Walking Home

by Ana Lisa De Jong

Regardless of the destination, Celtic pilgrims saw their physical travels as representing an inner journey as well. They sought to avoid distractions that kept them from focusing on the presence of God. They were searching for their “place of resurrection”, a location conducive to spiritual renewal where they would invest their lives and where their mortal bodies would rest until being reunited with their Lord on the last day. (Journeys With Celtic Christians 27)

WALKING HOME

We are all walking home.
Such a long walk.
In the light, and in the dark.
Sometimes hand in hand,
and sometimes alone.
Sometimes, we stride forward
steady on the path.
Other times we trip on the stones,
on the verge.

In the day we can clearly see our way.
His smile, our light.
We know His hand of blessing,
and His gentle guidance.
While at night we feel our way,
and struggle with what we thought we knew
so well;
what had seemed clear to us in the light of day.
We encounter ourselves.

We are all walking home.
And light and shade define our days;
just as sun and moon distinguish
day from night.
If there were no questions or regrets;
struggles, slips
or back-tracks,
then we would have arrived.
We have not arrived.

Yet we may look, and find,
the blessing in the night.
Those things we cannot see in the daytime,
have a way of surfacing in the dark.
And without our eyes to see,
we feel instead, their edge.
And realise again, our deep need for Him,
who, although we cannot see Him near,
keeps vigil by our side.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
July 2016

“But the people of God will sing a song of solemn joy, like songs in the night, his people will have gladness of heart, as when a flutist leads a pilgrim band to Jerusalem to the Mountain of the Lord, the Rock of Israel…”
Isaiah 30:29

“Behind me, dips Eternity
Before me, Immortality
Myself, the term between”
Emily Dickinson