Restless

My heart is restless until it rests in Thee, said Saint Augustine. Man, do I know what that means. There are those days when you cannot sit still because of a longing you know that this world and whoever it contains cannot address, yet somehow you wish it could. You know that He is sufficient for you, and yet, because you are only human, sometimes you are deluded into thinking otherwise. There are times when all you wish is to be taken Home and united to Him in His perfect love, but then you realize that the journey is still to be undertaken. Until then, you can only hope to experience a foretaste of that rest, a sampling of that reassurance of that Eternal Love, and that beloved restlessness that reminds us that we are not yet where we are meant to be.

I am restless. I am athirst for far-away things.
My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance.
O Great Beyond, O the keen call of thy flute!
I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings to fly, that I am bound in this spot evermore.

I am eager and wakeful, I am a stranger in a strange land.
Thy breath comes to me whispering an impossible hope.
Thy tongue is known to my heart as its very own.
O Far-to-seek, O the keen call of thy flute!
I forget, I ever forget, that I know not the way, that I have not the winged horse.

I am listless, I am a wanderer in my heart.
In the sunny haze of the languid hours, what vast vision of thine takes shape in the blue of the sky!
O Farthest end, O the keen call of thy flute!
I forget, I ever forget, that the gates are shut everywhere in the house where I dwell alone!
- Rabindranath Tagore