Life is often described as a journey, although the truth be told it is a road to nowhere, we don’t go anywhere. We go round in circles and end up returning to same place many times. That said we return often changed in all kinds of way, sometimes with treasure to share. The lovely thing about returning home of course is that the return comes with the sense of belonging, to a place where you finally belong. I suspect it is the same when we go on our final journey. I have been thinking of the many folk, this Christmas season, I have journeyed with during my life, who are no longer with us, but who shared their treasures with myself and others. For this I offer thanks and praise.
Tom I want to share with you a short poem by Tom Leonard titled “Odysseus”
“Odysseus” by Tom Leonard
it took me so long to get back to who I am
why was I away so long why was the journey so tortuous
all those false masks against a backdrop narrative to do with authenticity
but now arriving back there is still much debris to clear
the clearer to see the point from which I started
that from which I set out confused in sundry identities at war with themselves
now to find calm on that setting-out point as the final destination
As I was coming back to my home in Altrincham I found myself singing one of the chants I have shared in “Singing Meditation” the words were: “The Earth, the air, the fire, the water, return, return, return, return”. It was the final words “return, return, return,” that kept singing round and round in my heart.
This got me thinking about a conversation I heard on Oddysseus and the Odyssey, I think a friend had seen the old classic Hollywood movie. Now while we might not be fighting mythical beasts we are all on an adventure, a kind of Odyssey. That throughout our lives we step out we get lost, we find ourselves in the dark of winter lost in a fog, but that eventually we return home, or at least yearn to return home, often enlightened by the adventure. The call for home is a powerful one.
Human history is littered with stories and adventures inspired by the search for treasure, for wisdom, for enlightenment. Think of the great figures of religion Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed, Gandhi, they all stepped out into the wild alone and returned enlightened. Think also of the heroic figures from the great stories, they did likewise. They were called out into the unknown, only to return with something new and inspiring. They stepped into the dark, but came home in the light. Stories such as Jason and the Argonauts or many of the other Greek tales, Pilgrims Progress, Gulliver’s Travels, The Wizard of Oz, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Lord of the Rings the list is endless. Human history is littered with folk tales and myths which teach us so much about what life is in all its potential both for beauty and horror.
Joseph Campbell, who spent years exploring such myths, believed that these stories helped us to fully understand how each of us at some point in our lives or at many moments of our lives are called out to journey forth. He identified four distinct stages of the journey. The first stage Campbell named “The Call to Adventure”. This he claimed is caused by discontent, which draws us out of the comfort of our lives to risk something new; the second stage is a form of initiation where the hero goes through a series of ordeals that test their mental and physical skills; The third stage is the time of revelation the discovery of truth and treasure; the final stage is the return to one’s community. With wisdom gained and with treasure to share. Coming home in the light, coming out of the dark or a thick fog, if you like.
These adventures began and ended with a call. They began with a powerful call to adventure, but they also ended with an equally powerful call, to return home. Just think of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and those immortal words as she clicked her ruby slippers “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.” Similar to those three words that came to me as I drove through the fog, “return, return, return.
The call to return, especially to return home is a powerful call. This call though is not just about returning to a place, it is also about time I believe; about returning to a time in life when everything was simpler and safer. I’m sure that this was Dorothy’s call in “The Wizard of Oz”.
This is the call of nostalgia. To return to the place of safety the place of paradise, where we were cared for and looked after. Nostalgia though is often blind and perhaps senseless. It can also be painful. Things are never quite as we remember them.
Nostalgia is an interesting word. Like so many words it has changed in meaning over time. Originally it meant “severe homesickness considered as a disease” from the German heimweh (home+woe) homesickness. It is rooted in the ancient Greek words “algos” meaning pain, Grief, distress and “nostos” meaning homecoming. Nostalgia is a painful homecoming.
There is a similar Welsh word “Hiraeth” which is a mixture of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness or an earnest desire for the Wales of the past. The Cornish and Breton equivalents are "hireth" and "hiraezh". The truth is that reality and memory are not always the same.
The physical return home can also be painful, especially if what we are returning with is seemingly not wanted. Sometimes you might be rejected on the first return. Think of Jack and his beans in the story “Jack and the Beanstalk.” There is an account in Mark’s Gospel of Jesus returning home and being rejected and almost mocked. As he said to his disciples ‘Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.’
Sometimes we might not be recognised when we return home, how painful can that be. We can feel like a stranger in our own land. Think of Odysseus who is recognised by no one on his return. It is only as he begins to speak that his old, now blind, dog recognises his voice and his tail begins to thud with joy and love and recognition.
I remember a painful experience in my own life many years ago. There had been quite sudden and dramatic changes in my life, I have never been quite the same person since. I remember over the months that ensued that I would go home for a few days and return quite frustrated, with this feeling that my family and my loved ones were not accepting me as I was. I remember going to see my minister at the time, John Midgely and voicing this. I remember John calmly saying to me, after listening to me going on with myself for quite some time, “Danny you have gone through some quite dramatic changes and while you have adjusted to this it will take others some time. People are not quite sure how to be with you. They are used to you being a certain way and it will take them some time to adjust to the new you.” I remember thinking to myself how wise these words were. I also reflected some time later that perhaps I’d not changed that much as it was still all about me. Instead of me wanting them to adjust to and understand me, I was the one who ought to have been adjusting to and understanding them. These days I rarely feel unaccepted wherever I go and am gratefully received if I come to preach in my home town. I am loved amongst my kin and welcome in every home. I am recognised as I truly am too.
Well at least this has been the case until recently, when I found myself in that fog. I felt unaccepted and unwelcome, not that anyone else made me feel this way. I did this to myself and thankfully I have moved through this and come to a place of self acceptance once again, the fog has cleared thank God. The truth is I have always been loved and accepted as I am, I just haven’t always felt this way. The journey home this week has shown this to me once again, “there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.” It was wonderful to share stories and laughter once again. I also remembered some rather beautiful experiences of being with folk who are long gone, who I have not thought of in a long time. The warmth and love I remember feeling in their company and homes, as a little lad. Recently all I have been remembering are less than lovely feelings as I have been in a less than lovely personal space. Just shows to me once again that we remember our past through the lens of our current experiences. Some say you cannot change the past. It is true that the facts remain the same, but they way they are remembered are under constant change.
Earlier we heard the wonderful poem “Art of poetry” Jorge Borges. Like Joseph Campbell Borges recognised a common theme in all the great stories. In this poem he explores some of the great ancient Greek stories. One being Ulysses (which is the Latin translation of Odysseus) and his painful return to Ithaca. He also talks of the philosopher Heraclitus who suggested that we can never return to the same river. This is because water continual flows on and on and the water we step into is never quite the same, but also because we who stand in the river are not the same person either, life will have changed us too…Like the river our lives, go on and on, ever changing. The lesson is that it is not about yearning to return to some mythical ideal, but to fully experience the adventure, the beautiful journey as the poem by Constantine Cavafy, “Ithacca” suggests. This is the lesson of Homer’s Odyssey and perhaps all the great stories. The treasure is the journey itself.
Life is a journey and a beautiful one at that. One in which we are constantly turning and returning again and again and again. It is not always an easy one and one where there will be troubles and difficulties. There will be times when we will not be recognised and may not even recognise ourselves; there will be times when we will feel completely lost and won’t know where to turn for sanctuary; there will be times of darkness too, when we find ourselves lost in a fog, but we all must journey on. In the end of course we return from where we came. We return, return, return, from the beautiful Odyssey. We step out of the fog, out of the darkness for the final time and return into the light…
Please find below a video devotion
based on the material in this "blogspot"
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