Going Home

Gee, hard to believe it's been over a week since I wrote anything; of course I was away for 6 days so that may account for it.
I love to travel.  Seeing new places and new things, meeting new people and trying new ways and new foods is a joy of my life.  But it's also great to be back home again.   Which brings us to the question: "were is home."  Usually when people ask this they mean, "where do you live, now?"  But it can mean, where were you born?  Where did you grow up?  or even, "Where does your heart consider home?"  And for me, I think, that's really where home is.   As an itinerant United Methodist Elder, I have lived in 5 different towns in 2 states, prior to that I had moved 14 times in three states.  So where is home?  For most of my life I have considered home the place I came back to at night--wherever we lived at that particular time.  But now, as I retire, and look to settling down in one place for the rest of my life, "Home" takes on a different meaning.

To some extent, "Home" is where family and friends are, where we gather wilth our loved ones to celebrate the sacred and meaningful events of our lives--births, marriages, graduations, holidays, and so forth.  This is why the railways and airlines are jammed at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  But I think 'Home" is more than that.  "Home" is that place to which we are emotionally attatched by bonds of love, friendship, and a shared history.  That's why, as the old saying goes, "It takes a heap of living to make a house a home."

As Fay and I spend the next year and a half transitioning from active ministry to retirement, and moving into our new house, we will be saying farewell to friends we have come to know and love--leaving behind familiar restaurautnts, stores, movie houses, and other services: But we will also be saying "hello" to new friends, beginning a new shared history in a new place, learning new restauraunts, stores, campgrounds, fishing holes, golf courses, movie houses and so forth.  It is, indeed, and exciting journey--but life is change and change is live.


Blessings
ChaplainDann