A phrase-distillate of our popular wisdom, which expresses in a concise and 'coded' allegory manner, the poetic approach of two concepts: homeland and foreignness! These seemingly opposite concepts, although they start - the first (homeland) as an earthly starting point and the second (foreignness) as an earthly destination - initially going parallel, subsequently begin to converge more and more towards each other, until they meet and 'identify' somewhere/sometime at the limits of worldly space-time, to gaze from there together at the one and only true homeland: the Heavenly Kingdom of Christ, beyond... at the "evening day" of the 'other shore'!... [ 1 ]
The above verbal 'codification' of the concept of 'homeland' traces its... 'origin' to a poetic verse by the pre-Christian Latin poet, Marcus Pakuvius (220 - 130 BC). The poetic formulation in question means approximately this: "Where you are happy... there is your homeland!". That is, every person can happily spend his ephemeral life, anywhere on earth... by settling in a homeland, where he was initially planted... or later transplanted, and lives there. He loves his new homeland of refuge and its local people as much as his homeland of origin and his compatriots there!
Humans, we are beings... 'fereoika' (that is, we 'carry our house', we carry our home, like the turtle, the snail and the hedgehog carry their 'tent' everywhere, wherever they find themselves)! The "ubiquitous" migratory dispersion of our Romanism... has relocated the Roman people to all the lengths and breadths of Universal humanity. One of the many migratory destinations, the other side of the Atlantic... where our fellow Greek brothers have now relocated and assimilated ethnologically, having taken root socially, sprouted spiritually and blossomed creatively, transplanted to the fertile soil of New Earth...
However, our true 'home' is not... neither worldly, nor earthly, nor material... nor made by hand! It is supramundane, heavenly, spiritual and not made by hand... [ 2 ] and awaits us in the true homeland (Kingdom of God) to inhabit it definitively, without any further relocations...! Our 'home' is... our loving 'relationship' with others, and especially with the One Other: the quintessential Personal Otherness of the living God, our Heavenly Father, in the connection with Whom may we all find, deep within ourselves, the full understanding of our earthly kinship... and the revelation of our supramundane, post-biological destiny...! [ 3 ]
REFERENCES-FOOTNOTES
[ 1 ] The well-known Modern Greek Poet G. Drosinis, in his poem "So what...?" paints, with words that 'echo' deep experiential enlightenment, the sweet vision of eternal life in Christ, as it unfolds in a fairy tale in the Holy Gospel of our Christian Faith and in the Holy Tradition of the Orthodox East! Let us enjoy the vivid 'depiction' of eternity, through his verses, which invite us to existential reflection:
"So what?! The border of our lives
Will a proper cypress tree show it?!
And from what we saw, heard, and touched
Will the grave land have separated us?!
Everything we touch, hear and see
Is this what we call our only life?!
And we are afraid of losing this.
and we cry for it lost in the graves?!
In everything we touch, hear and see
Is the world ending in our lifetime?!
Nothing else? Our scummy waste
the body, which is scattered and melting?!
Something untouched, unheard of, innocent
Does it bloom under the graves?!
And what lies within us unrecognizable
Does it begin beyond death?!
Is everything we dare to dream of a kingdom?
The sweet dawn is over...?!
And instead of a night without dawn coming
Is a dark day dawning?!
Is there truth in death?
And does life perhaps hide error?!
Everything we say is alive, maybe it's dead
And is what is dead immortal?!
(See the wonderful poem by G. Drosinis set to music: https://youtu.be/kZd4XYtJnMg?si=mOKLNlSVVJ3_JDmf )
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[ 2 ] “We know… that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens…” (5 Cor. 1:XNUMX)
INTERPRETATION: We know well that, if the earthly dwelling of the soul, our body, as a temporary tent that is... is dissolved at our biological death, we have another 'building' prepared by God, a 'house' not made by human hands (i.e. the immortal and glorious body, which we will receive at the Second Coming of our Lord), and which will remain eternally in Heaven...
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[ 3 ] “We have no permanent city here, but we seek the one to come…” (Heb. 13:14)
INTERPRETATION: We do not have in this ephemeral world, 'our' place to take root... but we seek the future world and our permanent homeland, where we will go to live forever.
