I saw this young woman sitting on a bench reading ‘Searching for Zion’ so I said, “From the title I can guess what that book is about, but what does it mean to you?”

“It’s about trying to find your home. I’ve been trying to find mine recently and I failed miserably. I just got back from Ethiopia and I’m trying to integrate the things I experienced there and I thought this book might help me do that.”

“Well it doesn’t seem like you failed to me, you’re still searching and trying to understand things and grow.”

“Yeah, I’m still looking. I’m gonna go to West Africa too, and then maybe Israel. But it’s funny how you can get turned around, sideways, upside down, reversed, confused.”

“That’s the way life is. You look for meaning, you expand and experience things that open your heart and mind, then you contract and sometimes feel lost as you integrate everything. The trick is learning how to love the expansion and contraction, the inhale and the exhale, the yin and the yang, the light and the dark. I’m working on that now.”

“I can vibe with that, you wanna sit down?”