Homesick

We were just in Switzerland. It’s not fair. Some people get to live there. The mountains! The lakes! The supernatural green of the hillsides. It would be dangerous for me to live there. If I couldn’t be out on the trails I would be staring out the window. All day.

It’s also not fair that some people get to live in Seattle, where I grew up. The Puget Sound on one side, beyond that the Olympic mountains. Now turn around and look across Lake Washington to the Cascade mountains beyond. The giant Mount Rainier reigns above all. My high school cross country team’s home course was at a state park, where trails thread down forested, ferny canyons to the shore of Lake Washington. Who deserves to grow up among such beauty?

Denise Evertov, who moved to Western Washingtom, wrote a poem about the place. Here is a piece of it:

Grey is the price
of neighboring with eagles, of knowing
a mountain’s vast presence, seen or unseen.

It’s true, the mountains surrounding Seattle are often unseen, blocked from view by gray clouds. When Mt. Rainier makes an appearance people say, “The mountain is out.” The price of that beauty is the gray weather. It’s worth it. The price of Switzerland’s beauty is literally the price of everything. We never ate out and we never rode a cable car. The price of the train to the “Top of Europe” (Lauterbrunnen to Jungfraujoch) would have cost around $230 per person. I looked it up. We spent $10 for parking and hiked for free, though not as high up as the train goes.

I enjoy Belgium, but I do get homesick for mountains. So far, I have been to the mountains once a year, either to the west coast of the US or the Alps. They are different experiences, but both are indisputably beautiful.

Not everyone loves the mountains. I mentioned to an older man in Belgium that I missed the mountains and he looked confused. “Why would anyone want mountains?” he said. Like almost all Flemings, he loves Flanders, which is flat as a pancake (which are more like crepes here). I think most people feel that the place they grew up is the most beautiful. I know plenty of beach lovers. I enjoy the beach for a bit, but I end up bored after a while. People get homesick for the beach, the plains, the forest, whichever place imprinted its beauty upon them.

I sent some pictures of Switzerland to my family. My mom responded, “Preview of heaven?” She said the photos made her think of Peter. He was an adventurous, mountain-loving boy. I wrote to my family that in terms of beauty, I think of heaven as basically looking like Switzerland. “So Peter’s not missing out,” my dad said. “But I’m missing him.” After a ten minute rainstorm at the breathtaking Walensee, I swam out and admired the deep blue water, goggled at the giant teeth of the peaks towering above in shreds of cloud, and those green hillsides shining in the sun once again. Later I wept, thinking how Peter would have been out there with me, dreaming with me about climbing those peaks. His joy would have multiplied my joy.

When you feel that homesickness, that longing for something, somewhere, someone, what is it really about? Heaven is described as a place, a people, and the presence of God. Certainly the new heavens and new earth will be beautiful. There will be fullness of love between all God’s people. And God himself will be there, the center of all things.

I’m homesick for heaven.

Oh, we also did this. Switzerland has engineered everything possible into its mountains, including this “rodelbahn,” or mountain roller coaster.

Finally, a good song that has spoken to me recently. Listen well to the lyrics. It fits well with the theme of this post. “Mine are keys to Zion city!”