Trailing Clouds of Glory

This life is but a remembrance. 

The souls of men were forged

in God's courts on high an eternity ago. 

We were taught by his side, 

touched by his gentle finger, 

and filled with light for the journey.

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 

Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And cometh from afar: 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory do we come 

From God, who is our home."*

When truth is heard and light is felt,

our spirits leap in absolute elation,

for they recognize a particle of home.

These passions and philosophies sounded in our ears

and fabricated in our minds

are no newer to us than our mother's voice.

We've always known them.

It is but a remembrance.

As the journey continues,

we search and scour for familiarity--

any bell that rings and reverberates 

that divine sound wave is clung to

with desperate longing for the true country.

Satisfaction is a starving beast

that devours as much substance

as can fit in its mouth.

But what can completely fill this greedy monster

but the bread of life and living water

found only on the grand supper table above?

Time keeps our heads forward,

but if we could glance back,

we would see our heals trailing clouds of glory,

linking us to our origin and 

pushing us to that eternal potential. 

And after a lifetime of

hoping and leaping,

ringing bells and going to bed hungry, 

we will arrive in the forging place once more and exclaim,

"I have come home at last! 

This is my real country! 

I belong here. 

This is the land I have been looking for all my life, 

though I never knew it till now."**

*from a poem written by a genius called William Wordsworth

**from The Last Battle by an even greater genius called C.S. Lewis