Spiritual Reflection: Home

As the seasons have changed this year, I’ve been paying more attention to the birds. I shared some of my observations with a friend and she  commented on how interesting it is that the birds return home year after year. It is one of the thousands of fascinating things that happen in nature, and her comment reminded me that this is something we share with our fellow creatures on this planet, a sense of home.

What does it mean to be at home? Emily Dickinson wrote, “Where thou art, there is home.” I believe this is true on a very deep level, but we often don’t speak of home in this way. As I thought about those six words, my mind began spinning with more and more questions. Is home a  place? Is it a feeling?

What is it about a space that creates a sense of home? Is it connected to our stuff? Is it the land? Is it the structure? Is it connected to our memories? When someone dies, we often say she or he is going home. What does this statement mean?

As I attempt to answer these questions, I can feel myself getting a bit dizzy because with each answer I come to based on my experience, I can think of many others, with their particular life experiences, for which my answers may not be true. This creates yet another question, is “home”  a completely subjective experience?

Over the course of our lives almost all of us, at some point, leave a place we called home and begin again—many of us more than once. In our new setting and circumstances, we may find ourselves longing for home. This sense of longing leads me to believe that home is more a feeling of belonging than a place.

I think this is what Emily Dickinson was getting at, that a sense of home doesn’t arise within us because we walk through a door. It is already within us, in our experiences and memories, in our longings for love, peace, security, and familiarity. It can take time to find the feeling of home again when our context changes. Being aware of what we’re longing for helps us bring intentionality to creating a “home.”

As I watch the birds who are home again build new nests for this season, I see how we all live these patterns of nature; letting go and creating something new, over and over again.

Transforming God, we trust in the creative
movement inherent in all life:

The dance of letting go of the old and welcoming
in of new spaces and places, friends and coworkers,
climates, and cultures.
The sway of security and risk.
The shift of familiar and unfamiliar.
The flux of peace and chaos.
The waver between what was home
and what wants to become home.

You are the Creative Energy in our being. You
are the dance, sway, shift, flux, and waver. You
are the way to greater wholeness. May we feel
your creative presence and guidance in all the
movements of our lives. May our journey lead
us ever more deeply into our true home in you.
Amen.

This story was featured in:

SUMMER 2023: Home: Where Love Resides

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