Home, Sweet Home

"Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays…"

The older I get, the truer this is for me.
Since Mom died, I will move heaven and earth
to be home for any holiday. There were many years
when I did not feel this way. I had a home of my own.
I loved being in my own home for the holidays – with
my husband, our daughter, our step-children and
my mother-in-law. There are many happy memories
of special family gatherings. Lots of pictures to bring
those memories to mind too.

In my college years, I shared Robert Frost’s
fatalistic view. "Home is the place where when
you have to go there, they have to take you in."
The poem is The Death of the Hired Hand.
Silas, a former hired hand, returns to Warren’s
farm to die. Silas has a rich brother just down
the road. But he chooses Warren’s farm as the home
to which he will return to for his last moments of life.
Throughout my college years, I had a love-hate
relationship with my own home. Some days it felt like
a spider’s web in which I would be trapped forever.
There were times I stayed away. Other times it was
a refuge from the big, bad world – a safety net that
would always be there. I snuggled into the scents
of Mom’s baking and felt secure in a home where
Dad came home from work every day like clock work.
There were times I actually missed fighting with my
brother and sisters.

Another image of home is captured in the old
cliché – "Home is where the heart is." Even the
homeless may have a home. It isn’t necessarily
a physical place. It may only be a spiritual
reality from the past – a time and a place that
is no more except in memories. Home may be
a place we can find only in our own souls – a
place where we are still young and sure of all
life has to offer. There are probably many
"homes" that hold a piece of our hearts –
some from childhood days, a special
place with special people from any one of a
number of periods of our lives – or a real
place with real people where we are at home
any day of the week.

I saw a wall hanging yesterday with two
bright red cardinals building a nest. It said,
"Home is where you make it." It won’t always
be with our biological family in a family
homestead where our people have lived for
generations. We may find that our homes hold
no relatives – only friends with whom we are
connected soul to soul.

I know that there are many lonely times in life
when we feel homesick. Like Silas, we sadly
search for someplace where we can be taken
in and cared for – some place where the memories
are meaningful in ways that connect us to God
and to our forever home in Heaven – some place
where our human dignity is preserved no matter
how far gone we are physically, spiritually or
emotionally.

Grandma and Grandpa’s farm will forever be
home in my head and heart even though no
one in the family owns it now. The city of
Tours, France – a house on Rue de Bernard
Paissey – was home for one grand and glorious
year that will last for as long as I live. These
past 20 years of being a pastor, home has been
whichever family of faith I was serving at the
time. And now, my Mom and Dad’s house –
the one we bought when I was in second grade –
that is the home I will be heading for on Christmas day.
I’ll have the Christmas music cranked and I’ll be
happily singing along – even when I don’t know all
the words. May we each find ourselves at home
for the holidays – no matter where home is.