I have to write fast because the movers are about to load the chair in which I am sitting. Yes, we are moving. Again. Jo and I will be married for 45 years Saturday and we have lived in Columbia SC, Atlanta, Porto Portugal, Nashville, Athens, Fairview, now full circle because we are moving to a house in Asheville two miles from where I went to elementary school.

The reason for all these moves was professional. Jobs move us around. But there’s something deeper. I seem to make a major move every ten years. I have loved most of the homes we have inhabited---the one in Columbia didn’t have air conditioning so that was a challenge---but regardless of the setting there’s a stirring that happens.

While I am sure there are psychological reasons for this, I believe God builds a restlessness in our souls. As the author of the letter to the Hebrews writes, “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.”

I sit on my back porch and there’s the buzz of the cicadas who have come out of the ground this year. Some deep force has pulled them to move around and some deep force is pulling me. Because what we seek is not a house that makes sense for a 66 year old (smaller, one floor). What we seek is not comfort or a setting or convenience. We seek our true home which is not on this earth. We yearn for the New Jerusalem where we know who we are and feel connected to the source and therefore to all our brothers and sisters.

I am looking forward to moving across town. I love our new house even as I have loved this one. But I know that at some point, the stirring will return because the truth is there is no cure for homesickness.

+Porter