Home. It’s what we are apparently seeking during the second half of life. And until we reach it, we feel the worrisome hunger of homesickness, a longing for being known for who we are, what we are about, what we value.

I recently picked up a book I first read about five years ago. A dear friend named Matt recommended Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward, and I don’t take his recommendations lightly. I liked it, but what does that say? I like most things that I read and have no problem not finishing things that don’t challenge me. This book, I finished.

My marginal notes provide a subplot. I could see the relevance of this book for the time of life that Falling Upward speaks to–viz., the 35-55 crowd–but I couldn’t parse out it’s deeper truths. Or, to put it another way, I couldn’t transcend the moment to understand what it was really saying.

What Rohr talks about makes more sense if you’ve experienced it.

And I hadn’t. But I did sense that what he discusses–first half, second half, the “transgression” that a person “falls into,” necessary suffering–was coming, like the light at the end of a tunnel that turns out to be a freight train instead of daylight. Reading it this second time around makes me wonder if I ever really did read it the first time. It’s wisdom is frighteningly accurate.

Which brings me to what it’s inspired me to do. Re-read Homer’s Odyssey. I like having an ancient book, a modern book, and a poetry book all going on at the same time, and the last time I read Fitzgerald’s Odyssey was 2002. I read it then because I was fascinated with Greco-Roman literature and had no idea I would get an opportunity to study, teach, and research the classics. But here I am 22 years later reading the same story, wondering if I really ever read it the first time.

The fifth line of Homer’s Odyssey reads, “[a man] trying to secure both his life and and also the return home of his comrades.” This line can and should be read in the most parabolic way possible. Homer uses psyche, a common word for one’s physical life that can also be understood perfectly well transcendentally. Odysseus’ goal to save his psyche is just as much as battle for his identity as hero and king of Ithaca as it is for his survival. It’s a blunt reminder that when we have grown tired of our quest for glory we find we’re already on the way home trying—like the famed Odysseus—to recover our lives and the lives of those we love.

It’s amazing, isn’t it, how life causes us to look at things like art and literature differently. Homer’s Odyssey first held me fascinated with ancient culture; it now holds me fascinated with how deeply it understands human experience. It is both ancient and anciently wise. The story it tells grows from a rich history of humans attempting to understand what it means to be human. What does it mean to suffer? What does it mean to long for something beyond fame and glory? What does it mean to be lost, to search for home?

I’m among the cliched number of middle-aged men feeling shipwrecked, longing for a place where they can love and be loved.

Homesickness

Bottle messages