Home. Why do so many of the really the complicated things end up being such short words. Love, fear, Gd, faith... they escape my mouth so quickly my mind has little to no time to reflect on what I might be saying. I hate my weight. I love my dog. I fear global weirding. I seek justice. I serve. All of these are true and they are complicated by life and love and experience.
Today home is about a re-entry to the practice of liberal religion within Unitarian Universalism. This place is home, not only because I want to be here, but because I have been formed to belong here as I belong nowhere else in this life. Here I find others who join in questions and doubt. Here I find people passionate enough about justice to ask how they need to change. Here I find people seeking ways to engage the world they live within to know it and be known within it. Here I find people struggling to be open to the ambiguous nature of faith. Not everyone, not everyone ever day, but always there is a spark.
Such small words I use like home. I forgot that home is a place I seek, a welcome I recognize, a sense of belonging I cherish. Home is a smile, a smell, a word, a gesture, home is being known in the cacophony of all that is, all that was, all that yet might be.
Still I worry a bit (this may just be me). What the heck does one do when you have made your way away and back and away and back and away and back again. Can I say that I am back for good? Perhaps not, and maybe that is not the point. I can say I understand now that this is where I belong even if my courage has not gained its place yet in my heart to say no to an oppressor or to comfort. This is where I belong even if I long sometimes for the glittery sustenance and resource of belonging to the majority. This is where I belong even if my curiosity takes me somewhere to explore. Even in this wondering away I affirm my belonging here among the seekers. While I may wonder what I missed and question if the journey away filled my heart enough to make it worth the suspicion I fear when I return? I have been salted with this gift of an explorers heart.
August 12, 2013
Home. Why do so many of the really the complicated things end up being such short words. Love, fear, Gd, faith... they escape my mouth so quickly my mind has little to no time to reflect on what I might be saying. I hate my weight. I love my dog. I fear global weirding. I seek justice. I serve. All of these are true and they are complicated by life and love and experience. 
Still I worry a bit (this may just be me). What the heck does one do when you have made your way away and back and away and back and away and back again. Can I say that I am back for good? Perhaps not, and maybe that is not the point. I can say I understand now that this is where I belong even if my courage has not gained its place yet in my heart to say no to an oppressor or to comfort. This is where I belong even if I long sometimes for the glittery sustenance and resource of belonging to the majority. This is where I belong even if my curiosity takes me somewhere to explore. Even in this wondering away I affirm my belonging here among the seekers. While I may wonder what I missed and question if the journey away filled my heart enough to make it worth the suspicion I fear when I return? I have been salted with this gift of an explorers heart.