home really is the heart...

"home is about love, relationship, community, and belonging, and we are all searching for home" -erwin mcmanus

i've been thinking a lot about the concept of home, the tangible reality of creating it, pursuing it, enjoying it, understanding it. we're all searching for home because we're all searching for intimacy, meaning, and belonging. we're all piling up our storehouses full of goods, talents, relationships, businesses, objects, thoughts, experiences, and dreams in hope of creating some sense of self, of security, of connectedness, when really our craving for home and this deeper burning sense of the need to be loved and to express love to others comes from our unquestionable proximity and connectedness to god.

there's this other concept i'm chewing on lately, and that is compassion. not necessarily compassion in the sense of being kind and generous and reaching out to others in need, though those actions are all aromatic fruits of a deeper seed-compassion in the sense of suffering with one another, sometimes without words or action but by practicing presence. god is known as emmanuel, or god-with-us, because he is in us, around us, desires to love us and be loved by us.

call me crazy but aren't these two notions extremely and unavoidably linked? isn't my desire for a sense of home in the midst of transition a composite of my desire for being at home with god, for being compassionate as god is compassionate and practicing a simple awareness, a presence of community based on love and relationship? i know that i am hardly representative of a minority of people who crave love, fulfilling relationships, and a place to always call home.

as i draw nearer and nearer to god through my own personal introspection, travel experiences, relationships and life lessons, i find that all the more i am swimming in his compassion, unable to escape his presence, his authority, his grandeur and his beautiful subtleties... i find the more and more that i try and set boundaries to what home is, they are equally and enigmatically struck down and rethreaded. home is not a specific place or time, not even with specific people or things, its not a memory and its not necessarily a goal...its something that exists and thrives through connectedness with other humans, through connectedness with gods spirit, nature, oneself...home is where you allow yourself to be known, to be involved, to be loved and to have compassion for and with those around you.

mcmanus also writes that 'jesus called to all who were weary and who found their souls exhausted to come to him and find rest. he is telling us that god will be for us our place called home'...

nearly every day i experience the sensation of missing being at the place i have called home for so many years. i miss my family, i miss colorado, i miss my things and my memories and all that i am physically and emotionally attached to there. yet with every day that i spend and appreciate living in san diego, i find that my home is closer to me than i have even realized. i'm able to commune with friends who are sometimes closer than family, to experience god in deep and exciting ways through people, places, and prayer. i get to be involved with movements and organizations that move me and inspire me to do good, to reach out, to grow in this world.

if anyone is serious about fulfilling that longing sense of the need for home, the need for love, the need for meaning and intimacy, he or she must realize that the kingdom of god dwells within our human hearts, that home is a result of assuming a compassionate posture before and with god, that intentional community and investing in relationships is the foundation for any fruitful root system...

home is...where the heart is...