Leaving A Community

Several nights ago, I felt lonely for the first time in Jordan. It was a terrible loneliness, and it stayed with me until I fell asleep. At some point in the evening, I happened to rediscover something that I wrote while preparing to leave Wheaton after my RA year. The sadness that I felt then was similar to the sadness that I felt several nights ago. So, I want to share that piece of writing here. 

I don't remember what the stages of grief are supposed to be, but writing is definitely one of mine. I highly recommend it. 

Grace and Peace.


Leaving A Community
5/8/11


My soul is sad and unsettled. The community that I love dearly is forcibly disbanded, and I must leave forever this holy place and time. Recalling happy memories only stirs up a sorrowful longing. Nothing would please me more than to return to what was. But I cannot. 

Perhaps one of the very few consolations in this circumstance is the assurance that there will be a final departure. A day will come when I will never again leave, and no one will ever leave me, and all will be at peace.

God has planted eternity in our hearts. When we feel excited or satisfied or any other good thing, we are really just experiencing (albeit in part) that for which we were originally made. Meaningful relationships, for example, feel good to us because relationality is an eternal glory that God has wired into every human being. When we experience it, even for a moment, the flame of eternity is kindled within us, and our souls shout "Aha!"

As a member of this dissolving community, I glimpsed eternity. Day after day after day. My soul was shouting. The fire was raging. 

But it's about to go out. And I am quiet. 

Leaving has no place in eternity. We were made for permanence, for perfect and everlasting communion with God and God's creation. So, when we are forced to leave a place and time in which we have caught glimpses of eternity, it is fitting that we feel sad, even a little angry. It should feel wrong, because it wasn't meant to be this way. 

And it won't be. When we enter the New Heaven and the New Earth, we will experience eternity in its glorious fullness. 

We will partake of all good things always. 

And we will never. again. leave. 

In the meantime, while leaving is simply a part of life, we trust that our gracious Provider will continue to give us glimpses of eternity along our life paths. But we must guard against falling in love with particular glimpses from particular places and times. For those glimpses, and all others, merely point us to where we are going. To the one who is waiting for us. 

Amen.