Exile as Metaphor in a Time of Upheaval

On Saturday, I was part of a Bible study that did a deep dive into Isaiah 55:1-13, which I wrote about in more detail in this blog post.  Our Bible study leader was a seminarian who focused on exile and homecoming.

How strange to study Isaiah 55: 1-13 at a retreat, after a global summit on the climate changes that will exile so many of us, while also working my way through a module for seminary class on the first forays into the Promised Land, the book of Joshua written during a time of exile.

It was also strange to be discussing homecoming during a time of so much personal upheaval.  I sometimes--well, actually, always--discount my stress, because it could be so much worse and some of the upheaval we chose to undergo in the hopes that we will emerge in a stronger place.

I am talking about selling our house in South Florida.  We have seen a steep run up in house prices, and we know (and have experienced) the roller coaster that the housing market in Florida can be.  We held onto a condo for 8 years waiting for the market to come out of a deep crash, and the Florida real estate market has more deep crashes than the rest of the nation.  We decided that now was the time to sell.

On Friday night, our sale fell to pieces, just a few days before we were set to close.  The happy news:  we put the house back on the market on Saturday, accepted a new and better offer on Sunday, and with luck, the house will be someone else's by the end of the year.  But it was strange listening to a Bible study on exile and homecoming while having the current housing market on the brain.

I have been thinking about literal exile, since I live in a part of the country where I meet so many exiles, like my colleagues at work who fled Venezuela and won't be going back.  I've been thinking about modern exile and ancient exile and the way that a disease can come along and shut borders we thought would always be open--but of course, the borders were only ever open to some people.

I have also been thinking of the exile of aging:  friends that have died, landscapes that have altered beyond recognition, places where we can't return.  Exile works on both the metaphorical and sometimes the literal level in so many aspects of modern life.