HOME WHERE WE BELONG

In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? (John 14:2).

It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found (Luke 15:32).

. . . Home . . . remains in the mind as a place where reunion, if it were ever to occur, would happen . . . It is about restoration of the right relations among things--and going home is where that restoration occurs, because that is where it matters most (A. Bartlett Giamatti).

It has been said that you cannot go home again, but if that is true, what do you do when you have to go home again?  Things can never be as they once were because life goes on.  Births, deaths, illness, weddings, divorces, new friendships, changing financial fortunes, and changing techonologies make life different, so, one can never really go home again.  However, isn't it strange that with all the changes it seems that family themes tend to replay over and over again?  Conflicted, cut-off, over-involved and abusive relationships, divorces, addictions, mental illnesses are some of the themes that are recycled through the generations in dysfunctional families.

Why would a person have to go home?  It may be to forgive or it may be to be forgiven; it may be to support and encourage or it may be to be supported and encouraged, but in every case, one should go home to gain understanding.  Sometimes actually going home can be dangerous, so having someone to help with interpreting family experiences might be the only way to go home, but it will pay dividends on the journey to the home where we belong.

Grace&Peace,
Tom