We don’t travel very often. Our schedule is so hectic with everyone working, in school, or both. So, it’s a real treat when we do get a few days to go somewhere and break free from our schedule-driven routine. Being just two hours from the ocean, most of our short trips are in that direction. I am so grateful for warm sunshine, salty ocean waves, sand between my toes, and folding beach chairs! And iPods – I should add iPods. Back in the day, we had to carry great big boom boxes with about 6 extra “D” batteries to ensure that we could listen to the music we wanted instead of whatever the folks beside us might be blasting.
Last week we attended a conference in Asheville, NC. I didn’t get an opportunity to explore as much as I would have liked, but I did get a sense that I like that place quite a lot. The vibe is cool and artistic. Leaving, I knew I’d come back for another visit. 
When my husband and I were together and would travel together, I noticed that he would leave something of his everywhere we went. Something. Every time. It seemed to me that he was either marking territory or leaving bread crumbs to find his way back. Now that I think about it, it seems like an outward manifestation of our different personalities. Everywhere I go, I take a little piece of the place with me internally. Everywhere he goes, he leaves a little piece of himself behind.
There’s nothing wrong with either of those approaches. I’m sure they’re equally “ok” – nothing pathological there. But I find it interesting the way places can draw us, much like people, to join them or to have them join us.
I’ve experienced most regions of the U.S. and have no desire to live in a region other than the one I’m in. I’ve only ever traveled to England outside of the U.S. It seemed oddly familiar, but not with any sense of longing or attachment.
There is a place on earth that calls me, though. I haven’t been there yet, but it calls me. 
I will have an opportunity to go with other Divinity students in a couple of years and I plan to do just that. The land of Israel. The Holy Land. The shores of Galilee. I want to go there. I want to be there with my bare feet in that sand. I want to hear the music the people beside me are listening to. And I want to bring it all back home with me, safely inside my heart and mind as another place that I love like a cherished friend.
Finding a new "normal" 
S.
Your blog of yearning for the Holy Land reminds me of the translation of the Hatikvah by Naftali Herz Imber, the national anthem of Israel. The longing is both temporal and spiritual. And it speaks of the the heavenly Jerusalem and Zion where we will see Jesus. Translated it reads:
As long as in the heart, within
A Jewish soul still yearns
And onward towards the ends of the east
And eye still looks toward Zion
The hope is not yet lost
the hope of two thousand years
To be a free people in our land
The land of Zion and Jerusalem
May you reach your lovely Jerusalem where Jesus Christ walked and talked and healed.
LikeLike