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Farsickness

Happy New Year!!!

Right...I know. I am the worst. I should have at least said something during the first quarter of the year. I was busy? A poor excuse, poorly offered. My apologies.

But let's get down to why I decided to drop a note.

Today, while listening to NPR I heard a story about a German word fernweh.  It means to have a longing for far off places (usually somewhere an individual has never been). The coined English term is "farsickness." (A play on homesickness, I suppose.) As I listened to the segment, the host heard from various people about a deep internal longing to visit far away lands both real (like Scotland or New Zealand) and fictional (like Westeros and Middle Earth). I smiled because I identified with the folks in the latter category. What I wouldn't give to invade a Westerosi territory on horseback with my khalasar behind me....

I digress.

The more I listened, however, the more I began to think about being farsick in a spiritual sense. Colossians 3:1-3 reads: "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." In essence, the Apostle Paul was encouraging the Christians in Colosse and by extension all believers everywhere to develop this farsickness for Heaven. Every believer everywhere should have a longing for his/her eternal home. Paul admonished us in 1 Corinthians 15:19 that if it is in this life alone that we have hope, we are of all men most miserable. He seemed to remind the churches as often as he could that we are temporary beings on this earth and that we should keep that to the fore of our thoughts.

But we get caught up in the mundane and overwhelmed by the temporal and carnal. Farsickness has not really caught on amongst modern day Christians. I admit, I have not done a study on it and rely on no such academic research right now, but my interactions tell me that I am not wrong. The truth is, if we had more farsickness int he Church, we would live differently, prioritize better, and treat each other more lovingly. Most importantly, we would stay focused and not allow any mundane, temporal, or carnal thing to shift that focus.

My dear departed father lived that way. He longed for heaven and could always be heard telling God that the moment He (God) was ready for him (my dad), that would be just fine. I can honestly say that I don't live that way.

But I should. How about you?

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