Not Home

Tonight denotes my first full week here.. It's an odd anniversary - for all the fact that I'm working at a job, laboring to finding a home and school for An Teaghlach, and looking for a church home, my mind has still not accepted the fact that I for now, this is my future home. It doesn't really seem to know what to do, except that it keeps telling me that this is "Not Home." Every time I walk in the heat, every time I go outside, every time I drive around, my mind says "Not Home". I'm sure (am I sure?) that the mind will adjust to this after a while and come to accept the new concept of home - except that right now, it sure doesn't feel like it.

And then the thought occurred to me: This is how I'm supposed to feel about the world. That it is not my home, that I'm only a pilgrim passing through. That my real home is somewhere else, and no longer how long I'm here, it's not really "home".

It's interesting to me that I can do it for Old Home/New Home but not for World/Heaven. Why is this? One would think that based on what we know of Heaven, this would become even more critical than that of our temporal location.

If I'm honest, it's because I know more about Old Home than I do about Heaven. I know how it feels, how it looks, how it smells. I know who's there, and what we would be doing if we were there. I know the family and friends that would be there. I can picture it in my mind.

Oddly, that should be true about Heaven as well - except the sensory part. I know who's there and I know the family and friends that would be there. I've hints of what we'd do there. The gap that is missing is the sensory input: the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations of being there. How interesting that a spiritual spiritual location seems bound in my mind by physical things! It is as C.S. Lewis said: we are amphibians, half physical and half spiritual.

Now here's the question: how do I feel for the Heaven as I feel for Old Home?