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simplicity // 18
home

There is no place like home. It’s where you can know, and be most fully known. Behind the scenes of your life, it’s the place you return for sanctuary, warmth, food, love... And it’s where you can offer hospitality, such a sacred gift to bestow.

Not surprisingly, then, home has a powerful place in our cultural and spiritual psyche; in most great stories, the hero must leave home, to undergo an epic, transformational journey. Frodo leaves the Shire. Dorothy leaves Kansas City. Abram leaves Ur. It often takes leaving home to find out just what home must truly mean for us.

When Jesus went into the desert, he helped to embody the kind of “hero’s journey” which strips away all home comforts. In fact, this was the point, at the start of his public life, when he left home behind him, never to return. “Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,” he was to say, famously . Yet he, like no other, also knew precisely where home could be found, in the end: in closeness with God.

Perhaps that’s why Richard Rohr describes home, mysteriously, as “both the beginning and the end. Home is not a sentimental concept at all,” he continues, “but an inner compass and a North Star. It is a metaphor for the soul.”

Could that explain why, sometimes, then, we might feel strangely homesick, even when “at home”? And why the road “home” can lead us away, at significant moments in our life, from all that is too familiar?


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Action point:

* This morning, why not meditate on a well-known prayer from the Anglican Church: “Father of all, we give you thanks and praise, that when we were still far off you met us in your Son and brought us home.” Try saying it over and over, slowly, for five minutes.

Where is home? What does home mean to you? How might it be a “metaphor for the soul”, as Richard Rohr describes it? Spend a few minutes today sitting in a room at home you don’t normally sit in, so that you can see it from a slightly different angle - and reflect on what this home has taught you about what it means to be at home.

* For another take on home, have a look at this. The photographer and film-maker Yann Arthus-Betrand has created a visually stunning movie called Home, showing breath-taking views of the Earth from above. He has made it available on Youtube, here: http://www.youtube.com/homeproject

* “I think I saw it as a challenge... I would learn to stay still, I would learn to be alone... I wanted to know just how little I needed in order to lead a fulfilling life.” Read about the author Neil Ansell’s five-year stint living on his own in a completely isolated Welsh cottage in the woods in this week’s Observer. My life as a hermit.


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rsvp:

“I was talking to a friend yesterday and he pointed out that the value of a question is that it metaphorically makes you take a step back and see the issue in a wider perspective. Which to me served to remind me of how we have to live the questions.” John

“There are so many facets to our life these days and yesterday I re-read Mother Teresa’s ‘sayings’ on Life to remind me that whilst there are many degrees of light & shade in a complete life, in order to recognise these elements we have to react to them. The last line, is, for me, the most poignant: especially in the context of my comfortable life in a leafy corner of a developed country.... even my blessed life isn’t meant to be sedentary, passive & latent & whilst it isn’t always wonderful, neither is it always awful. Perhaps the (simple !?) key for me to remember is that I must fully take part in my own life, thereby allowing God to work and (hopefully !) create in me what he intends me to be ... eventually...

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfil it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.” Alison

“For this I came: to serve. To support, show compassion, encourage; to stand beside hurting broken people; to try and make a difference in others’ lives if possible. I never felt I knew my purpose until a few years ago. I sort of fought against the lowliness of ‘just looking after and caring for people’, of never having a ‘proper career’. Of putting myself last, which I was brainwashed to do as a child. Looking back over 65 odd years, this has been the theme. I eventually realised this was/is God's plan and purpose for my life. I do finally understand the privilege it is to be trusted by other hurting, broken struggling human beings, and use my gifts to help make life a bit easier for them, especially through the blessings God has showered on me over the years.” Heather

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May you be home from home, today.
Go well!

Brian