Conversation Point

Home Again

Hello.

It's been a few weeks since last I wrote for this space and a good bit has happened in the meantime. One house packed up, sealed into cardboard boxes and a place in my heart, has now been reopened, realigned into a new place, still working on feeing its physical comfort and spiritual solace. Prints are still in their transport packaging, leaning against the dining room wall, in consideration among the spacious rooms for permanent locations to call their own. Next to them, stacked in twelve neat boxes, are the last of the books urging me to order new shelving so they too can breathe a sigh of relief at finding their new place. My three cats are also repositioning themselves as only cats can. Peering into vacant closets filling up with familiar items and scents, testing out new nap sites and window patrol posts, each of my girls is determining her niche. We are, my possessions, my cats and I, all discerning our niches, but we are also clearly residing in foreign territory.

For anyone who has moved, across the country or across town, you know the feeling. Reaching for your morning coffee cup in a cupboard that is no longer there. Hearing the phone ring and forgetting it now sits on the hall table, not the bedroom dresser. Wandering grocery store aisles for daily bread, only to encounter weekly confusion and frustration. New doctors, dentists, merchants and hair stylists must also be found and new relationships forged over time. Until new habits mold and reshape our lives, there is little comfort for the soul that yearns for what home used to mean, but no longer does.

The Bible holds many stories of people aching for what home has meant to them while struggling to survive or place roots as aliens in a foreign land. Isaac, facing a devastating famine in his homeland traveled to Gerar for counsel from Abinelech, king of the Philistines. But God intervened to redirect his path to true home. " And the Lord appeared to him, and said, 'Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you; for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands and I will fulfill the oath which I swore to Abraham your father (Genesis 26: 2-3)." The Exodus from Egypt which Moses would lead years later designed itself into a people's story of hope, longing and perseverance still spoken of today. Ruth and Naomi found themselves stranded, both as women in a patriarchal society and as human beings with no means with which to care for themselves. Jesus' soul might have been imprinted for life by being born while his parents were on the road, having no home to call his own for the last three years of his life. His disciples knew the perils of the road less traveled, the emptiness of being away from their families. Over the centuries missionaries have lived the tangible dichotomy of home in their hearts and life in foreign lands. Many people, including myself, find themselves far from where they were born, for work and personal reasons. For all of us, we have discovered that home becomes what you make of it.

More than stories of faith and endurance, the Bible also tells us that, " Here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come (Hebrews 13:14)." Ironic that some folks never leave their birthplace, but that this scripture applies to both their lives and to those of us who call multiple places home over the course of a lifetime. The verse calls us to remembering that our constant home is with God, and God with us, no matter where we are. What is quite wonderful is that this place of being is also always ahead of us. We carry God as our Homemaker into each room, apartment, condominium or house to which we sign our names as renter or owner. And, as any good homemaker, God freshens each space with a creative hand, a sustaining spirit and redeeming grace that helps us make it our own for the time we claim as ours.

More so than any other move, God and I together have planned a space that tells me I am truly home. By a larger plan, I am not here forever. I have come to where I am going for now, and will keep going when I know to do so. But, for now, I am home again.

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 4:28 PM