One of the things that has always struck me about the Christmas story is that Mary and Joseph had no sense of “home” when Mary gave birth to her baby. They were travellers, transients, really. I bring this up because I’ve been mulling over the many questions you were kind enough to send in response to my post on questions. Here is an excerpt of the question in particular that has me thinking about “home, homelessness, and belonging.”
“Paul McCartney once sang, ‘Once there was a way to get back home …’ Is there a way to get back home? When will I settle down into a peace filled life with a strong sense of home again and a job that is more than a ‘job’ but feels like a vocation? I live in a nice home with a good man with whom I am happy but I do not feel like I am quite “home” again nor quite arrived.”
This really resonated with me, probably because it is something I perpetually struggle with. My family all live on the east coast, and while I never really had an ideal place that I wanted to live when “I grew up,” I never imagined that we would end up in this little midwestern “city,” 150 miles from Chicago. I remember when the only friends we had when we got here took us out for pizza our first week. I looked out the window and cried, silent tears dripping down my cheeks. Peter Jennings, my favorite newscaster, was still alive then, and I thought, “Anything could happen to the world, he could report anything, and we would be out here in this barren no-person’s land, and never know it.
”
from the heart 