The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing—to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from…my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back. - C.S. Lewis
Borgo di Montemigiano, sketched on a previous trip to Italy.
Sometimes when visiting a beautiful place, or approaching a special occasion, I feel this pressure to really experience all its fullness. I create these lofty expectations that it should be SO great and a weird scarcity mentality creeps in and creates a fear that I may miss out on all the greatness that the experience offers. It is the ultimate in FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). The writer/psychiatrist Curt Thompson describes it this way, “When desire is bent by our sense that the world is one of scarcity, it devolves into devouring.”
As I write this, we are getting ready for a trip to Italy. Beautiful Italy, with all her amazing art, delicious food, wonderful wine, and lovely people is like heaven to me. I would love to visit all the things, and paint everything. And yet, I experience frustration because #1, my limits with time, money, and talent. And #2, I am traveling with a husband who may want to do some different things than I do (imagine that).
As I expressed my anxiety and frustration to John, he suggested, “Why don’t you see if you can let Italy just happen to you?” Hmmmm. A novel idea. As I pondered his suggestion, I saw the wisdom of it. Here I was trying to create some imagined reality and getting stuck in my inability to do so. And ironically, in my attempts to manipulate the experience, I was missing out on the beauty of the moment.
So, what might it look like to let Italy just happen to us? For me, I think it means showing up with a curious expectancy…what might happen here today? It means being honest with myself and with God about my desires while holding those loosely. It means praying for flexibility and eyes to see His invitations. To be present to it happening to me.
The wonder of it is that God has given us desires, and those desires (imperfect as they may be) are like a trail of breadcrumbs that lead us to him. He is our home, “the place where all the beauty comes from”. The best days and experiences give us a little taste of what heaven holds for us. And yet sometimes, the unexpected and flawed reality is “better than we could have asked for or imagined”.
May we be people who learn to “let Italy just happen to us”. May we allow God to hold our desires and give us the grace to see His goodness and beauty in our realities.