Writers, especially poets, learn to choose words that come with their own built-in emotional baggage. This is especially true when one wants to say a lot in as few words as possible. The right well-chosen few words can cover more territory than a whole carelessly constructed paragraph.
One of the words that carries such built-in DNA is the word home. There are other words listed in the thesaurus as synonyms: house, dwelling, abode, residence. See what I mean? Home says more. Most of us have lived in several houses. We have had many addresses. We have built or bought different styles of dwellings and stayed there long enough for them to qualify as residences. But home—well, that’s another story. If your heart says you need to go home, where would that be? What does that place look like in your mind?
Some of would say it’s the place we now live, the place we raised our babies and planted our gardens and decorated rooms to suit the tastes and activities of our family. Others of us would name a place we haven’t been in years; the home-place where grandma lived or daddy built or the kids grew up. For some, home means a part of the country that shaped our view of things or gave us our roots. The South, or the Plains, the Smokies, or Colorado. Some of us long for the lake country or the red dirt of Georgia, the coast or the wide-open spaces of the old west.
Some long for a home they’ve never had. Abuse, estrangement, mobility, or divorce may have kept them from ever having a sense of place. On the outside looking in, they’ve ached in some deep place to identify with that tone in others’ voices they hear when they say “home.”
This is the season for going home. Songs like “Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go...” and “I’ll be home for Christmas; you can count on me” call us to make our way back to the places and the people that shaped us and help us to remember who we are. Going home helps us remember the stories, hopefully, the good ones, that we want to pass on to our children so they will know who they are, too. Sadly, for far too many, though, this is the time for digging deeper into a commitment to recovery from pain, estrangement, or alienation.
The good news is that whether or not we have had a healthy shaping place, we are being called by one, nevertheless. One way or another we can all go home. That’s what the gospel is all about. That is what this Jesus we follow came to do: to bring all the lost children of the Father to the only perfect home. And when we get there, we’ll know our hearts have been there all along. We’ll hear the only perfect Father—say, “Welcome home, my child. I’ve been waiting for you!”
