Hiraeth

I have a new favourite word.

I became acquainted with a singer, who, unbeknown to me, is also one of my brother's favourite tenors--Bryn Terfel. The title song is We'll Keep a Welcome. In this sentimental piece, he sings of welcoming home someone, who has been away, and kissing "away each hour of hiraeth."

Hiraeth is a Welsh word for longing. The way it is described in books and definitions make it clear it is not a simple wish or an inconsistent desire, but a deep, insatiable longing. A longing only fulfilled by coming home.

We all have hiraeth. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, in their conversations together, concluded these longings are a result of our being "exiled from Eden." Our roots were planted in a perfect garden. We have been exiled from that paradise, but we can have hope for another.

Sadly, for those who get through life as best they can--this is it. The hiraeth will be eternal and worse.

We accrued a debt in Eden. This debt was too large for us to pay. The debt of sin. Jesus paid this debt, but it is only received by those who will accept the payment written in His blood. If we snub His gift, we will pay our own debt. And, what we were created for, what the longing inside of you is reaching for, will never be touched.

If, however, you accept the payment, you have a promise of something greater than earth's small pleasures. No matter how many small longings are fulfilled today or tomorrow, there will always be that one deep-rooted hiraeth. That longing for a Home, where all traces of sorrow, pain, parting, and craving will be satisfied. When we look on the face of the One who we have longed for all our life, then, and only then, will every hiraeth of our heart be kissed away.

Whatever your hiraeth is today, you may find temporary fulfillment in what you think you want, but the longing will not die away completely while in exile.

As the chorus of the song "Finally Home" describes it:

Just think of stepping on shore,

and finding it heaven

Of touching a hand,

and finding it God's

Of breathing new air,

and finding it celestial

Of waking up in Glory,

and finding it Home.