Boston counts as a "foreign land"

You shall be my people
and I will be your God.
I will take you away from the nations
gather you from all foreign lands,
and bring you home to your own land.

This passage, taken from Ezekial 36 and sung during this morning’s lauds, resonated strongly with me as I begin to think about my impending travels. In the last couple of days, I have been hammering out details with a potential subletter. I am currently scheduled to drive down to Los Angeles this week and hand off my apartment by Sunday. Then I will be displaced through August at the very least.

Although I’ve been away in Santa Barbara for three weeks, there has been some psychic comfort in knowing that I am only a two-hour drive away and that I can return “home” if needed. Subletting for these next few months, however, feels more serious. There will be no convenient popping back to my apartment. And I will be forced to make a home (and a community) elsewhere, wherever my journey leads me. But this passage is a nice reminder that the God who sends me forth will also call me home eventually.

The other passage from this chapter of Ezekial that I love:

I will give you a new heart
and place a new spirit within you,
remove the heart of stone from your body
and give you a heart of flesh.

I think this speaks to the opening of my heart during my travels – reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones, loosening old attachments and experiencing new things. I hope that the very expectation of newness, even prior to experience, will soften my heart ... into jello.