I've been listening to the soundtrack from Lord of the Rings, The King Returns. For some reason, every time I listen to the final song (sung by Annie Lennox) I start to cry. It's a weird reaction. Joyce, I think, told me that there is a reason behind every time we cry. Sometimes the issue is so deeply embedded in our subconscious we can't consciously figure out why we are moved to tears. I sat down and tried to analyze myself.

Obviously, it has to do with more than a simple emotional reaction to what is taking place in the movie when the song is sung. In the movie, Frodo is getting on the ship to sail west with Gandalf and the elves, probably never return to his home that he fought so hard to save. For some reason, I relate to Frodo, turning to leave his friends and home behind because he cannot stay. At the very beginning of the LOTR movies, Frodo is innocent and happy with out a care in the world. But he is irreversibly changed by his quest. In the movie, he comes home to discover he cannot stay at home. His past haunts him, it has changed him. He will never be able to call his home, home again. He finds no rest in the very place he yearned to return to.

This strikes me so deeply. I have come to understand and accept my inability to have a home. My "quest" started when I went to Africa when I was 17 and it has continued ever since. Africa was a hard experience and in my bitterness I learn who I really was. I remember eating only bits of bread and sugar cane for days. I was sick at one point and my leaders thought I had malaria. I felt so alone. I survived like how a refugee survives, dealing with each new day as it comes, not allowing myself to think of what it used to be like, constantly trying to make sure I provided for myself because no one else was watching out for me. The funny thing about it was that I was surrounded by a team of 30 teenagers and five leaders. Sometimes it is easier to feel alone in a large group.

When I came home from Africa, I found myself changed but unable to communicate my change to people around me. I didn't even really understand it myself. I was so happy to be home, I had dreamed of home, but home seemed shadowy and less substantial than I remembered it. I had Left and Come Back and realized there was no coming back. I lost part of myself in Africa, innocence or naivety or whatever.

A few blogs ago I discussed, somewhat lightly, my ideas about adventures. My philosophy of adventures I think is rooted in suffering. Experiencing an "adventure" actually means perceiving extreme danger to yourself for a moment, for a week, for a year. That danger, may it be real or not, makes us suffer. In that suffering a person's true character comes shining forth, what ever it may be. I went to Africa and found myself in an adventure. To my horror, I discovered that in hardship and suffering, my true character was governed by selfishness and fear. I was not who I thought I was.

It's so hard to explain how I feel! When I came back from Africa I knew I had lost something carefree but I had also gained wisdom. Have you ever noticed the sharpness in someone's eyes who has suffered and overcome? That's the look of understanding. They know the hardship of the world, they experienced it, yet they choose to rise above suffering. They choose happiness. The product of that choice, that understanding, is wisdom. True wisdom does not come cheap. It is bought at a price and leaves a person forever altered. They can never return to the home they remember because they themselves are changed.

That's what I see in the eyes of Frodo. That's what I hear in the song. That what I see in myself. My tears catch me off guard and I realize that I am mourning my loss of naivety, mourning the hardship of life. Yet, at the same time, I have gained understanding and wisdom that I would not trade for anything. And with out a home, the whole world is at my feet. I can go wherever I please. Nothing holds me back.

But I wonder, what am I searching for? In the past, I have caught myself searching for a home as I travel around the world. For all of us, home is not on earth. The desire to belong can't be satisfied here. I desire heaven, the place of true belonging. I am satisfied to be homeless on this earth. I am satisfied with life's hardships and accept my own suffering. In it all, I hope for goodness in myself and in the world. Most importantly, I hope in God and his ability to change me.