Wednesday, Week 3 - God's Home in Our Heart

"Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?" (Psalm 139:7).

    Deep within us is a place where we have found God and God has found us. Once in a great while we come to this place within us and we realize it is the goal of our seeking. It feels like home. It is a place of safety and security, an ideal home where we can be ourselves and know that we are accepted for who we are. We have easy access to understanding and acceptance. We may be challenged to grow here, but always in the context of a deep and strong love.
    Our hearts and minds are easily distracted by many other things, everyday realities such as work, maintaining a physical home, raising a family, shopping for life's necessities. As much as we yearn to stay closely connected with this inner source we quickly lose our sense of it. Thus, we spend most of our lives seeking what we momentarily find and then lose again.
    Most of the time we search without relaly being aware of what is gnawing at us deep inside. We search for something called happiness. We long for a gift named peace. We search for meaning in our lives, for love, for understanding of ourselves and others, for an acceptance of the ups and downs of the human condition.

    It is interesting to me to note how confident Sr. Joyce is in her generalizing description of the nature of our lives' paths. To claim that we have all, at one time, found that place within us that feels like home, is a bold claim. I cannot deny, however, that it is definitely true for me. The time in my life that I have known this feeling the best is high school.
    I think about those years, and what it was that fostered the right context for such a comfortable, secure feeling I felt from within. The right people. The right place. The right words, lighting, love, just everything about those moments was instrumental in introducing me to that feeling that really felt like home.
    I do not intend to devalue the people in my life today, because I know that I am as loved as I have ever been in my life. I do, from time to time, enjoy flashes of that feeling. Still, though, I must admit that the peak of my closeness to God occurred back in those teenage years. I didn't have quite the responsibility that I hold now - that may have been the biggest difference. At the time, my lack of responsibility allowed me to really find my place and my love for God. This feeling is not extinguished now, but is admittedly a little tougher to grasp onto.
    But I see myself heading in the right direction. For that reason, I smile. :)