Homesickness

I've got it bad.  Just about every night I dream of the U.S.  My wife often dreams about it too.  'Home' often comes up in conversation as well - "Remember in Texas when . . .?"

We gave up a lot to move here and I don't just mean financially.  In a lot of ways our life was freer there while here it's more pinched. 

There are serious reasons why the migration of people is nearly 100% in the direction of the U.S. and not in this direction.  I clearly remember the many raised eyebrows of Polish bureaucrats when I went through the process of applying for my residence card allowing me to work here.  Their looks said, You're an American and you're moving here?  So many people here would dearly love to move in the opposite direction.

Homesickness by Rene Magritte

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say.  I have to remind myself that I was pretty discontented with many aspects of my life in the U.S.  My job was a nearly daily stress-bomb.  Suburban America hardly makes a charming postcard picture.

I watch NFL games on the internet and the American TV commercials and TV show promotions remind me of the ugly underside of American culture.  One of my students here has discovered Honey Boo Boo on youtube and she likes to talk about it.  I've had a look at this show on the internet.  Yikes!

I guess most of us are always looking for perfection.  My Dad was afflicted with this search for perfection which caused us to move from place to place.  Call it wanderlust.  I have it too and so does my sister Renée.

Homesickness by Marcin Kesek

As a kid, even when we weren't physically moving house, we changed churches a lot.  My Dad was never satisfied.  And that brings me to a couple of points I want to make in all of this.

When I discovered the Catholic Church, it was like coming home.  There isn't space to go into all of the details here, but the Church answered so many of my deepest desires.  The Church is truly the physical manifestation of Christ's Body on earth.

My second point is that even in this Church, Christ's visible Body on earth, we see things darkly (1 Corinthians 13:9-12).  We are pilgrims on earth; our true home is heaven.  It is for heaven - true perfection - that we long.  Because of that, nothing on this earth will ever completely satisfy us.

 

 

from A Shropshire Lad
A. E. Housman

Into my heart an air that kills
    From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
    What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
    I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
    And cannot come again.