The pastor and writer Frederick Buechner speaks of a conversation, miles away from his church congregation, in his summer house near the top of a small mountain in Vermont with the hills turning lavender and the horses swatting flies with their tails. In the conversation someone asked him "Why on earth do you ever leave this place?" He goes on to theologize why indeed we ever leave such places; why does the human constantly feel impelled to leave a wonderful setting and move on to a new adventure.
Why would someone like myself go to spend four years in one of the best communities that I could imagine let alone experience in person? Why would I leave the cherished relationships of mentoring adults and encouraging peers in a strong healthy church? Why would I leave the late night conversations with brilliant minds concerning the universe, human nature, and our creator God? Why would I leave friends with whom I have not only built beautiful memories but also by whom I am well-known and thus encouraged, admonished, and discipled in an unparalleled way?
Buechner wishes that he could answer with the obligation to return to his congregation. That "there is enough of the puritan in all of us to make us feel a little guilty about living a life that is too easy and peaceful, especially in a world where there is little ease and little peace." But none of the answers truly respond to the question "Why do we ever leave?"
The sermon is one that really challenged me, and I want to share a bit of Buechners conversation with you: "Whether we all know it and acknowledge it or not, we are all voyagers on the same sea, and I suspect that the stories that describe our vayages best are ones like Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, Don Quizote, and the Odyssey, or any of the fairy tales taht show a man starting out on a high adventure, not always sure what his goal is or what grim hazards he willl meet on the way to it but sure only that the prize at the end of the road will be worth more than whatever it costs him to reach it. We are Captian Ahab out to find the great white whale, and Huck floating down the Mississippi on his raft toward freedom. We are Odysseus lashed to the mast as the sirens sing their song, and we are Frod the Hobbit, in Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings, daring alll the horors of Mordor to get rid of his terrible burden. Jesus himslef tells stories like these. There is the merchant who spends his life searching for fine pearls until finally he comes across one of such splendor that he sells all the rest to buy it. There is the man who is walking through a field somewhere when to his amazement he discovers a great treasure buried there and then "in his joy," Jesus says, sells all that he has to buy that field."
The point is that we are all seeking to be what Buechner refers to as "saints." God is making us "to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." I don't know if I will ever have a completely satisfactory answer for why I would leave 20 or so of the people that I count very dearest to me, knowing that I will likely never continue any of those relationships to any significant depth. And I don't even expect that God will refill the chasm created by those lost relationships. Depression? No. I have no doubt that in time my love will be wholeheartedly devoted to new relationships. But I am equally convinced that I will never be glad that it was deemed right to leave my best friends.
I learn that living is leaving. Becoming a saint is constantly moving. Buechner caps the story: "The woman who asked me the question would have been justly horrified if I had answered her by saying, 'I leave here to become a saint,' and I would never have had the courage to say it even if it had occurred to me at the time, but in a way I believe it is the truth for us all. Beneath all our yearning for whatever glitters brightest in this world lies our yearning for this kind of life."
