Behind every mask is a human being longing to be set free. We dream of returning to a normal life. We long for what we once had that now seems to be gone. Behind the most hopeful and optimistic dream is its counter-story, the one that captures the darker experience of longing.<\/p>\n
Our dreams are usually about what we want to add to our lives. We dream of the ideal mate, that special vacation spot or new position at work. Our longings reveal instead what is missing or what we have lost. We long for peace or freedom, a return to some past state of comfort or security. These longings tell us more about ourselves than our dreams because they are the products of our experience in life. Our dreams reveal what our imagination hopes and believes is possible in the future.<\/p>\n
My conversations with people over the past decade have been about the longings of people. I would say very few people during this time have talked about what they hope to achieve in the future. Most of these moments of engagement are about what is missing and about how to return to a time that they remember with joy and comfort.<\/p>\n
In this post, I decided to look at the stories of longing that emerge from literature and the films that brought those stories to a wider audience. I believe these stories point towards an understanding of who we are as individuals and as shared citizens of planet Earth. Mostly I hope these stories and the various videos that I am using to illustrate what I see will provide each of you a moment of contemplation for understanding what you long for and how you might take personal initiative to bring wholeness and resolution to your own sense of longing.<\/p>\n
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Life is a journey. It is not a static display as if we are museum artifacts.\u00a0 Life is a journey of way-points, not a single destination. Journeys mahy begin with a longing for a return to a place we once visited or to a time that was simpler. Each of the stories presented here has a journey of one or more characters at the center of the story. The stories are drawn from the books of the Harry Potter series<\/a>, the Lord of the Rings<\/a> trilogy, the musical, Man of <\/a>La Mancha <\/a>based on Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote<\/a>, and, the classic film musical of L. Frank Baum’s children’s story<\/a>, The Wizard<\/a> of Oz<\/a>.\u00a0 In each story, the central characters are driven by their longing for someplace, some purpose, or a resolution to some complication in their life. These stories are powerful and compelling. Each can point us in a direction where our own journey of longing can find its direction and resolution<\/p>\n <\/p>\nThe Longing for Home<\/h4>\n