45 DAY / 45 POINT PLAN - DAY SEVEN: Hiraeth and Lost Home

“There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same.” - Frodo Baggins

45 DAY / 45 POINT PLAN - DAY SEVEN: Hiraeth and Lost Home

It’s a difficult thing to describe. 

The word has no direct english translation. 

And it doesn’t help that I’m not from Wales and I don’t speak Welsh. 

Hiraeth. 

Pronounced “here-EYEth”. 

Don’t forget to roll the ‘rrr’. 

Hiraeth isn’t an exacting word. Or even a precise idea. 

It’s a wisp. 

A description of guttural feeling. An in-your-bones understanding. I can’t speak the language. Pronounce the word properly. Don’t fully get its socio-historical context. But somehow I understand hiraeth. 

Hiraeth means (something) like ‘lost home.’ Or a longing for a lost home. Or a longing for a place that once felt like home but isn’t any longer and may never have been. 

Smart people, like Lily Crossley-Baxter, describe Hiraeth as, “A blend of homesickness, nostalgia, and longing, "hiraeth" is a pull on the heart that conveys a distinct feeling of missing something irretrievably lost”

It’s also “a protest” - Pamela Petro (another smart person) says: “If it must be called homesickness, it’s a sickness come on—in Welsh ailments come onto you, as if hopping aboard ship—because home isn’t the place it should have been. It’s an unattainable longing for a place, a person, a figure, even a national history that may never have actually existed. To feel hiraeth is to feel a deep incompleteness and recognize it as familiar.”

Hiraeth. 

It’s how I’ve long felt. 

Wandering. Drifting. Far from home. From the world I knew and loved. 

Where I was born. Lived. Laughed. Loved. 

A world now long lost. 

A home long passed away. 

My spiritual home. My church. But more than my church. 

It’s all vanished. My whole spiritual world where my spiritual home once was. 

A place I once belonged to but no longer. 

A place that I cannot return to. Even if I could. Even if I wanted. 

Because I don’t want to. I can’t ever want to go back. Not really. 

For that home may never have existed at all. 

It’s gone.

Yet I yearn to be there all the same. 

My home that may have never been. 

Incompleteness. Deep and familiar. 

Think me ‘a touch overdramatic’ - I care not. 

 When I left my former church - especially the way that I did - something happened inside my soul. The pain and trauma of the experience jilted me from course. Like a planet pushed out of its orbit. I lost my way. On the drift. And I haven’t found my way back. 

And I don’t want to.

It would be easy to say, ‘you’re disillusioned,’ ‘jaded,’ ‘hurt,’ or ‘bitter.’ Or that I’m going through a ‘dark night of the soul’ or a “deconstruction” process. Though none of these ideas suffice. They fall short of what I mean to say. What I am feeling and thinking. Especially deconstruction. Or, the ‘the process of tearing down of one’s beliefs.’ 

I’ve been tearing down my theological beliefs for as long as I could download illegal Napster CDs.

Hiraeth is different. 

Hiraeth is the silent pause of the semi-colon read aloud. Juxtaposing emotional tension. Realities without resolve. It’s more than angst. Different than despair. It’s the feeling of homesickness for a home you can’t return to. Like Frodo leaving the Shire for the final time. The Shire was his home. But he can’t stay. If I understand correctly, (you Welsh-folk step up at any time!) hiraeth is coming to terms with a sad truth - but a truth you’ve always known to be true - but wish it wasn’t. 

Leaving my former church has brought me to terms with a sad truth I had known for a long time. 

The truth is, I’d been holding out hope that the church was different. Not just my ‘little c’ church but the ‘Big C’ church as a whole. At least in the context that I knew it: North American evangelicalism.

Somewhere in my career I took on the role of “the little boy with his finger in the damn.” An old English story about a Dutch boy who stops a massive flood by plugging his chubby finger in the hole of town’s damn. God didn’t ask or need my help. He didn’t need my chubby finger. But I fought ‘the good fight’ on behalf of the church anyway. Propping it up. Trying to “make it relevant.” Convincing others to the same. ‘Don’t you see how important the local church is?!’

But even my own actions didn’t match my words. My work was both selfless and self-absorbed. My programs were both open-to-anyone but really a club for ‘believers only.’

Becry for action but breed passivity. Call for unity but grasp for control.

I can’t tell you the amount of hours I’ve spent - hours upon hours - sitting in meetings talking about the sound on Sunday morning. Equipment. Cords. Microphones. Feedback. Stage set-up. The show-as-distraction from any real purpose. As if our production quality really mattered. And I never ever ever cared! But said nothing. There was pressure to share the gospel but rarely did I actually considered the hearts and minds of “non-believers.” What’s a “believer” or “non-believer” anyway?! And if I ever asked a question like that I’d land in hot water for breaking rank. Dissenting from orthodoxy. I can’t tell you how many follow-up conversations I’ve fielded over the years. Loyalty tests. ‘Are you sure you are actually a Christian?’ Us vs. them. The righteous saved vs. the heathen lost. A foundation built on division. What is a Christian anyways?! Who defines what true belief is? Who says what an actual follower of Jesus looks like? Certainly not me. Though I pretended anyway. 

Jesus doesn’t see ‘us or them.’

He sees we. You. All. 

Of course there are moments when the church hits the sweet spot. Does things right. Touches heaven and shares it on earth. Thy Kingdom come; Thy will is done. And of course, there are many many good Jesus-loving churches filled with Jesus-loving people who do Jesus-loving work in the world. I don’t doubt that. I’m not here to condemn or “burn it to the ground!”

But as a Christian who goes to church I have to ask myself: is this the best we can do?

The church isn’t what it ought to be. 

And I know it. 

You know it. 

I knew it.

We all do.

Coming to terms with this truth is both familiar and deeply incomplete.  

The image of space comes to mind. Not low-orbit earth and moon stuff. That’s child’s play space. I’m talking deep space. Far out space. No point of reference kind of space. That’s hiraeth to me.

I’ve lost my point of reference. My point of reference lost its point of relevance. I don’t know where else to look. Or which way to go. I can’t go back. But I want to. I wish it were different. But it’s not. 

I’ve come to terms with it. 

Being knocked off course has brought about blessing. The unending expanse of darkness ain’t so bad. Ive found joy in deep space. Seen things in a whole new way. Learned to appreciate what was. Begun to anticipate what could be. I’m taking with me the good. Leaving behind the bad. Floating in the sad truth that I long for a my home that I can’t return to. 

On the drift, in hiraeth, shall my art come forth! 

In the next weeks - should you choose to follow - I will be sharing my views from my spot in deep space. My hiraeth journals. Thoughts. Critiques. Potentially - risqué art pieces. What I take with me. And what I leave behind. 

I know that I am not the only one floating out here. The only one feeling lost, drifting, and spaced.

My sincerest hope is that my art and words and creations give comfort to you in the dark cold. Encourage your lonely soul. You aren’t alone. Jesus certainly hasn’t left you. And the church can be better. And it will be. Because together, by God’s grace, we’ll make it so.