{"id":23705,"date":"2024-05-08T09:46:47","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T13:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=23705"},"modified":"2024-05-08T09:53:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T13:53:57","slug":"23705","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=23705","title":{"rendered":"A Constant Longing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&quot;Our Heart&#039;s True Home&quot; Original Worship Song\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/L6GGTtWbOzI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In the foreword to the new edition of&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/email.cac.org\/t\/d-l-ejdxkl-tlkrdrec-r\/\">Falling Upward<\/a><em>, researcher Bren\u00e9 Brown shares her sense of spiritual homesickness.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The word \u201chomesick\u201d often conjures up images of a child\u2019s fleeting sadness or their temporary yearning for home and family. In today\u2019s culture, the emotion is often dismissed \u2026 [as] a fuzzy overnight-camp feeling, not a fierce emotional experience that is key to the human experience and central to our hardwired need for a sense of place and belonging\u2026. I am drawn to exploring the contours of homesickness to better understand why I can\u2019t shake this unyielding longing for a home that exists only inside me.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Brown shares her regular longing for the home of her own soul:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Spiritual homesickness has been a constant in my life. It was not an everyday experience, but a predictable and <strong>always reoccurring desperation to find a sense of sacredness within me, not outside of me: my soul, my home, God in me. It was homesickness for a place that exists only inside me.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Through my thirties and forties, I would occasionally succumb to the yearning, drop everything, and run as fast as I could to&nbsp;<em>visit<\/em>&nbsp;the home within me. The door to my internal spiritual home would be one simple experience, one encounter with a thin place\u2014maybe sitting in my car listening to Loretta Lynn sing \u201cHow Great Thou Art,\u201d or an afternoon swim with God in Lake Travis, or one night praying the Daily Examen. But then, after that visit, I would leave and go back to my first-half-of-life world. I\u2019d describe this first-half-of-life spirituality as the ebb and flow of [the Greek words]&nbsp;<em>nostos<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>alga<\/em>, homecoming and pain.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the past two years, I\u2019ve found that I\u2019m more spiritually homesick than not. Spiritual homesickness has become an almost daily dulling grief. It\u2019s not depression or exhaustion. <strong>It\u2019s an uncomfortable knowing that I\u2019m coming to the end of one thing and the beginning of the next. I\u2019m leaving and arriving. There\u2019s fear, but there\u2019s also joyful anticipation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, when I return home to the place in me where God dwells, I\u2019m <strong>no longer interested in making it a quick visit so I can run back to the world of \u201cwhat other people think\u201d and \u201cwhat I can get done.\u201d<\/strong> Today, I can barely be dragged out of the house. I\u2019m drawn to different conversations and deeper connections. I want this sacred space to be my home, not somewhere I visit to buttress my \u201creal life\u201d that\u2019s on the outside of my connection with God. I\u2019m starting to wonder if my\u00a0<em>alga<\/em>, my pain, is fueled by my separation from God and from my True Self.\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Leaving the first half of life is scary. Most of us have the first-half-of-life hustle down. <strong>The thing is, I\u2019m just never, ever homesick for the first half of my life when I walk away from it\u2026. Maybe I\u2019m not homesick for the first half of life because it\u2019s really never been my true home.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td>Unseen Patterns of Obedience<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"auto\" height=\"15\" src=\"https:\/\/mcusercontent.com\/87188c8737bc50c1a2fb8e2c9\/images\/b66516eb-1f2d-8d90-0e02-d4223f78f6f7.png\">I have an inexplicable affinity for British television shows. If you haven\u2019t tried them, I recommend\u00a0<em>Sherlock, The Great British Baking Show<\/em>, and<em>\u00a0Downton Abbey<\/em>.\u00a0<em>Downton<\/em>\u00a0followed the visible and invisible lives of an aristocratic English manor in the early twentieth century. The upstairs inhabitants lived in a serene environment of luxury, stiff collars, and afternoon tea. Like an elegant swan, however, all of the frantic work happened below the surface. The manor\u2019s downstairs was filled with the constant commotion of servants, cooks, butlers, footmen, and chambermaids. Without their endless work, the upstairs\u2019 illusion of effortlessness would not be possible.<br><br><em>Downton Abbey<\/em>\u00a0is not unlike Jesus\u2019 parable about houses and foundations at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. He emphasizes that it is the unseen, buried part of the house that determines its strength. The house can endure storms and floods because of its foundation, not because of its glamorous qualities above the surface.<br><br>Recent studies say that increasing numbers of Christians, particularly young adults, are falling away from the faith. I wonder if part of the problem is a church culture in America that\u2019s more focused on building impressive houses rather than strong foundations? Life upstairs is easy and often fun. This is the life of exciting church events and activities. It\u2019s thousands gathered for a concert or the dynamic preaching of a gifted speaker. <br><br>Life downstairs is much more difficult and rarely praised. It\u2019s the life of prayer, solitude, confession, and discipline; it\u2019s where the house is truly maintained.To persevere in the Christian life we must be willing to spend time in the servants\u2019 quarters and cellars and there establish the unseen, and uncelebrated, patterns of obedience. Perhaps the house of American Christianity is falling because we\u2019ve put all of our energy into building what is visible, rather than into what is invisible.\u00a0<br><br>DAILY SCRIPTURE<br><a href=\"https:\/\/withgoddaily.us2.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=87188c8737bc50c1a2fb8e2c9&amp;id=880803d202&amp;e=f52fc38132\">MATTHEW 7:24-27\u00a0<br>JEREMIAH 17:7-8\u00a0<br>EPHESIANS 3:14-19<\/a><br><br>WEEKLY PRAYERFrom Charles Kingsley (1819 &#8211; 1875<br><br>)Lift up our hearts, O Christ, above the false shows of things, above laziness and fear, above selfishness and covetousness, above whim and fashion, up to the everlasting Truth that you are; that we may live joyfully and freely, in the faith that you are our King and Savior, our Example and our Judge, and that, so long as we are loyal to you, all will ultimately be well.<br>Amen.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the foreword to the new edition of&nbsp;Falling Upward, researcher Bren\u00e9 Brown shares her sense of spiritual homesickness.&nbsp;&nbsp; The word \u201chomesick\u201d often conjures up images of a child\u2019s fleeting sadness or their temporary yearning for home and family. In today\u2019s culture, the emotion is often dismissed \u2026 [as] a fuzzy overnight-camp feeling, not a fierce [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23705"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23705"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23709,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23705\/revisions\/23709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}