Set in the hearts of men

Lately I've run across several comments or articles on social media written by adoptees or adoptive parents about a common theme: the adopted person's search for wholeness in their biological roots.  There was the article about adopted Korean children going back to Korea and finding they had no place in that society.  There were cries of many an angst ridden teen who felt the key to their identity and future lies in their genetic past.  What I find interesting about this yearning, this longing, this feeling that things are not right, that I don't fit in or belong here, is that it isn't just an adoption issue.  What these uneasy young people are missing is the fact that everyone feels that way, not just children with non-biological parents.  I'm not saying that adopted children don't have a unique set of circumstances to deal with, but rather this anguished cry of the longing heart isn't peculiar to the adoption community but wrings the heart of every single human soul.

Look at the popular films of our age.  In 'Dances with Wolves' and 'The Last Samurai' we find this longing is fulfilled only by forsaking the modern culture into which one was born and embracing a different, seemingly more enlightened or peace-loving culture.  In 'Avatar' we discover that it is not even a particular culture that is the problem but rather humanity as a whole, thus the only way to find our place is to abandon not only our culture but our species as well.  It is the same for the adopted child: if I am unhappy in my current circumstances, I must find fulfillment in my biological roots, only to discover that their genetic parents are just as ordinary and unfulfilling as their adoptive parents, both being merely human.  Others, especially young women, look to romance to fulfill them, only to find a love interest or spouse isn't the key for that particular lock.  It may be career, success, family, fortune, fame, or a million other good and worthy pursuits that we look to to make us whole, to complete and fulfill us, to give us meaning and purpose, but nothing satisfies.  After the initial excitement wears off, we yet find that unquenchable longing still there and our hearts more bitter and jaded than ever, until we give up in despair and become so cynical and toxic that life is miserable indeed, not only for ourselves but for all those around us.

If nothing in the physical world can satisfy, if there is an answer, it must lie in the metaphysical, philosophical, or spiritual realm.  Apparently new age spirituality/the occult is gaining popularity again as people desperate for that answer begin turning over old stones that our modern scientific age has long scoffed at, but when the modern scientists repeatedly tell us that we're all one big cosmic accident and nothing matters, it is no surprise our meaning hungry souls begin to look elsewhere for more satisfying answers.  The problem with 'spirituality' is that it is as ill-defined and vacuous as the concept of 'truth' in our post-modern-life is whatever you want it to be age.  Sure, you can have your 'spirituality' like your favorite coffee or burger: exactly the way you want it, but that just makes it another shallow consumer good that is ingested and leaves us hungry and unfulfilled a few hours later; it doesn't give answers to life's greatest questions or fill the longing depths of our soul.  Sort of like going to a rock concert and feeling connected and exhilarated for a few hours, only to get in the car, tired and overstimulated, for a long, lonely drive home or being the one left alone to clean up after the party/wedding/graduation.

So what is the answer, if it isn't in science or relationships or success or foggy spirituality?  Is there an answer?  Why would there be this longing if it didn't have a fulfillment?  Hunger or thirst would be rather odd sensations if we had neither food nor drink to fulfill them or a biological need to have them fulfilled.  It is a spiritual thirst, a metaphysical identity crisis that afflicts each and every one of us.  We may mistake it for a need for more money, a better house, a nicer car, or the latest tech or the longing for a relationship or a job or whatever, but deep down it is 'deep crying out to deep,' the very deeps of our soul crying out to the deepest things in and beyond creation.  There is a Living Water to quench this divine thirst, One who promises to give rest to the weary, and a very Father to the orphan.  We are all of us orphans, we are all searching for our true Parent, in this we are all adoptees, longing for our true Home.  And there is One to whom we can each cry, 'Abba, Father!'