Longing

Doesn’t spring just make your feet itch? Not literally, of course, but almost. I revisit photos of my European adventures, I dream of tropical islands with beaches that stretch on forever and azure landscapes with gentle waves and warm winds. I can feel the thrill of past road trips – bombing down the highway, stopping for a picnic lunch on the edge of California table lands that drop dramatically into the Pacific. From the Grand Souk in Tangiers to the Glacier Express of Switzerland, and from Bonavista to Vancouver Island, my how those memories beckon! Call it whatever you will – wanderlust or seinsucht – once it’s in the blood, the condition is incurable.

Someone asked me recently if the experience of longing is present in every soul. That’s a hard one. Who can answer for every soul?

But doesn’t it seem that there is something about pilgrimage, quest, journey that is inherently human? What are we looking for? Is it as Indo-Canadian writer, Rohinton Mistry says, “the journey – chanced, unplanned, solitary, [is] the thing to relish”. I suppose that will depend on our tendency toward modern or post-modern worldview. Whatever your perspective, there is something to sit up and take notice about our need to go.

The great journey writers – Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress, CS Lewis in Pilgrim’s Regress, Tolkien and TS Eliot – highlight the importance of telos, that is, movement toward a goal. For Bunyan, it’s the Celestial City, for Lewis it’s John’s Island, for Tolkien and Eliot, it’s the return home. What happens along the way impacts the pilgrim in ways from which she is unlikely to recover. It’s not something your travel agent will guarantee, and life insurance doesn’t cover this act of God, but transformation seems to be a common outcome of the undertaking.

On this Palm Sunday, Christians celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Earlier on, the physician Luke writes, “And Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem.” (Luke 9) His journey culminates in the City of Peace (jeru-shalom), where on this Sunday, the crowds throw down palm branches and chant, “Hosanna in the highest!” in recognition of the King of Kings. In a week, the same crowds will hang him for the very same reason.

Life is a highway, sings Tom Cochrane. Jesus could have said the same.

Life’s like a road that you travel on
When there’s one day here and the next day gone
Sometimes you bend sometimes you stand
Sometimes you turn your back to the wind
There’s a world outside every darkened door
Where blues won’t haunt you anymore
Where the brave are free and lovers soar
Come ride with me to the distant shore
We won’t hesitate break down the garden gate
There’s not much time left today

Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long

Through all these cities and all these towns
It’s in my blood and it’s all around
I love you now like I loved you then
This is the road and these are the hands
From Mozambique to those Memphis nights
The Khyber pass to Vancouver’s lights
Knock me down get back up again
You’re in my blood I’m not a lonely man

There’s no load I can’t hold
Road so rough this I know
I’ll be there when the light comes in
Just tell ’em we’re survivors

Life is a highway
I want to ride it all night long
If you’re going my way
I want to drive it all night long