The World as Exile
“Let us, since we are travellers and pilgrims in this world, keep the end of our road always in our minds - for the road is our life, and its end is our home.”
St. Columbanus, Sermons
Original Image: Robert Loftin Newman, Flight into Egypt, n.d.; Smithsonian American Art Museum Open Access; Public Domain; additional artwork by Juliette Pierce Kent.
The Psalms describe human life as smoke, as meadow grass, and passing shadow. Ultimately, all is vanity. The days flee away; we appear like a flower, then wither. (1) Yet something within the heart longs. Somehow, impossibly, it anticipates eternity: a place, or way of being, to which we belong. This vanishing life feels like exile. Even a good, long life feels breathtakingly short to the one who stands at a threshold looking back. We live under a canopy of wonder and mystery that is both home and homelessness.
(1) Job 14:2
Original photograph by Robson Hatsukami Morgan @ Unsplash; additional artwork and collage by Juliette Pierce Kent.
Come to me, all you who are weary and overburdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Matthew 11:28-30
Mother Mary holds the child, Christ, as they make their dangerous passage.
Original image: Henry Ossaway Tanner, Flight into Egypt ca. 1916; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Open Access; Public Domain; additional artwork and collage by Juliette Pierce Kent.