“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”  John 1

“We shall not cease from exploration

 And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.” 

T.S. Elliot from “The Little Gidding

Lewis and Clark.  Magellan.  Marco Polo. Christopher Columbus.

What do they all have in common?

That’s right, they were all explorers.

The truth is we are ALL explorers.  Like Santiago in Paul Coelho’s “The Alchemist” we are on a quest to discover that which makes us comfortable and complete.  There is a longing to discover that which is divine.  We spend our lives seeking some place outside of ourselves that will make us feel safe, secure, a sense of belonging.  Our souls have left our homes to travel for a time in this body, seeking our true home.  We confess with St. Augustine, “Our souls will not rest, until they rest in Thee.”   The illusion is that the place we are seeking is somewhere “out there.”  And all the while we ignore the fact that it is within us, closer than we are to ourselves. 

In traditional Christian interpretations of the incarnation, it is believed and taught that Christ left his heavenly home to wander around in this body on earth for a time.  And then when he was finished with his work he returned to the place he truly belonged.  Consider for a moment the possibility that Christ’s true home is wherever his body and soul reside together.  Certainly that is ours, as O’Donahue makes clear in the following.

Western thought has told us that the soul is in the body.  The soul was thought to be confined to some special, small, and refined region within the body.  It was often imaged as being white.  When a person died, the soul departed and the empty body collapsed.  This version of the soul seems false.  In fact, the more ancient way of looking at this question considers the relationship of soul to body in a converse way.  The body is in the soul.  Your soul reaches out farther than your body, and it simultaneously suffuses your body and your mind.  Your soul has more refined antennae than your mind or ego.  Trusting the more penumbral dimension brings us to new places in the human adventure.  But we have to let go in order to be; we have to stop forcing ourselves, or we will never enter our own belonging.  There is something ancient at work in us crating novelty.  In fact, you need very little in order to develop a real sense of your own spiritual individuality. One of the things that is absolutely essential is silence, the other is solitude.

Solitude is one of the most precious things in the human spirit.  It is different from loneliness.  When you are lonely, you become acutely conscious of your own separation.  One of the lovely things about us as individuals is the incommensurable in us.  In each person, there is a point of absolute nonconnection with everything else and with everyone.  This fascinating and frightening.  It means that we cannot continue to seek outside ourselves for the things we need from within.  The blessings for which we hunger are not to be found in other places or people.  These gifts can only be given to you by yourself.  They are at home at the hearth of your soul.”[1]

So what or whom are you looking for?  What are you seeking?  Perhaps the journey is not as far as you might think as is reflected by T.S. Elliot in the above quote, or as Paul Coelho writes in the following:

“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity.  Life is eternal.  We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.  This is a precious moment.  It is a little parenthesis in eternity.” [2]

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[1] “Anam Cara” by John O’Donahue, p. 98

[2] “The Alchemist” by Paul Coelho