Aching for the Heavens
I describe myself as an avid traveler, a title I have long resisted because I didn’t see traveling as part of my identity. Sure, I enjoy trips as much as anyone, but I didn’t consider myself someone who was a “traveler” by any means. I always enjoyed family vacations and road trips growing up, and as I grew older, I adopted my own trips and vacations during college (although these were typically once or twice a quarter).
When COVID-19 halted the world in 2020, my desire to travel stirred with unmatched ferocity as I longed to break out of the confinement of the city and wander to wild places. The restrictions of the city felt unbearably foreign and I itched for the freedom of wide-open spaces. This jumpstarted a season of relentless road trips into the mountains, deserts and oceans, searching for freedom from the oppressive weight of isolation brought on by COVID-19 policies.
Despite the waning pressures of COVID restrictions, the adventure trend stuck; my quarterly trips became monthly—and often weekly—expeditions. I flew to different states and countries and took long road trips, either alone or with others, to the remote corners of the great American West. I longed for something bigger than me, bigger than the chaos of the post-COVID world, and some place to encounter both freedom and a sense of home.
Home as I knew it had been hijacked by COVID-19. The community life I had grown so accustomed to had quickly been snatched away and shut down, making the setting I normally called “home” feel much more oppressive and prison-like. I yearned for a new place to call home and found it in my travels. Now, whenever I board a plane or hit the road, it contains an excitement, a stirring of expectation and joy, as I anticipate encountering new people and places.
In my eyes, these moments contain a glint of the eternal as I step outside the bounds of the familiar and comfortable into the realm of the unknown. There is something ethereal about embracing new places that connects our souls to a world much greater than ourselves. We seem to tap into something deeper, richer, more ancient, and eternal when we willfully surrender the comforts of our daily routines and let a new place expand our horizons.
Isn’t it funny how when we return from travel, we look back fondly on the places we just encountered and the people we met along the way? A deep nostalgia sets in and tells us we just partook in something much greater than us, and we realize we have left a piece of ourselves in those places. In a unique way, those places have become like home to us, and returning to those places in the future becomes a sweet reverie where we get to reconnect with the pieces of ourselves we left behind.
I have become well-acquainted with this marvelous sensation throughout my travels, as many places once unfamiliar to me have become second homes. Returning to them feels like walking into the arms of an old friend as I become reacquainted with a place I know and love once more. It’s a curious phenomenon: the more I travel, the more home becomes a steadiness within me rather than a place outside of me. In equal measure, returning home after my latest journey makes me value the stakes I have put in the ground and allows me to enjoy a peculiar richness with the community I’ve left behind when I reunite with them. It emphasizes the beauty of returning to people who know, love, and accept me. The peculiar peace I experience when I come home becomes even more obvious after a long trip away as I re-enter spaces familiar to me that truly reflect who I am.
This is the fascinating dichotomy of travel: I grow into who I am when I leave and return to myself more fully at the end. What lies under all this drive to travel, though? Why does home feel so good to return to, and how is it possible that I could experience a sense of home while I’m abroad? What is it about “home” that is so compelling to my soul? What is it about travel that seems equally desirable to me, that difference that cultivates an ache for something more, something bigger? Why do I crave the beauty and newness of travel in equal measure to the stability and loving familiarity of my home? This homesickness is an ancient longing experienced by humans since the dawn of life. We see this sensation expressed by our greatest poets and philosophers time and time again as they describe their aching for home and heaven.
Popular podcast host and author, Brene Brown, has an episode with guest speaker Susan Cain in which Susan describes this state as an “aching for the heavens”. She talks about how each of us perpetually search for our individual utopias, a place of peace and belonging where we feel wholly loved, known and accepted. She says that regardless of our encounters with religion (or lack thereof), we each have this ache for heaven firmly planted within us.
Heaven has long been associated with an eternal home: a place of beauty, joy and love where all things experience complete healing and ultimate connectedness. Home and heaven are intertwined longings because they represent the same desire: a place to belong. The existence of heaven may be up for debate—depending on what you believe about life after death (or a lack thereof)—but we all have the potential to create homes for ourselves here and now.
Not all of us have had the gift of growing up in houses that felt like homes, but our privilege as adults is to create new narratives and create spaces for others to step into and enjoy the graces of belonging. This is the beautiful gift of home: we get to walk with other people in community and taste heaven together. How can you create a sense of heaven in your home? How can you bring the threads of your life together in a whole picture with others? We all have the capacity to create a space to cure homesickness by turning ourselves into a home for those around us. How will you do this in your home?
