Homeless

The twenty-four-hour diner, the station waiting room and the motel are sanctuaries for those who have, for noble reasons, failed to find a home in the ordinary world...

-Alain De Botton, The Art of Travel, 51.

Sometimes by Step

Sometimes the night was beautiful
Sometimes the sky was so far away
Sometimes it seemed to stoop so close
You could touch it but your heart would break
Sometimes the morning came too soon
Sometimes the day could be so hot
There was so much work left to do
But so much you'd already done

Sometimes I think of Abraham
How one star he saw had been lit for me
He was a stranger in this land
And I am that, no less than he
And on this road to righteousness
Sometimes the climb can be so steep
I may falter in my steps
But never beyond your reach

Oh God, you are my God
And I will ever praise you
I will seek you in the morning
And I will learn to walk in your ways
And step by step you'll lead me
And I will follow you all of my days

-Rich Mullins and Beaker

Hebrews 11:13-14

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

Strangers and Aliens

We weren't born yesterday. We are from Missouri.

But we are also from somewhere else. We are from Oz, from Looking-Glass Land, from Narnia, and from Middle Earth. If with part of ourselves we are men and women of the world and share the sad unbeliefs of the world, with a deeper part still, the part where our best dreams come from, it is as if we were indeed born yesterday, or almost yesterday, because we are also all of us children still...

-Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy & Fairy Tale

Land of My Sojourn

And the coal trucks come a-runnin' with their bellies full of coal and their big wheels a-hummin' down this road that lies open, like the soul of the woman who hid the spies who were lookin' for the land of the milk and honey.

And this road she is a woman, she was made from a rib cut from the sides of these mountains, oh these great sleeping Adams who are lonely even here in paradise, lonely for somebody to kiss 'em.

And I'll sing my song, and I'll sing my song in the land of my sojourn.

And the lady in the harbor she still holds her torch out to those huddled masses who are yearning for a freedom that still eludes them. The immigrant's children see their brightest dreams shattered

here on the New Jersey shoreline in the greed and the glitter of those high-tech casinos. But some mendicants wander off into a cathedral and they stoop in the silence and there their prayers are still whispered.

And I'll sing their song, and I'll sing their song in the land of my sojourn.

Nobody tells you when you get born here how much you'll come to love it and how you'll never belong here. So I call you my country, and I'll be lonely for my home, and I wish that I could take you there with me.

And down the brown brick spine of some dirty blind alley all those drain pipes are drippin' out the last Sons of Thunder, while off in the distance the smoke stacks were belching back this city's best answer.

And the countryside was pocked with all of those mail pouch posters thrown up on rotting sideboards of these rundown stables, like the one that Christ was born in when the old world started dying, and the new world started coming on.

And I'll sing His song, and I'll sing His song in the land of my sojourn.

-Rich Mullins

DESDICHADO

*This is the Heir; come let us kill Him.
*Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved?

Christ walks the world again, His lute upon His back,
His red robe rent to tatters, his riches gone to rack,
The wind that wakes the morning blows His hair about His face,
His hands and feet are ragged with the ragged briar’s embrace,
For the hunt is up behind Him and His sword is at His side,…
Christ the bonny outlaw walks the whole world wide,
Singing: “Lady, lady, will you come away with Me,
Lie among the bracken and break the barley bread?
We will see new suns arise in golden, far-off skies,
For the Son of God and Woman hath not where to lay His head.”

Christ walks the world again, a prince of fairy-tale,
He roams, a rascal fiddler, over mountain and down dale,
Cast forth to seek His fortune in a bitter world and grim,
For the stepsons of His Father’s house would steal His Bride from Him;
They have weirded Him to wander till He bring within His hands
The water of eternal youth from black-enchanted lands,
Singing: “Lady, lady, will you come away with me,
Or sleep on silken cushions in the bower of wicked men?
For if we walk together through the wet and windy weather,
When I ride back home triumphant you will ride beside Me then.”

Christ walks the world again, new-bound on high emprise,
With music in His golden mouth and laughter in His eyes;
The primrose springs before Him as He treads the dusty way,
His singer’s crown of thorn has burst in blossom like the may,
He heedeth not the morrow and He never looks behind,
Singing: “Glory to the open skies and peace to all mankind.”
Singing: “Lady, lady, will you come away with Me?
Was never man lived longer for the hoarding of his breath;
Here be dragons to be slain, here be rich rewards to gain…
If we perish in the seeking…why, how small a thing is death!”

-Dorothy Sayers, Catholic Tales and Christian Songs