Grief, Exile, and Longing For Home

Grief, Exile, and Longing For Home

 

      NERD ALERT, NERD ALERT.  One thing that you need to know about me is that I am a nerd.  I said it and I'm pretty proud of it.  I love Lord of the Rings, Super Hero Movies, Pokemon, and who doesn't like Star Wars (I'm looking at you Star Trek fans).  There is something magical about the lore of Star Wars.  It draws you in and you quickly find yourself building relationships with almost every character (ok, maybe not Jar Jar).  The story lines are compelling and have created quite a following for nearly fifty years.  One of the greatest pieces of cinema is when Luke finds out that Darth Vader is his father!  But my personal favorite Star Wars story arc is the Mandalorian.  

      The Mandalorians were a highly religious society of masked warriors.  They were once a proud people with a home called Mandalore. It was more than dirt and buildings to them, it wasn't just a place, it was identity. Belonging. Heritage. A side that their identity was rooted.  It was where their stories lived. But the Galactic Empire rose to power under the hand of Emperor Palpatine with his clone army.  The Empire felt that the Mandalorians were dangerous.  They knew that they were unlikely to bow the knee.  Their warrior culture was destined for a conflict.  The Empire decided to lay waste to Mandalore.  They carpet bombed the city.  The event was known as The Great Purge, or The Night of a Thousand Tears.  Their world was bombed, scattered, poisoned, and the race of Mandalore was nearly extinguished. The survivors became wanderers. Exiles. Pilgrims drifting from system to system carrying memories of a home they could no longer return to.

      Now, you might be reading this and wondering, what in the world does Star Wars and the near extinction of the Madalorians have to do with grief and being a widower?  Well, if you’ve walked through grief, you understand that feeling of drifting, homeless, lost, hopeless, like you are a pilgrim.  Grief has a way of turning the familiar world into foreign territory.  I know it did for me.  Everything that was familiar to me quickly felt foreign. The house was still there, but it felt different. I didn't lose my house.....but I lost my home.  My routines remain, but they ached with heartbreak. You find yourself longing not just for a person, but for a world that existed before loss entered it.  The Mandalorians had a night of a thousand tears....a grieving person has a lifetime of tears that are beyond number.

      This may be one of the hardest parts of grief to explain to people who haven’t lived it, not that a grieving person should feel the need to justify how they feel. You don’t simply miss someone.  The word miss changes definition.  I used to say I missed eating a food, or I missed my favorite show.  The word miss now showcases a void in your life, an empty spot in your soul.  You miss the version of life that existed when they were still here. You miss the “old country.”  When your person dies your whole world, your whole culture, your identity all go away with them.

  The grieving person becomes a pilgrim almost overnight.  That’s why the Mandalorian story resonates so deeply.  I vividly remember watching the Mandalorian after Tiffanie died.  I remember having moments watching the bravest of warriors seek for a home that was lost.  At times I felt like one of those masked warriors.  Hiding my pain behind a mask, yearning for a home that is gone forever.  See, beneath the armor and spaceships is a story about a displaced people trying to remember who they are while carrying the ache of what they lost.  Read that again.  Now, read it for a third time and let it sink in.  Every return to Mandalore is really a search for restoration. A hope that maybe what was broken can somehow be rebuilt in some fashion.  That home might actually be attainable.  

       Scripture speaks a language of rebuilding from ruination, of restoration.  The people of God have always been pilgrims. Abraham wandered looking for a city whose builder and maker was God and didn't find it on this side of heaven. Israel carried songs of Zion while living in exile (seek out the Psalms of ascent). Peter called believers “strangers and pilgrims” in this world. And grief intensifies that feeling because suffering exposes how temporary this world really is.  There is an old hymn that says "this world is not my home, I'm just a passin' through, my treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue, the angels beckon me from heaven's open door, and I can't feel at home in this world anymore."  Hymns and songs about heaven have a whole new meaning to the grieving person.  This world loses its gloss and shine after watching the person who loved die.  The world just doesn't have much to offer to an old weary pilgrim.  They know where home is, and it's not here.

      A grieving heart often whispers, “I want to go home,” even when it cannot fully define what home means anymore.  And I personally think that maybe, just maybe, that longing is pointing to something deeper, something bigger then them.  Maybe grief is one of the painful reminders that we were made for a world untouched by death (Genesis 1-2).  A world where relationships are not severed by hospital rooms, funerals, or phone calls in the middle of the night.  A world where there are not gravestones, funeral parlors don't exist, and death is a word never breathed by God's people. Ecclesiastes says God has set eternity in the human heart. We ache because somewhere deep within us we know this brokenness is not how things were supposed to be, and there is only one fulfillment for that void....Christ.  Jesus came to this world to satisfy our eternal longing.  Only He can provide us with a home (John 14:1-6).

      The Mandalorians fought for Mandalore because they believe restoration is still possible.  The Christian clings to Christ for the same reason.  Not because we deny the devastation.  We can't deny the life that we are currently living.  We can't ignore the ruins that sit around us.  Also not because we pretend the ruins are beautiful or we fictionalize them away. But because we believe Jesus steps into ruined worlds and promises redemption.  That thought from the Holy Spirit took my breath away when I first wrote it.  Jesus steps into ruined worlds.  He steps into funeral homes, hospital rooms, bedsides where a grieving husband is weeping with his babies that miss their momma. The Gospel is not merely about escaping earth someday and it's more then a get out of hell free card. It is about restoration. Resurrection. New creation. The King returning to reclaim what sin and death have devastated.  And beloved He will.

      Grieving people understand that hope differently than others do.  Hope is a bank account that is overflowing for the grief stricken person because everything else in this world is emptied.  Once you’ve lost home, the promise of restoration becomes precious and you cling to it with all your life.  I personally believe that is why grief often makes pilgrims out of us. We stop placing all our roots in temporary soil.  We are tired of being transplanted from place to place.  We groan because this world simply doesn't satisfy. We begin looking “for a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”  Like the old hymn says, what a day that will be!

      And until that day comes, we walk forward much like the Mandalorians themselves.  They were a people bearing scars.  A grieving person is also scarred and beaten.  They were wanderers, and so are those that are grieved.  The Mandalorians proudly carried memories of their past, and the grieving person will always carry the most precious memories of yesterday.  The Mandalorians tirelessly searched for a home, and Philippians 3:20 teaches us that our citizenship is in heaven.  But how I resonate most with the Mandalorians is that they refused to give up hope, even when it seemed impossible.  As a man that will be struck with grief all my days I will also say that I carry hope.  My hope is stronger, heavier, and more powerful then my grief.  They often mingle together, but the voice of hope is louder then that of my grief.  They don't necessarily cancel one another out, instead they co-mingle together.  I refuse to let hope die, but without hope, we are the most miserable and pitiable of people.  Instead, my life will be known by a resilient, and unwavering hope that refused to die.  May hope be what carries you through each day.