By Aaron Junge

Germany, Holland, Alabama, Virginia, New York, Iowa.  At first glance, it looks like a random collection of the names of various countries and states, connected by nothing obvious.  In reality, though, they are connected: it’s a list of all of the places that I’ve lived in my brief 19 years. Part of that moving is connected to my Dad serving our country in the Air Force; however, when he got a job the summer before my junior year of high school that brought us to Cedar Rapids, I wasn’t happy about the decision.  I made the choice to go and spend a school year in discernment in New York and yet, here I am, in Iowa and in love  with it.  So what changed?

Everyone knows that transitions are hard. Whether it’s a big transition like graduating, or a small one like going back home for the summer, every transition can be a mixed blessing.  However, transitions serve as a great reminder to all of us that we are not home yet. There certainly may be times when we get nostalgic and want to return to a certain place, to a certain evening with friends, or to the way things were with a certain person, but deep down we know that if we went back it wouldn’t be quite as perfect as we remember it. Our desire for the wonderful moments of our past is a desire for something else entirely, an “inconsolable longing,” as C.S. Lewis would call it.  It’s a desire for heaven.

In my own experience, this isn’t a bad thing.  Instead, it adds a new richness to every moment of our lives and gives us a reason to live them to their fullest.  For me, not growing up in one place gave me a special insight into what “home” meant in my own life, and it really seems that home has always been found with the people that I love.  Last year, after spending a school year in New York, ironically it was there that I started to feel God calling me to love the people of Iowa, to love the people He had led me to by moving my family to Cedar Rapids.  After a lot of going back and forth, and lots of uncertainties, I stopped dragging my feet and made the call to Fr. Schatz about entering seminary to serve in the Archdiocese of Dubuque.  It was the best decision I ever made in my life, and I thank God for it every day.  God taught me that home is less of a place, and more where the people you love are.

I know that some of that sounds a little cheesy, like something from the inside of a Hallmark card, but it makes sense.  Regardless of where we are going in life, regardless of whether this is our last couple of weeks at Loras or we’ll be back in the fall; regardless of whether our families are together, or we rely on our friends–we all know what it’s like to be loved.  1 John 4 tells us that we should love one another because anyone who loves is of God, because “God is love.”  What that means then is that the “inconsolable longing” that we feel for heaven, the love we give and receive with other people, are signs of God’s love for us.  We live in a big world, but our God’s love is bigger still.