HOME SWEET HOME

 

Believe it or not, Once Upon A Time---I dreamed of living in a different place every year after retirement.  I wanted to leave my bubble and experience life all over the world.  As the song says, "From the mountains to the valleys" I wanted to know how it felt to live in other locations and around people with different mindsets.  While that was certainly a great dream, with the arrival of grandchildren, I changed my mind with the desire to always be close to those sweet grands. 

 

And then life happened and I began my journey of 6 moves in a dozen years which I wrote about recently.  One of my sweet young friends (she has grandchildren, but I helped raise her so she qualifies as young in my world) commented on that post that she was living the same nomad life.  As I pondered my response, it dawned upon me that I had loved each and every place I had moved ----all of them.  In fact it has all been a grand adventure.  Low and behold, I am living my dream from long ago.  I have not moved every year, and I have only experienced one other zip code, but it has been a great deal of fun.  WELL perhaps the packing and unpacking was not exactly FUN--but you get my drift.  I have left the bubble and what do you know I moved into just another bubble---only bigger.

As I rolled this around, it occurred to me that home is not so much a building.  It certainly is nice to call a place-HOME, but I know plenty of people who have moved on a regular basis for their entire life.  I think of the career men and women in the armed services, I think of many pastors I know, I think of those climbing the career ladder, I think of those who have no roof over their head...  There is an entire segment of the population, for one reason or another, do not stay in one place for any extended period.  Do they not have a home?

My conclusion is home is not necessarily a building----

HOME CAN BE A STATE OF MIND

 While pondering this, it dawned upon me that of all the buildings I have lived in, only two do I call "Home".  The house I grew up in and the house I raised my children in.  All the rest have been wonderful--but I never called them home instead refer to them as my house.  The activity that took place in those two buildings is why I consider them "home".  So perhaps our homes are closer aligned to "our people" and what is happening within them  than to the building.  Perhaps the activities within those buildings make them homes.  

Many of us get it in our heads we will refuse to leave our "home", even if we are in need of help.  We become enmeshed in the idea that we want (not need) to stay in the home we raised our children in---whatever they have to do to make that happen.  I will save this discussion for another day, but the point is---what we are really tied to is the memories of raising our children in this house---not so much the building itself.  We mistake a building for the state of mind which make that building a home.  It is only a house unless it becomes a home with the activities inside those walls.  Perhaps you disagree--I would love to hear your thoughts.  

"By wisdom a house is built,

and by understanding it is established;

by knowledge the rooms are filled

with all precious and pleasant riches."

Proverbs 24:3-4