Longing for Eden

In a letter to his son, J. R. R. Tolkien famously wrote, “We all long for [Eden], and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with the sense of ‘exile.’”

Do you feel it? We were created to be at home with God; but, as Advent reminds us, we know deep down that we are not. At least not yet. Jesus’s first advent has indeed thrown our exile into reverse, but we…