always, in all the spledour of His Presence.