My house was listed for sale this week.
A few weeks ago my oldest daughter and I talked about what and where home is. As a college student she longs for a familiar place to return home to and a corner of the home to call her own. She said, “I know it is suppose to be about the people you love but I still wish for a familiar place as home.” I know the feeling well.
Yesterday she and I were talking on the phone, this time about financial aid – indirectly related to “home” – when another call came through. She and I finished up and I returned my mom’s call. The day before my mom and one of her cousins had returned to the town of my mom’s birthplace and en route passed the home where she spent the first 6 years of her life. Or as she discovered yesterday, the place where her home used to be. There’s now a sign showing how the area will be subdivided into several lots. My mom was devasted. Even though she knew it would happen someday, even though it’s been over 65 years sinced she lived in that home, it was home.
I called my daughter back and said, “Sweetie, it’s in our genes. We can’t help it. We’re wired to be attached to place as well as people. Even your grandma misses her home – after 65 years!”
Place is important. It’s formative. It can help us feel grounded, or not. Recall the biblical stories of how places were named for the significant events that happened there and how they were marked so others could return there. Kathleen Norris, in “Dakota: A Spiritual Geography,” speaks of how returning to South Dakota from New York shaped her spiritual life and helped her reclaim a part of herself.
As a college student my daughter steps forward in faith, wondering where the next place to call home will be. As a homeowner, I also step forward in faith, wondering when I will look for the next place to call home. And as I reread the first sentence in this blog, I wonder, is my ”house” for sale” or my “home” for sale? Hmmmm… In the meantime, I give thanks for this little corner of the world I’ve called home and for the barn in the backyard that has helped shape me in ways I don’t fully realize. And someday, maybe in a couple months, maybe many months from now, I’ll take the love of family and friends, and my youngest daughter, dog and 2 kitties and we’ll all move into a house and make it our home.
How do you say home?
Blessings of home, Cathleen
(“How does the creature say home?” comes from the hymn, “God of the Sparrow”)
As someone who has moved most of my life, finding my way home remains a challenge. I’ve had to find home in people more than places, when I think in reality it needs to be both. Thank God love travels well.
Peace,
Milton
Milton, I suspect most of us have more people or more place to call home rather than a pleasant balance of both, so, as you aptly say, “thank God love travels well!!”
Blessings, Cathleen
Unexpected reference but oh how beautiful—————
Had expected you to say your oldest daughter to return ‘home’——-pj
When mom and dad “finally” sold the farm, after years of saying they needed to, it was so hard on my oldest brother and I. We, the “bookend” kids of the family, had so much in common there, though 15 years separate our births. To this day, even though it’s been over 5 years since they sold it, and nearly 20 since I lived there…that farm is my home. Home church typically refers to where you hold your membership…for me, it’s where I was “born-n-raised.” I love this post, Cathleen! It was touching and needed! And God of the Sparrow is absolutely one of my fave hymns!!! –Karla
Thanks pj! And thanks Karla for sharing your story of home. “God of the Sparrow” is one of my favorite hymns as well. Blessings, Cathleen