loneliness
Henri Nouwen and the story of homecoming
I was, indeed, the son exhausted from long travels; I wanted to be embraced; I was looking for a home where I could feel safe… For so long I had been going from place to place: confronting, beseeching, admonishing, consoling. Now I desired only to rest safely in a place where I could feel a sense of belonging, a place where I could feel at home.1
Moving to a new place tends to be a lonely endeavor. At least, that’s been my experience. I’ve called the Chicagoland area my home for seven years since my family and I moved from the Philippines to the United States in 2015. But after all those years of building friendships and making memories, it was time to say goodbye.
As I drove east on I-90, I watched my beloved city blur in the rearview mirror. It was haunting as familiar faces, sounds, and buildings disappeared behind me. Heading toward New Jersey, tears fell down my face like rainfall in the summer heat.
Aptly called America’s “Garden State,” New Jersey is filled with lush forests, hills and mountains, hiking trails, swelling rivers, and the refreshing saltwater of the Jersey shore. It was a new land, a new place to call home… but it doesn’t quite feel like it yet. In my experience, moving brings a kind of sorrow that reminds me of my displacement from the Philippines. As I have previously written, displacement is a painful reality that has riddled my life with fear: of the unknown, of uncertainty, of assimilating again and again — a common experience among many immigrants, especially for those who have suffered tremendously more than me.2
In many ways, the move re-opened old wounds. Even after living in New Jersey for almost three months now, loneliness remains a poignant feeling as I continue to get acquainted with this new place. But during these lonely moments, nothing ministered to my soul so gently as theologian Henri Nouwen’s book The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming.
In his book, Nouwen writes of the Christian journey as a homecoming to the arms of God. He writes:
For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life — pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures — and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.
Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.3
Indeed, there will be many moments in our lives when “home” might feel distant, and “belonging” remains merely an unfulfilled prayer. Meeting new people, losing old friends, moving to a new place, the death of a family member, beginning a new career, adjusting to retirement — all these different changes and transitions might make us feel unstable, restless, lonely, and without a sense of home. But what matters is moving ever forward into the arms of the Father, who beckons us to come closer, and closer, and closer… and even closer.
God longs to wrap the firmness of loving arms around our frames, never letting us go.
I understand that receiving God’s love might feel daunting to some of us, including me, who have struggled to give up control over the different variables of our futures and simply rest in God, where home is found. But this is what matters: giving up the restlessness of control and finding rest in the arms of our heavenly Father. As Nouwen writes:
Each little step [toward God] seemed like an impossible demand, a demand requiring me to let go one more time from wanting to be in control, to give up one more time the desire to predict life, to die one more time to the fear of not knowing where it all will lead, and to surrender one more time to a love that knows no limits.4
May we indeed seek such love that knows no limits. Certainly, such love beckons you now to finally come home, saying, “I will be your father, and you shall be my sons and daughters.”5
Can you hear love’s voice calling for you? Indeed, can you feel the love of God stretching to meet you, embrace you, and finally bring you home? Like the prodigal son, it is now your turn to take that step toward the unknown and trust that the Father will take you where you need to be.
Reading:
The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America by Beth Lew-Williams (Harvard University Press)
Heathen: Religion and Race in American History by Kathryn Gin-Lum (Harvard University Press)
The Serpent Has Suffocated in a Woman: A Study of Eve and Mary in the Liturgical Songs of Hildegard of Bingen by Emma Yeager (Give Me a Word)
Watching:
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Prime Video)
She-Hulk: Attorney-at-Law (Disney+)
Fantastic Fungi (Netflix)
Listening:
Antarctican Dream Machine by Novo Amor
Until I Reach the Sun, Vol. 1 by The Ridleys
Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming, 5. Emphasis added.
For more information, read: “The mental health impact of anti-Asian racism,” by Zara Abrams in American Psychological Association; “U.S. Must Provide Mental Health Services to Families Separated at Border,” by Miriam Jordan in The New York Times.
Nouwen, 106.
Nouwen, 14.
2 Corinthians 6:18, NRSV.