For This Reason 30 Part 2

[HKHaugan]

“On the Road again -
Just can't wait to get on the road again.
The life I love is making music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again.

On the road again
Goin' places that I've never been.
Seein' things that I may never see again
And I can't wait to get on the road again.

On the road again -
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends.
Insisting that the world keep turning our way

And our way
is on the road again.
Just can't wait to get on the road again.”

There is an expression in Norwegian that says, “Din lengsel er det fjerne (lit. ‘your longing is in far places).” It means basically that what you long for lies out there somewhere in the world and you’ll find it if you travel. Longing is very characteristic of the Norwegian character if I might generalize a bit. My parents never ever really stayed in one place too long. I could feel the old country ‘lengsel’ in them. None of my relatives did either except a couple of cousins who planted themselves in professions that kept them in Oslo, the capitol city. I’m sure this is why I always knew there was something outside the limitations of the urban jungle. The world is a wide road with lots of offshoot highways and rest stops where you always know “It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere.” Religion, academia, professions, hobbies, wealth, status and prestige have flashing neon signs on the world’s super highways, turnpikes and interstates bidding you to park on their streets. Psalm 63 describes them so well as a “dry and thirsty land where no water is (vs.1).” 

My ‘lengsel’ seemed to be something I inherited. Graduating from high school at 16 was my passport out of town, out of family and out on the road. Actually I already had two summers under my belt in a country camp in one and the next in Cape Cod to where I had hitchhiked. To me they were my escapes from a toxi-city environment. Whether my parents really liked that or not I’m not sure but they had done similarly so maybe their only concern was my safety. After all we had gone to Maine each Summer from the time I was born, had lived in a Norwegian community outside New York and spent my early childhood in North Carolina. It was after I left home they moved to the Western mountains and hopped around between New Mexico, Wyoming and Idaho. So when I returned each time from my two Summer jaunts when I was 14 and 15, they seemed happy that I had the experience.  I guess the 'Norwegian gene' rubbed off on my children as well with one Seattle, one outside San Francisco and one in Atlanta.

Hitchhiking was my chosen mode of travel. After high school I really got on the road and worked a number of jobs from dairy farming, cutting timber, bartending, cooking to whatever kept me fed. Our personal wanderings are much like the biblical wanderings of God’s people you read about in the Old Testament. Anyway, that’s how I eventually ended up in Jacksonville, my job in the shipyard and eventually college and the ordained ministry.

But still there was more. I had to go to ‘the old country.’ Ethnic roots are deep for first generation Americans. You are kind of caught in a net of influences that are both ‘old country parental’ and ‘new country personal.’ Where had I come from in the blood and where was I in the present? Jacob wrestled with the Lord and I wrestled with my heritage. So I hustled off to Norway, renewed actual acquaintance with my bloodline family there, saw the old country, studied a bit of its history and culture at Oslo University in Summer School and met lots of interesting people. But in the months I was gone I also went to Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Italy and France with extended time in Germany. There’s a lot to see and do on the world’s highway.

What I am describing here in Part 2 is verse 2 of ‘On the Road Again.”

“On the road again
Goin' places that I've never been.
Seein' things that I may never see again
And I can't wait to get on the road again.”

So where is this going? Again I’m glad you asked. It was after my travel, after my education, after my being ordained and after getting married and having children that my ‘lengsel’ wasn’t out there in the distances, the far flung reaches of other countries, cultures, historical sights and sounds. No, it was the distance within, my distance from God, from Jesus, from the Holy Spirit. But there was also something else and something I’ve been working on for years and that is the distance between one heart and another, between God’s heart and ours.

It is the hearts of people everywhere that have the same ‘lengsel,’ the same longing. This is the common denominator in every human heart all over the world. The great discovery is that the real places I missed were the hearts I ran into on the way and those I run into every day. There is a distance between us that needs to be overcome. It’s a spiritual distance not a physical distance. This is why our search for identity, meaning and purpose is beyond the broad experiential road called the world. It’s a spiritual distance that the Lord Jesus brought into focus through His life, death and resurrection. He is the only one who ever overcame that distance. That distance is full of unseen distances measured in time, pride, fear, love, compassion, listening, feeling and faith, knowing which is temporary and which is eternal. He knew.

Looking back on all those travels and all the people I met along the way I was only doing all that to figure out who I was, not who they were. Let me say that again. It was all about figuring out who I was not who they were. So many of them were doing the same thing but until Jesus it was all about me. I still wrestle with that. But everyone questions who they are, why they’re here and what life means. Everyone has minds and hearts that want answers. The great learning is that distance is not measured in miles but in spirit, in the hearts of people. The world is not outside, it’s within, as beautifully described by Thomas Wolfe in his book, “Look Homeward, Angel.”

It’s an inner spiritual distance that separates us. So, if we can see each person as a place I’m ‘goin’ to’, a place I’ve never been and then realize those are hearts ‘I may never see again’ like Willy’s song says.

The real road, the real way is the way to another person’s heart and their heart to mine. It’s a spiritual road. That’s the road that is Jesus Himself. As one author put it in a catchy title, it’s “The Road Less Traveled.” He is a road that so many people are unwilling to get on because He challenges the heart to see in Him a way they can’t control at the same time knowing He’s right. He is the spiritual way. He is the ultimate way. First, we are all looking for a home for our heart. He is that home. Second, we’re all looking for a spirit for the heart to function confidently. He gives us His Holy Spirit. Third, we’re all looking for a heart to heart relationship that can’t be broken, one that goes beyond the confines of this world’s limited hearts. His is the relationship that transcends all others. That is why Jesus says “Narrow is the road that leads to life and only a few find it (Mt.7:14).” Actually it is broader in that it is the freest, the most expansive and the most fulfilling because it’s eternal.

When you really look at what He says in that simple statement all the other roads we take for our inner satisfaction lose intimacy and end in aloneness. What road besides Jesus is spiritually intimate, personally fulfilling and relationally maturing? What other road takes us to a God who gives His life for our eternity, offers love and acceptance regardless of our condition? On what other road can we carry our personal heart burdens and see them satisfied? On what other road can we find our true identity and know we are secure and confident wherever we are? It is in Jesus alone that the mind, heart and spirit find themselves in balance with each other. The dots of our experience, our emotions, dreams and longing find their connection through the Scriptures as they feed the longing for each part to be fulfilled, filled full. This is the Holy Spirit working in us, bringing the Lord Jesus to bridge the distance, the gap between God and man, between each of us and Him, the deepest intimacy for the mind, heart and spirit.

“On the road again
Goin' places that I've never been.
Seein' things that I may never see again
And I can't wait to get on the road again.”

Next is Part 3, “Like a band of gypsies…”