Chapter Eleven: Finding Home (~jinghan)

I still have a lot of searching for myself to do, but for now I have this poem as a light in the dark. I hope it warms your heart too in whatever you feel lost in.

—

And so I have come home at last from my year of exchange in America. People have asked me how my year is which is when I realised that I had not really stopped to reflect about it and that I was finding trouble bringing together my two lives that I had allowed to be rather separate. I never talked much about my Australian life with my American friends and vice versa.

America came with interesting adventures, personal growth and spiritual questioning. One thing that impacted me a lot was going to church while being in America. I found a real joy and fellowship with the people that I met through church, but now coming home I am left a little off balance as to what my thoughts on religion are. And so in a way I guess I sort of just avoided thinking at all…

I guess you haven’t heard much from me recently, which for me is always a sign that I’ve lost touch with myself a little when I feel like I have nothing to blog about. I’ve been glad to be home back in Melbourne which will always be the place that is home for me; but finding myself again is a slow maze-like process.

After a couple of weeks of pottering around feeling what I came to describe as “tired and restless at the same time” and making the occasional remark that my room did not feel very lived-in yet, I finally was able to get down to what I had known I needed to get around to eventually: a thorough cleaning of my room.

Rooms have this way of accumulating stuff. Who of us don’t acquire more things than they throw out each year? I have boxes full of things with too much sentiment to throw out, but after being away for so long – it’s the perfect time to check through those boxes for things where sentiment has worn out enough for some of the clutter to be finally thrown away.

It’s sort of an organic process where one little cleaning idea (tidying the cables and cords and dead phones draw) snowballs into cleaning another draw and another draw and another box until I’m reaching under my bed to pick up some fallen stuff and come across that box of past letters and cards.

I open the box with the intention of brutally throwing out as many cards with their hallmark comments as possible since the box is starting to feel heavy. But as I flip open this letter skim that card, I find that I can’t throw away any of them. Not even the hallmark comments or the simple “thank you for the lovely gift” notes.

There’s a card with handwriting so much a loop and a twirl that I can’t even make out whom it is from, but in the envelope there is a folded paper with something printed on it. I open it with the intention of just skimming it, but instead I find myself reading each line and each word of a beautiful poem that warms my heart. It is as if all the things were written for me, each point striking a worry that is mine. It was a poem to bring me home to myself, to be reminded of what is important and what is true and what is good.

I still have a lot of searching for myself to do, but for now I have this poem as a light in the dark. I hope it warms your heart too in whatever you feel lost in.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is a perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the year,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome disciple,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labours and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.