What is home?
Is it a place where you can settle as you sink into your favourite well worn chair
Shaped to hug
Sturdy to hold your tiredness
Is it a refuge where you can let go to just be yourself as you........?
Sheltered to protect
Solid to withstand joy and sorrow.
Dependable
What does your home look like?
Does it consist of soothing sensual colours
Blending and embracing you warmly
Like cold hands clasping a hot mug of tea
Does it have a face with relaxed krinkling eyes that smile
Welcoming, encouraging always............
Friendly
Is it a state of mind connected to the heart.......?
Your very own transportable, inflatable, deflatable sanctuary
defined by you
redesigned by you
Open to ruminations and reflections
Receptive to light and darkness
Able to comfort you with a flick of a thought.
Unconditional belonging
Can you go there now?
Government can provide housing. Who helps find a home? We all need home.
4 comments:
Home, for me now, is my family - my husband and children, although 'a state of mind connected to the heart' is probably fairly spot on
the idea of chapel as having homely attributes is lingering at the back of my mind from your previous post, thank you for these warm thoughts, Katie
Even if I'm away from my my family and the other important people in my life.....there is a place I can go in my head that can conjure up the essence of home.
I was also thinking about the warmth of a chapel setting......and how the church needs to learn how to provide the essence of home without such judgement..........no strings attached. Unconditional. I wonder if that will ever happen......
When my family and I drive from our home to our extended family and the home I grew up in.....it takes us through Northern New Brunswick, Quebec and Eastern Ontario. Once you reach the NB-Quebec border, the landscape is dotted with steeples, more so as you drive through the small towns along the St. Lawrence River..... I often wonder about the fact that those steeples were (and maybe in some communities still are) the heart of the community that tied families together. The steeples in my mind represent a symbol of home. And yet, sadly...........I think they are an historical symbol for most.....
A long time ago, when I still lived in Connecticut, our family had moved from one town to another. I must have been about 5 or so at the time. Anyhow, a friend of my Dad's made a remark how we had sold our "home"... and I replied that we had sold our "house", our "home" was coming with us. It wasn't till years later that my Dad remarked to me that it was the most profound thing he had ever heard from such a young child... and that I had left his friend baffled by my remark. Out of the mouths of babes, he called it.
I still feel the same way today. One can always move their belongings... but the "home" part is something you always take with you if you have a strong foundation of family.
Hi Ellen......hope your Thanksgiving Day was a home filled one.
It is interesting....yesterday I met with a young woman who has never really had that strong family thing. I also met with the client who sparked my spark (the one I referred to in my pass it on post) His life has been very unstable and insecure.
And yet.......probably because i had been thinking and writing about the essence of home in the last week or so.....the topic came up. Both of these beautiful but sadly wounded souls described to me their definition of home as their ultimate goal. They have a very clear picture of what it is, and yet have never experienced it.
We all yearn for the same things...love and belonging. We all have the right to fulfilling these needs too.
It makes me feel very fortunate and aware of the numbers who don't have their own haven.
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