We seek the Living God

12/6/2005 12:51 AM:

I received suitcase number three via CTM today. I’ve spent the past five hours unpacking it, sorting items that I will use now and ones to throw back in the stowed luggage. Each phase of this trip has required packing, repacking, sorting, cleaning and repacking, all based on a specific time period and the items necessary for that period. Three days in Philadelphia, a week in Rabat, a couple weeks in Azrou, a week in Khenifra, a week in Azrou, seventeen days in Khenifra, a few days in Azrou, a week field trip, a few days in Azrou, a week on Assignment site investigation trip, a few days in Azrou, four days in Khenifra finishing CBT Phase 3, a few days in Azrou, a week in Immouzer, a day in Fes, a night in Immouzer, travel to our sites and then .. unpacking for two months! I think that covered all the bases.

Guess I thought I hadn’t traveled enough in the past ten weeks and took off for Tinjdad this past weekend, and then worked in an overnight in Ourzazate to see the delegate on official business today. It worked well, but then it was another packing expedition. This past weekend was probably one of the first times in my life I have traveled for more than one night with only a backpack in tow (computers and purses don’t count). Maybe I’m actually learning to pack lighter! However, it was quite a joy to be reunited with items I’ve stowed throughout Stage, such as my green mud facial mask, vitamins, and MS Office CD’s to install Arabic on my computer.

After an overnight in Tinjdad, I booked a room in the standard Peace Corps hotel in Ourzazate, sleeping, eating, reading, writing, thinking alone for hours can produce some well-processed ideas. It can also drive one insane, and dare I admit it, make one … lonely. I have encountered the thought more often than I would like, that I have just been here three months and plan to stay another two years. That is a long time. I already miss my family terribly, and have construed gravely sentimental memories of Christmas and evenings by the fire, with Andrea Bocelli playing in the background. Today, however, I came to a healthy side of the sentiments. I remembered the many times I detained myself longer than a holiday or weekend at my parents’ home. I often grew restless, eager for another land or to return to the big city and my own life. Family was wonderful, but one cannot stay in the arms of a parent forever, for sentiment and love’s sake. Good, loving parents raise children to effect inspirations with action. I have good parents. I cannot sit idly, letting go by moment each thread of my dreams. I pursued my dreams. I am in Peace Corps. Isn’t that what they and I wished?

I then turned to my own life in Cincinnati, my adorable apartment, my work in developing The Play Connection, Inc., my dear friends Melissa, Shauna and Lexi. I loved all of that life, but if you ask anyone of my friends there, they will tell you that I was ever ancy to be off galavanting around the world, finally delving into my career aspirations of development work. Now I am here, and wishing I was back in location number one, cuddled on my parents house. This, I’m discovering, must be a sentiment that pursues one wherever she travels. Always a longing for another place, another person, a family member not present, a more comforting home, a more exciting adventure. This life is not fulfilling. Each stage will not bring the ultimate gratification it promises, for that part longed for during another phase, once gained, may require the sacrifice of the first, for the second, upon fulfillment, alters the circumstances within which one finds himself, and the elements of the first situation, now being changed, inherently remove the qualities of the first. For example, a bachelor sits on his couch, drinking beer to wash away the grievances of singleness, loneliness, and longs for a wife. A year later the bachelor is no more, but a husband, with many things to be busy about and a beautiful wife beside him. However, she is one who has needs and commits transgressions (as all humans do), and he longs for the quiet happy days of his bachelor life. He remembers only those qualities no longer present (freedom and peace from the concerns and distractions of another human being), but does not recall that with that life, came the ache for another being to love and live with, to share his thoughts and life with. Such is life. Such is our state of affairs. This is where a contentment unnatural to man, but a gift from God is required. A contentment that understands that none of these circumstances will provide the joy nor fulfillment sought, that nothing in this world can give what we seek.

We seek the living God. God has placed eternity in the hearts of men. Our true longing is reunion with a loving God, and a place where joy and perfection, love and beauty never cease. Until then we can search but futilely.