“Let it do its work in me,

inviting me to dig beneath these fresh-stirred longings, to see

that their roots are not at last a longing for the places depicted in these pages, but are, in truth, profound and holy wounds,

yearnings for a lost garden and a more perfect city, where justice and righteousness are restored, and harms are healed, and losses redeemed, and love proved true, and earth and heaven reconciled.

What I feel is, at its heart, a homesick hope for a place of unbroken communion with my Creator, and with his people, and with all of his creation.

What I most desire
is to open my eyes and find that, for the first time in my life, I am home and breathing the wild winds of my native land.”