Upward. 4

home

The fourth in a series of posts inspired by our current Book Circle on Falling Upward: A Spirituality for The Two Halves of Life, by Richard Rohr. Previous post here.

I have always felt a little envious of people who grew up on a family homestead and then stayed to make their own home with their own family… and maybe even passed that land on to the next generation. It’s increasingly rare, isn’t it.

I was born in Sacramento, but only have dim memories of California before moving to Fayetteville, NC when I was six. Lived on Daisy Lane (really) for 11 years before going off to college, never to return. Chapel Hill, NC was a robust 13-year-stint, although we lived in five different homes before moving to Colorado Springs for two years. Living at the base of Pikes Peak was magical, and I could have easily stayed… but it wasn’t home. It took living in a Rocky Mountains paradise to realize that the Tarheel State really was home, even if I didn’t have a homestead.

When we moved to Greensboro, NC in 2002, I looked for that homestead—the perfect piece of land that we could keep forever. And although we found a beautiful home, inside I knew it was only temporary. It wound up being 14-years-temporary, but when we finally got the chance to move to Boone, I knew I was closer to “home” than ever. Our current house is also beautiful, but it won’t be our final home. I still hope and dream for that mystical combination of land, vista, structure, and vibe that says, “This is where you belong. This place reflects an essential part of who you are. Don’t leave.”

Have you ever felt that?

I suspect that all of us have some kind of “homing beacon” built into our psyche. Even those with wanderlust who crave ever new adventures across the globe—even they, I think, want somewhere to return.

And returning is the necessary path. We have to leave home in a very real sense in order to find what is most essential inside, before we can return in the fullness of our identity and purpose. The best parents are able to name the essence of the seed of identity within a child… but they cannot bring that seed to life. Only the person herself or himself, in the context of various communities and the Holy Spirit, can over time bring that potential into reality. And that emergence usually requires some kind of leaving, as we see in the stories of most biblical leaders, most historical spiritual leaders, and of course Jesus himself.

Jesus’ family tries to take him home at least once (Mark 3:20-35), and Jesus has to put them in their place: “Who are my mother and my brothers? …Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” It feels a little harsh until we realize that the very family that nurtures us into ourselves can also constrain us from becoming ourselves. Rohr calls it the Crab Basket effect: as soon as one crab tries to climb up and out, the others take hold and pull him back down.

It’s not malicious; it’s just human nature to want those around us to play the roles we have assigned them. Thus the necessity of leaving, and this leaving is both internal and external. Once we clear the slate of imposed identities, then we are free to begin our inner work of uncovering what is real. Sometimes this leads us to paths different than any of us ever expected, and sometimes those paths are dead ends. But we can and must trust the journey, knowing that—if we are paying attention to the Spirit—we are being led. And that eventually we will come home.

Home is where the heart is… well, yes. Sort of. With love and presence, anywhere can become home. Home is more than a house; it speaks to our deeper need to belong, to have people and community and history. But place matters. The Benedictines oriented their entire lives around place (as I explore in my book Gravitas: The Monastic Rhythms of Healthy Leadership), and I think there really is a geographical place where something deep and divine comes alive in us. I hope you keep looking until you find it.

growing the soul

Where are you in your journey of home - leaving - returning? What parts of that are spiritual and psychological, and what parts are physical and geographical? Talk with a trusted soul about this… and name the next step.

serving the world

You cannot bring forth your true gift until you bring forth your true self. Those two are intertwined and must both be activated in order to come alive. And what the world needs most, as Howard Thurman famously said, is people who have come alive!

takeaway

leave home, come home.