"Man found alive with two legs" or "On the goodness of love of home"

From G.K. Chesterton's Manalive:

"My grandmother would have said that we were all in exile, and that no earthly house could cure the holy homesickness that forbids us rest."

"I think your grandmother was right ... But I think there is more to be said. I think God has given us the love of special places, of a hearth and of a native land, for a good reason. ... Because otherwise we might worship ... Eternity ... the largest of the idols--the mightiest of the rivals of God. ... I mean...that if there be a house for me in heaven it will either have a green lamp-post and a hedge, or something quite as positive and personal as a green lamp-post and a hedge. I mean that God bade me love one spot and serve it, and do all things however wild in praise of it, so that this one spot might be a witness against all the infinities and the sophistries, that Paradise is a somewhere and not anywhere, is something and not anything. And I would not be so very much surprised if the house in heaven had a real green lamp-post after all."

I really appreciated reading this perspective. I have had ponderings and questions surrounding this idea but did not have any conclusive thoughts other than to say that I know that I love my home in a way that I do not love other places, and yet I also know and feel in a very real sense that it is not my "real" home.

Similarly, I was reading in a magazine that North Carlina established a law this year requiring students to say the Pledge of Allegiance every day and how some schools had sent a letter home asking parents to talk to their children about their family's "approach to the pledge." I personally am bothered by the lack of patriotism in our country, but was never sure if it should bother me as a Christian--mainly, that all nations and ethnicities fall under the rule of the Kingdom of Heaven, so is it right to support one country rather than another?

Likewise, I have wondered about my own lack of concern or passion for other countries and places and people, but I have never felt strongly convicted of this lack. I admire and praise the passion I see in others for the world, and yet I do not find much of this passion in myself. And I cannot tell if this is a wrong lack or simply a lack. I feel more of a calling to learn how to love and serve the people in my immediate surroundings because I see so clearly and painfully how poorly I attend to this small task. It seems for me it would be side-stepping the issue if I were to pour my heart into attention to peoples across the sea or even in the next state when there are people in my house whom God calls me to love and serve. Again, this is not say that I don't think Christians are called to love and serve the world--certainly we are. I am speaking simply of my personal heart and where I find myself--for better or worse.

But Chesterton says something here in this passage that I find comforting and assuring. God does not call us to love the world as a whole. That is His place. He calls us to be parts of the whole, and He uses us in small parts of the whole--we must not entertain our tendencies to think of ourselves as more than small creatures on this earth. Likewise, God is not calling us to an abstract, infinite, all-encompassing life. He calls us to a very concrete, specific, personal life. Similarly, though He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinite, etc... He is also a Person. He is not anywhere and anything; He is somewhere and something. He is a very specific Being with specific characteristics, desires, intentions. In addition, heaven is not a generic, cookie-cutter, artificial place. It is a personal, unique, very real place. It is all the beautiful things of earth magnified beyond our imaginations. Yet, though being beyond our imaginations, not outside of our ability to perceive.

When you think of heaven, think of all the good, specific, personal, beautiful things you have seen and experienced on earth and know that the things of God's kingdom are made of this stuff, and even better. Is it C.S. Lewis who speaks of this earth as shadows of reality? Think of how a shadow gives you some sense of the real thing. If the shadow is breath-taking, just imagine what the real object must be like.

But do not stop there. When you think of heaven, think most of its Creator and King. For all of this beauty and wonder is dull and lifeless without first loving and admiring the Person who not only oversees, protects, preserves, and sustains it all, but lovingly created it as an outpouring of His glory.

Ah, there is so much else I could say on these matters, but this is already too long! I used to think I was a concise writer. Maybe I am, and I just have more thoughts than are appropriate for a blog entry. Who knows. =)

May you glimpse heaven today and see a bit more of God's glory.