Richard Rohr and the Center for Action and Contemplation offer another provocative post at their Daily Meditation site: cac.org/daily-meditations/the-departure-and-the-return/

Below are a few excerpts that especially interest me, and hopefully you as well.

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“We are created with an inner drive and necessity that sends all of us looking for our True Self, our true home, whether we know it or not. This journey is a spiral and never a straight line. …  

We dare not try to fill our souls and minds with numbing addictions, diversionary tactics, or mindless distractions. (We are) found, precisely in the depths of everything, even and maybe especially in the deep fathoming of our fallings and failures. … 

If we go to the depths of anything, we’ll begin to knock upon something substantial, “real,” and with a timeless quality. We’ll move from the starter kit of “belief” to an actual inner knowing. This is most especially true if we have ever (1) loved deeply, (2) accompanied someone through the mystery of dying, or (3) stood in genuine life-changing awe before mystery, time, or beauty. …   

Like Odysseus, we leave from Ithaca and we come back to Ithaca, but now it is fully home because all is included and nothing wasted or hated: even the dark parts are used in our favor. … What else could homecoming be?  

Poet C. P. Cavafy (1863–1933) expressed this understanding most beautifully in his famous poem “Ithaca”:  

Ithaca has now given you the beautiful voyage.  
Without her, you would never have taken the road. 
With the great wisdom you have gained on your voyage,  
with so much of your own experience now,  
you must finally know what Ithaca really means. [1] “

References:  
[1] See C. P. Cavafy, “Ithaca,” in The Complete Poems of Cavafy, trans. Rae Dalven (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961), 36–37. Paraphrased by Richard Rohr.