Patrick Gordon- Landscapes of the Sacred, Robert Cushman Reflection

While reading Chapter 5: A Chosen Place and the Pilgrim people, I stumbled upon an interesting quote that made me diverge from reading, contemplate and try to translate some sort of meaning so that I can understand. Robert Cushman, a pilgrim, reminded his comrades that “we are… in all places strangers and pilgrims, travelers and sojourners, most properly, having no dwelling but this earthen tabernacle. Our dwelling is but a wandering, and our abiding but as a fleeting, and in a word our home is nowhere but in the heavens-in that house not made with hands, whose maker and builder is God”. Such a long and poetic quote certainly deserves a second look and a further analyzation. The first part, to me, is a reminder that life is only temporary, we are incapable of creating a lasting home here because life is so fleeting. He is trying to tell the Puritans that there is no use trying to tame this wilderness they’re traveling into because they can really only dwell in their earthen tabernacles, or, their bodies. Tabernacle is an interesting word choice because the original tabernacle was a sort of worship tent; a portable dwelling space for a divine presence. I believe that Cushman is alluding to this to solidify a sense of wandering in his fellow travelers. He finally goes on to imply that the only home they do have is in heaven with their creator. In conclusion, my summary (in laymen’s terms) of this quote is; because we can’t and won’t stay on earth forever, we are doomed to wander as a portable tent (or brief case maybe?) which holds the spirit of God. But hey, it’s not too bad because when we die we get to finally go home, rest and see our Creator firsthand.