Searching for Home

January 24, 2022 | 5 minute read
sue.fulmore

A graphic that says "Searching for Home" there are matches in a match box, and the match box is shaped like a church.

In light of all that was so suddenly lost, O Lord, in light of all we had gathered but could not keep, comfort us.1

What began as wisps of smoke stealing up the back stairs, quickly turned into an inferno which devoured the place we gathered to worship. Just before Christmas a few years ago, flames engulfed the building we, as a family, had called our church home for the last 24 years. This place had stood as a beacon of light in the community for many decades. Those who were tossed about on stormy seas had found true belonging here amongst their fellow castaways.

Bernice and Judy rocked my babies from their earliest days in this building. It was within these walls my children first understood how much they were loved by God, where they prayed with friends, and became part of a faith community. It was here we worshipped, enjoyed potluck dinners, and had silent auctions. There were weddings, baby showers, garage sales, funerals, Bible studies, and Christmas concerts.

We were shaped by this place,
and by the living of our lives in it,
by conversations and labours and studies,
by meals prepared and shared,
by love incarnated in a thousand small
actions that became as permanent a part of this
structure as any nail or wire or plank of wood.1

In so many ways our family had made its home here, among these people who stretched us, loved us, and stood with us through the maze of raising children and pursuing a life of faith. This house had become so much more than a building, it was a receptacle of memories of all the “firsts” in life, a place whose walls recorded years of conversations, celebrations, and whispered laments. This building became a witness to the growth of a family. We feel the loss of it, wondering if our memories will also be reduced to a heap of ashes.

Earlier that year a group of artists and I worked on a project for the church. After considering the words from Luke’s Gospel, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself ” (Luke 10:27) we had created a visual representation of what that meant. Symbols of those things which can displace God were attached to the art piece. Our relationships, talents, desires, and families were, as we gave them over to the greatest Love, properly aligned and our hearts became a little more whole. This creative project went up in flames along with the rest of our building; as if the fire of God fell, as in the days of Moses, and consumed the offering. Was it meant to be this way, never seen, except by the One to whom it was offered?

Our nerves are frayed, O God. Our sense
of place and permanence is shaken,
so be to us a foundation.

While we struggled to come to terms with our displacement, we watched as millions were forced from their homes due to civil war in Syria. This was a grave humanitarian crisis. So many wandering, seeking safety, longing for home.

Comfort us, O Lord,
in the wake of what has overtaken us.
Shield us, O Lord, from the hurts
we cannot bear.
Shelter us, O Lord,
in the fortress of your love.

Our attention was focused on one family in particular, who were to join our community. Already displaced for six long years, they had lost everything. Their house, community, business, possessions. As bombs rained down on the city of Homs, it decimated all they called home. The horrors they witnessed, the uncertainty, the close calls, the unsettledness stretched on through the years. Did they believe there could ever be a place of safety, where their children could grow and flourish, and where they could sink their roots down?

We prayed for their refugee status approval, and for their arrival. Paperwork mishaps caused delays. They prayed for and clung to the dream of a safe haven where they could find peace. They continued to hang onto hope, anchored by their faith in the God who came in poverty, and as a child was also forced to flee the land where He had been born. Jesus as a refugee became a compelling companion during this family’s journey.

Shepherd us, O Lord, as we wake each
new morning, faced with the burdens of a
hard pilgrimage we would not have chosen.
But as this is now our path, let us walk it in
faith, and let us walk it bravely, knowing
that you go always before us.

We gathered together in a borrowed space, displaced worshippers, still longing for home, but more aware of others who suffered losses much greater than our own. We began to realize our spiritual home was still with us, made up of all the members of our faith family. Our home was not the building, “it was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.”2

Deep within me was also a desire to be at home with myself. To come to the place where I acknowledged I am good since I carry around in my body the image of God. After years of trying to prove my worth by what I could produce, hiding who I really was in an attempt to be accepted, I was slowly finding my way home.

The internal renovation began. The process told me “He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”3 Oh what mystery and joy are bound up in this truth. No matter where I may wander, God is with me.

These days we are required to stay home, to shelterin-place. The dwelling we often use as a way station rather than a refuge is all we have left. What will be the lessons we learn here? Will this forced home-stay anchor us in ways that we have resisted in the past? Too busy, too intent on building a better life for us and our children, running from program to program to keep up with the trajectory required for the “good life”. Perhaps we will find a home in the ones we share our space with, our hearts might settle into the joy of slow living, of time together over steaming bowls of soup, and endless games of Uno.

Many homes will never be the same again. Loved ones will no longer sit at the table, leave socks on the floor, or sing in the shower. There will be gaping holes in those homes which time and space will slowly attempt to repair but never quite succeed.

To live as humans, it seems, is a continual search for home. We see glimpses, hazy visions of the wonder of a place to which we belong and are made whole. We do our best to create these places with those we love, yet always carry the ache for our eventual home.

Let our rebuilding be a
declaration that a day will come when
all good things are permanent, when
disaster and decay will have no place,
when dwellings will stand forever, and
when no more lives will be disrupted by
death, tragedy, reversal, or loss. 

1 All italics in the article are from Douglas Kaine McKelvey, A Liturgy for Those Who Suffer Loss from Fire, Flood, or Storm, Every Moment Holy, Rabbit Room Press 2017.USED WITH PERMISSION
2 Sarah Dessen, What Happened to Goodbye
3 C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity 

 

This is an article from our Fall 2021 edition of Alliance Connection. Read the full copy here.

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