On Being Lost As Exiles, and the Spiritual Journey Home

John and I went on a walk on Saturday afternoon. Before we left for our walk, we ate an omelette and read the Revised Common Lectionary for the day. The passage from Deuteronomy was particularly poignant for me. It was about being exiled and then returning from exile, about enjoying God’s favor.

Then we went on our walk, which I assumed was going to be around Lake Joy, but John suggested we detour and hike up into hills behind the lake instead. The sun was out and the air brisk; we had plenty of spare time, so I agreed. Tree branches that had recently fallen due to the intense snow fall were strewn about everywhere. Narrow creeks of running water cascaded down the center of the trail. We wound up and around, took another unexpected detour to the left that wound up and looped back down to the trail. We were certainly not lost, but for a time on our walk, I wasn’t exactly sure where we were. We passed a collection of rocks that looked like someone had built an altar, a personal Ebenezer on the way. At the peak of our detour the trail opened on the side of the ridge. We could see the wide expanse in front of us, and down into the valley we had just walked out of, glorious and green, teeming with life.

Upon our return home we ate lunch, and talked some more about the passage in Deuteronomy, the one about exile, about the feelings that surround being exiled, physically and spiritually. Of losing one’s place, of having to find a new home, or create a new home when the previous one has fallen apart or is no longer accessible, for whatever reason.

Exile is a fierce word. It creates almost a visceral reaction in my body. When one is in the middle of exile, nothing feels familiar and all feels lost. Loneliness haunts the exiled until they adapt and eventually become more at home in isolation or among the stranger than they do their own people and family.

Historically, one is exiled from home or country for doing something wrong. Cain was exiled and forced to wander as a fugitive, told that he would not have a place of his own. The burden was too much for him to bear and he cried out in despair and eventually settled in the land of Nod and became sedentary. From reading the text, it could be argued that Cain was brokenhearted over not being able to farm the land any longer, exiled from the soil. Whenever I read the story of Cain and Abel there is a striking sense of Cain’s loneliness in his punishment. To be exiled is to be the outcast, and no matter how guilty, his punishment was still hard to bear.

We all recognize the loneliness that comes with being the outcast.

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The passage in Deuteronomy 30:4 is poignant because it expresses one of the things that God does for us. God gathers us from the places where we are scattered. “Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back.”

If we are at the ends of the world, even there, God will gather us and promises to bring us back.

When my children were small and would wander farther than they intended, or spend more time out with friends than they anticipated, there would always be a gathering at the end of the day, when I would welcome them into my arms and hold them tightly and assure them their time away had ended, they were home, with me.

There was a time, not long ago, when I felt as if all that I was and knew and believed got run over by a semi-truck and I had been tossed to the ends of the earth, that I was exiled and somehow had to find my way back to myself, to something, anything familiar. My spiritual exile was so severe I did not know if I’d ever find my way back. Or even if I wanted to.

I certainly haven’t found my way back to what I once was. After all, it was time to grow up and see the world as a mature woman and not as a child any longer. Life and years have a way of altering everything, but I do feel that God has gathered my fragments and is returning me to myself, is restoring my soul, as Psalm twenty-three, assures us God does.

When we lose our faith, for whatever reason, particularly after overwhelming disillusion, it can feel like a form of exile. This is not to say that I no longer believed. I had faith. But the companionship, the rest and peace I had always enjoyed with God disappeared and my relationship with God seemed like dry bread, toast with no butter. I walked for several years by sheer faith, without the bonus of good feelings or mystical experiences. Sheer will, I suppose.

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Sunday evening, because of the heavy snow storm, John and I went outside to work in the yard. I took the blower and set out to clear the long driveway. There, with the loud, cumbersome noise of the blower, I started to pray, to lift my heart and thoughts toward heaven. Nothing major, nothing monumental. No big questions, no aching injustice, no despair or overwhelming need. It was simple friendship. The friendship I had long thought was lost between God and me, was still there, waiting in the quiet dusk of the day.

What struck me was not that I was praying. I pray all the time, but the companionship I used to relish with God and had believed to be something of the past, has returned. An ease, a familiarity, a sense of home and of belonging, has been restored. I can’t say that I understand this. These things with God are, after all, a mystery. But while there are mysterious things about it, there is also something to be noticed, and gratitude to be rendered.

In the wise words of Jesus, if we want to save our lives, we must lose them. I think it is true to say, without exaggeration that I lost my life, and somehow by God’s grace, have found it once again.

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