About a year ago, I literally found my way home. Now, hold on, that doesn’t mean I was gone for a long time. In this case, I am referring to my childhood home in San Antonio, Texas. That is where I grew up and about a year ago, taking my wife to San Antonio was sort of a pilgrimage to show her the city from my own point of view. We drove by the house and my wife said, “you should stop and talk to those people and take your picture”. Now that is a great wife, to help you do things you probably wouldn’t do yourself but need to.
I had my picture taken on the very front porch where I had my picture taken many times, starting with the one 55 years before. I met the family who lives there and learned that the wife’s parents were the ones who bought the house from my mother 46 years before. So, it turns out you can go home again. The path that led me back home after all of those years is a winding, turning path that is still going forward.
So how do we get home? Well, I think we need a partner in the process. If my wife had not encouraged me to stop, I wouldn’t have and I would have missed out on a wonderful experience, one of completion, of coming full circle. But, before we take a step on the path, we have to ask “what is home?” For Christians, home is not heaven. Does that surprise you? Perhaps it shouldn’t because Jesus lived so we could learn how to live, not wait patiently to die.
I think the saying “home is where the heart is” applies more than we might know. If my heart is not healthy (spiritually I mean) then we wander and search and look for home. We are called to relationship with God. Personal, private, life-giving and abundant. If my heart is (as the old Baptist preacher might say) “right with God” then I am home. And isn’t that all any of us really want? To be home? To be at home with God?
Now, as to how we get home. Thomas Merton, the monk and spiritual writer once noted that we search everywhere only to discover what we were looking for has been right there inside of us all the time. That is what it means to be a mystic and a seeker, to find that place of deep relationship with God, the Creator of All. And, that is where home is……right there inside of me where God has resided since the moment of my birth!
I noted above that my wife helped me find my way home in San Antonio. That is also true for all of us spiritually. We all need a friend to help us find the way, whether a spiritual friend, spiritual director or a faith community. That friend, that help is what helps us find our way home, that friend or faith community is what says to us….You should stop, you are home.
TMM