Godric: How Godric Fared on the holy isle of Farne

In all of Godric's story, two places have become so real to me that I often wonder if I in fact have been to these places. The first is chilly Wear, the river that Godric finds wholeness in. The second is mysterious Farne, the island that Godric finds himself in.
On his first visit to holy Farne, Godric means to pay penance for his sins, but instead watches the birds. How often have I found myself in need of penance only to watch the birds instead. There is always something to distract us from what we need most.
While on that isle, Godric meets the ghost of Father Cuthbert who tells him, "...your shadow fell here long before your foot, and that's a kind of haunting too. Farne had long been calling you..."
Buechner has called life itself the sacred journey; and if it is a journey true, we must consider where we shall go next. What is next? Where am I going? And do those places know already that I am on my way?
Godric replies to Cuthbert, "I heard no call, Father...I came by chance." And in that, Godric shows his lack of vision. What in life is mere chance? Certainly not where we end up after a long day's journeying. Cuthbert's response has etched itself into my heart, mostly because I feel a sense of connection to those who leave home to journey far away from what is known and safe. "When a man leaves home, he leaves behind some scrap of his heart....It's the same with a place a man is going to....Only then he sends a scrap of his heart ahead."
Two things make me pause. The first is what part of my heart I left behind. I must believe it is true, what Cuthbert says. I left my childhood name at home. Andy. To those who knew me in my youth, Andy is someone far different than who I am today. He is only a scrap of me.
And somehow my talents for teaching, a career I had not yet considered when I left home, were waiting for me at Northwest University. It was there I became Andrew. Matured, I thought. And part of that maturity, of being Andrew, meant I would find that scrap of me, that piece that had always existed, but never materialized, only at college, where that scrap had been waiting.
We will know we are in the right place in our lives when arrive because it will simply feel right. Every other place we stop will seem uneasy, not quite right.