The Seafarer

The Anglo-Saxon poem, "The Seafarer," expresses the cry of the heart of one who has left behind "home"--all that is comfortable and familiar--in search of a better home, one that is not merely comfortable and familiar, but one that answers the heart's cry for truth and beauty and goodness, one that is not subject to the frailties and limitations of this transient, earthly life but one that is based on the rock solid hope of an eternal haven where "neither moth nor rust corrupt , and where thieves do not break through and steal" (Matt 6:20).

Loneliness is a mark of such a quest. People back home don't always seem to understand that what is good may not be the best.

That man lolling on fair land
has no earthly inkling of how I
a wretched wreck on ice-cold seas
weathered each winter
exiled from kith and kin.

The Seafarer undertakes the journey in winter, that season which is the antithesis of all that is comfortable and warm. Yet the one who hears the call of that far distant land is not content to snuggle under the bed covers or warm one's toes at the fireplace in the old homeplace. While one may miss the warmth and coziness of the familiar, the heart longs for that unknown shore where...

God's visions are . . . more vivid
than this dead life loaned out on land.

To the Seafarer, the quest is clear:

Come, consider where we have a home, how
we can travel to it, how our travail here
will lead us to the living well-head
and heaven haven of our Lord's love.

Amen!