Here are some things I'm finding hard right now:

Never being able to start a conversation with, 'Do you remember when...'

Never being able to start a conversation with, 'Do you know so-and-so?'

Never going anywhere and thinking, 'That was where...'

I know I've written about this at length elsewhere and probably bored most of you rigid but now that I'm experiencing this in reality I just want to say again how important the connection between people and places is.

'Place is space fraught with history' [according to Brueggemann, I think, but haven't got my notes here to check] and being in a space where I have no history, and with people with whom I have no shared experience, there is a profound loss of identity.

All of the letters (of which there have been a lot - thanks mainly to Dawn here), emails, phone conversations and so on are greatly appreciated. But none of them can replace the need for a personal history with the people I see here and a personal history with the place where I'm currently living. And that will take time.

So in the meantime, do pray that I'll find my identity secure in Christ and my home with him, remembering that we're all aliens and strangers longing for a better and more permanent home in the new heavens and the new earth.