HOME

Once again Kathie and I have returned home, at last. We have had other grueling travel adventures throughout 2024; and many more will likely occur. For now, however, we are home!

Pardon the cliché, but there really is no place like home. Dorothy said it best, with other poets and prophets before her; there’s nothing like arriving back to a familiar space, to an arrangement of life and space that is familiar, mostly predictable, and life-giving. Home is a place in and through which we can create beauty as circumstance, resource, community, and ability permit. And yes, home is a place in and through which we can relax or event waste time, if indeed that is possible.

My own life of privilege allows for comfort, an experience beyond the grasp of a growing number of homeless persons in our province’s major cities including here in the South Okanagan. Beneath all the chatter around addiction and social dysfunction lies a profound reality; a generation of street-engaged persons who do not, or have never, enjoyed a safe and loving experience of home.

Kathie and I have now returned from a visit with son Cameron and partner Emm, the first with them in their first home purchased together, a visit that reminded us of our many homes in many places throughout Canada over many years. We have lived in many beautiful buildings in lovely communities in our staggeringly gorgeous country, Canada, our “home and native land” though truthfully our home on native land.

In church, and as Canadian Anglicans, we often thank Creator God using the fourth Eucharistic Prayer which describes the world as “this fragile earth, our island home.” Especially true for residents of Vancouver Island (as Kathie and I once were),  regardless of our earthly geographic location, we all live on an island (or spherical object) hurtling through space and time in a cosmos barely discernable and poorly appreciated, even abused by many.

Remembering friends, colleagues, and loved ones who have died in recent years, those who are now “at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8), I think of Steve, Chris, Rod, Linda, Herb, Kim, Bob, and just yesterday, Eric. Just shy of my sixty-seventh birthday I may find myself saying farewell to an increasing number of those now departed though well remembered.

My social media feed overflows today with Happy New Years’ greetings. To me, such greetings feel like passing GO on the Monopoly Board. Gamers pray they will never draw the card: “Do not pass GO; do not collect $200.” We all hope that with the passage of time, that things get better. Oh that memories and experiences—including both success and failure—might coalesce. We all hope to become more settled, comfortable, and safe in our particular life station. The truth in real time and physical circumstance is anything but.

I see and hear a lot of anxiety about almost everything right now. Like Bill Nighy in the movie Love Actually “I feel it in my bones.” So much of life is beyond our control. What is within our influence is how we react to both challenges and opportunities. Presently in 2025 we need talented, courageous leadership more than at any time I can remember. A colleague just posted the image below, a sentiment I find meaningful and inspirational. Perhaps you also do.

In personal and pastoral situations I often call on the Serenity prayer as a way forward. In 2025, I encourage you to join me, as we all search for home, as we are able, from where we are, in faith, hope, and love. Happy New Year to all.

AND THERE’S MORE

Home is where your attempts to escape cease – and at a bar in New York, I stopped running, Mona Eltahawy in The Guardian;

And just for fun: Home,

By Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros