Ever since I could remember, I have always felt different and unique and therefore immeasurably blessed. Not better in comparison with others but just one of a kind like no other. And because I am unique I can belong only to one who is infinitely unique. Growing up, going to school, working at a career, settling down here in the US – I have always felt I did not belong. This was specially true when I was at the peak of my career as a senior executive. I felt a stranger in the corporate boardrooms and the corridors of power and influence I used to frequent then. I knew in my heart that I belonged somewhere else. I felt more at home being with the poor and those in need of help. But then I suspected that I was really being self-centered because I was in ‘superior’ position vis-a-vis the poor and the needy. Even now, I feel a stranger in the groups and communities I try and want to be a part of.
Yet behind these feelings of not belonging, of being a stranger are the strong feelings of longing for a home I already knew and have been to before. In my sleep, I have recurring dreams of flying, of being in a place where time and space do not exist. In my waking hours, I experience small things that make me see how everything else make sense and fit together perfectly. I am amazed, for example, how perfectly Jane fits into the crook of my arm when she snuggles close to me. Or how perfectly made my back is for Jonathan when he rides me piggy back. Or, how my two arms are the perfect one-size-fits-them-all instruments for giving warm embraces to people I love and care for. No high-tech precision engineering can match those perfect snug and fit.
There is a nagging and persistent voice that echoes within me the motto of St. Stanislaus Kostka: “Ad maiora natus sum.” I am born for greater things. There is definitely more to life than what we are currently experiencing or going through. I am currently engrossed with a book ( Proof of Heaven ) about the near death experience of Dr. Eben Alexander, a top-notch neuro-surgeon, who is a hard-nosed and skeptical scientist-researcher not given to sentiments often associated with spirituality or religion. He writes in the Prologue:
“My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness, that human experience continues beyond the grave. More important, it continues under the gaze of a god who loves and cares about each one of us and about where the universe itself and all the beings within it are ultimately going.”
I know to whom I truly belong and it is to Him I am eventually going home to.
Jesus said to his disciples, “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world–therefore the world hates you.
John 15:18-21