On Finding Home

Diana Butler Bass begins her chapter on "Home" by quoting a favorite author of mine, Maya Angelou:  The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

It seems for many in this modern or post-modern era there is a homesickness, a dis-ease with the way we move and live in the world.  Often, in meeting new people, we ask "where do you live" not only as a social indicator but as a way of revealing values. Butler-Bass says that our home is more than a house.  It is a sacred location, a place of aspiration and dreams, of learning and habit, of relationships and heart.  "Home is the geography of our souls."

Yet, in our modern world, she points out that we live amidst large numbers of people who are dislocated by war, famine, conflict, religious migration, climate change, economic hardship, or cultural curiosity. Thus, to some extent, many are "out of place" and become comfortable with a transient lifestyle.

This itineracy is nothing new to the persons we find in scripture, always struggling for a home, for peace, and for place where one could practice faith without persecution.  Taking that concept further, Butler-Bass points to John Wesley's discussion of holy habits: He went on to teach that men and women must practice holy habits in mutually supportive homes and communities in order to know God and create a more just society; and a more just society would naturally foster habits leading people to a deeper spiritual awareness.  Habit and habitat went together.

In Lent we speak of being tossed into the wilderness where we reevaluate our habits of heart and home. In what ways are we living incompatibly with ourselves, with God, and with our neighbors? Jesus often made statements such as "I am the door" or "I am the gate." A door is the place of coming and going, of safety, protection and welcome. Have we entered doors other than the one Jesus opens and knocks upon?

Have we found ourselves going through the narrow gate or plodding along the wide road which leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13)?  In what ways have we divorced habit and habitat such that we have lost our sense of stewardship with creation and with our own resources?

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has spoken eloquently of our need to reconsider our relationships with one another and the world.  He writes, "the first law of our being is that we are set in a delicate network of interdependence with our fellow human beings and with the rest of God's creation."  Related to this thinking is the African concept of Ubuntu--I am because you are.  I have always thought of this concept in relation to the Jewish impulse regarding salvation: it is not about me and "my" salvation, it is always about "us" and our salvation.

How might we live more fully and faithfully, find our home, while realizing that life on earth cannot be reduced; it is an ever-folding mystery that defies prediction?

A prayer from Walter Brueggemann:

The pushing and shoving of the world is endless.

We are pushed and shoved.

And we do our fair share of pushing and shoving

in our great anxiety.

And in the middle of that

you have set down your beloved suffering son

who was like a sheep led to slaughter

who opened not his mouth.

We seem not able,

so we ask you to create the spaces in our life

where we may ponder his suffering

and your summons for us to suffer with him,

suspecting that suffering is the only way to come to newness.

So we pray for your church in these Lenten days,

when we are driven to denial--

not to notice the suffering,

not to engage it,

not to acknowledge it.

So be that way of truth of among us

that we should not deceive ourselves.

That we shall see that loss is indeed our gain.

We give you thanks for that mystery from which we live.

Amen.