Saturday, Sept. 18, 2004 4:27 P.M.

SOJOURNER

Gate at Placerita Canyon Park. I took this photo last summer. It may no longer look like this. The area was largely destroyed by wild fires last spring. I have not returned to see the devastation.

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A few days ago, I received an email from Jaeme, a web-friend who lives on the upper Atlantic coast of Florida. He, thus far, has escaped many of the ravages of the hurricanes, which are plaguing that state. However, to my knowledge, no area in Florida has been totally untouched. The incessant downpours of Charlie did inundate Jaeme�s city, moving at a turtle�s pace in a wide swath, first from east to west, and then back again like a giant street sweeper intent upon covering every mile of that peninsula. At least, there was enough constant rain to bring a bone weariness resulting from its unrelenting presence. Jaeme is a man who not only is sensitive to his soul�s longings, but who also has the ability to verbally communicate this in his writing. He grew up in Florida. Later, his email was addressed to �Xpatriot� during a long sojourn in the Appalachian region of the Carolinas and Tennessee. He discovered parts of his soul�his nature� which were awakened by a panorama of creation�s bountiful beauty in that area, touching the deepest fibers of his being. He aptly wrote about his experiences, in his �Tales From Days on the Road.� He recognized that he was a sojourner. Necessity drew him to move back to his roots in Florida where he is rediscovering many of his earlier passions, and missing some of the ones he left behind. His address now includes the name �Prodigal��not because he has run away from his �father�s house�, but rather because he has returned. Necessity was what brought the original prodigal back home too. He wrote: �It's almost as if I have quit struggling against the current and have begun to drift back downstream to where I started. I'm sure at some point I will feel completed, but there's a lot of road to travel between here and there. I still feel like a visitor here, a ghost in a landscape that is completely familiar and utterly foreign. And my heart will always be in the Appalachian Mountains. I am not a beach person.� If Jaeme had not become a sojourner, - would he ever have discovered �he was not a beach person?� Perhaps. But I think that sometimes the �sojourn� is necessary in order to show us where our hearts really lie. At times the current does not take us back full circle. It doesn�t matter. Whatever it takes in life, the lesson here is that we are sojourners. Dictionary .com defines a sojourn as: �A temporary stay; a brief period of residence.� Another definition to note�similar, but not the same� �Pilgrimage: A long journey or search, especially one of exalted purpose or moral significance.� Our sojourn often includes a pilgrimage. It can be an essential part of the whole. But the important difference is this. A pilgrimage is chosen and purposed. It is unique and infrequent. We are all sojourners, whether we realize it or not, and it is not by choice. It is by fact of birth. It is the human experience. The problem is, that we struggle against it our whole lives. We feel as though �we never arrive�, because in truth, we do not. We often speak of a �spirit of discontent� as though it were a bad attitude. I believe that it is created in our hearts by God, to keep us climbing, growing, and reaching toward new horizons. It is that �spirit of discontent� which caused man to spread westward from his middle eastern/African roots. It is that same discontent that drives us to improve our lives, to dream of new inventions, and strive to cure diseases. That is the very meaning of the word, �dis-ease�. A lack of ease in the status quo. I do not feel at home being a sojourner. (Is this an oxymoron? Or just a contradiction.) Not many do, and I am not totally convinced that it is possible. It may be in our ability to accept the fact�to adjust our thinking�to even enjoy it. But to feel at home, when we are not�that can only be accomplished in the spirit. The ancient Biblical patriarch Abraham, a nomadic settler in a land to which he was led (he did not choose) and where he never felt he had an abiding possession, said �I am a stranger and a sojourner with you�� and he requested a small burial plot for his household. Guess things haven�t changed that much. Guess that�s why we so often hear the expression at the close of a sojourner�s journey, �He went home.� Until then, the goal is to learn how to be content as a sojourner; how to grow until we go; how to have a positive�not a negative�spirit of discontent; and how to hold all of life in an open, outstretched hand, as an offering of joy.

Thanks for reading! If you have never read my �bio� entry, see the link below.

Short BIO Found Here

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