But often, in the world’s most crowded streets, But often, in the din of strife, There rises an unspeakable desire After the knowledge of our buried life: A thirst to spend our fire and restless force In tracking out our true, original course; A longing to inquire Into the mystery of this heart which beats So wild, so deep in us—to know Whence our lives come and where they go. ~ Matthew Arnold I have always loved this section of Arnold's long, old poem. The phrase, “There rises an unspeakable desire / after the knowledge of our buried life” resonates so deeply in me. There are times I want to uncover the buried life of my boyhood when I dreamed of baseball and girls and someday hitting a home run with both; the buried life of the years with my grandparents who were ballasts that kept my young ballooning life from flying away into nothingness or into destruction; the buried life of my struggling search for God, to go beyond the burdensome rules of the church that wer...