The journey home...

Ron Rolheiser has long been a favourite writer of mine. He seems to be able to capture the heart of our human experience and touch it with the gentleness of God.

In his featured story this week on CathNews, entitled 'Steadying ourselves in the Storm' he describes the healing effect of coming home: 'Coming home didn't cure the heartache but gave the heart the care it needed. Somehow home always works'.

While in his early years away from home this experience was literally traveling home to be in the place where he grew up, where it was safe to be exactly who he is, where everything familiar breathed calm to his soul. Over the years he learned that 'home' could be found in other places:

'Sometimes a trusted friend is the answer; sometimes a family that has become family to me can provide that special place, sometimes I can find that place in prayer or in nature, but sometimes I can't find it at all and I have to live with the chaos until, like a bad storm, it blows over.

But through the years, I've also discovered that sometimes a special book that can take me home in the same way as driving there once did. One of the books that does this for me, almost without fail, is The Story of a Soul by Therese of Lisieux'.

Very soon after reading this I read Cliff Baxter's 'Did Jesus ever have to pay rent?' on the Discussion Board here at Catholica Australia where he shared an article on the change in our world to the attitude to houses: the trading up, the moving on, houses as commodities and investments rather than homes. So I wondered about how the experience of home might be nurtured. What affect does it have on the present generation? Do they take their sense of security and comfort from something else other than home? And what about the refugees and the homeless — what is their sense of home? And what about those for whom home is not a haven but a hell of violence and abuse?

My childhood experience is of a very mobile existence. Our family moved often following work and my sense of home was in the people, my family, rather than the building. Yet I think there has always been a sense of disconnection and of not belonging. Everything seemed transient.

Travelling to the Middle East some years ago I found that in Israel I felt a strong sense of belonging. That belonging arose greatly from the familiarity of the locations through the Bible stories. This was the home of Jesus. I had come and, in a profound way, in the physical landscape of Israel, found my belonging to Jesus and to God. That is not to say that I needed to live in Israel, but rather that I discovered something of that saying 'home is where the heart is' or indeed as in Matthew's gospel 'For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also' (Matt 6:21).

The experience of 'home' as Rolheiser describes it, is a metaphor for our journey to God. It is the place of our true belonging. It is the place that exists whether our experience of home in this world is one of safety and comfort and friendship and love or not. When we understand God as our home and our lives as a journey home, then our restlessness makes sense. In our restlessness we seek our place of belonging, our home, our place with God.

So where is your treasure? Where is your home, your belonging?

Rosemary

Rosemary Canavan lives in Adelaide. Her qualifications include a Bachelor of Arts major in Psychology and two Bachelors degrees in Theology, the most recent an Honours degree in New Testament studies. She has two adult children.

Photo Credit:
Stork photo from stock.xchnge Photographer: Elena Kalpakchieva, Plovidv, Bulgaria

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Rosemary can be contacted at: rosemary@catholica.com.au

©2006 Rosemary Canavan

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