home away from home

New Market, VA

Webb and Carol Hypes sent us off with a good breakfast this morning (and some money, just when we had run out). A much-needed refreshment. In some ways it reminded me of being at home with my parents.

Then we dodged rain and walked long and hard to get to New Market. During those quiet hours I began thinking about a message I had just received from Rich at Plow Creek, saying they were overloaded at the moment and wanted to revisit the retreat idea when Heather gets back in January. That was a little disappointing, though certainly understandable. But it got me wondering...

About home. I remembered writing about God's promises of a home possibly being fulfilled at the Fredericksburg retreat place--which turned out to be very far from the case. Then I remembered how I used to always say that we will never find our perfect home in any place here on earth. Yet we can always be at home with a person, our Father God (and with the persons who are his children), wherever we are.

I even spoke on those themes last summer when Heather and I were staying at Plow Creek. And I remember quoting these lines from a Psalters song, "Refugee our Home":

Revolution come free us,
Holy Brother us desert wanderers have no place to call home
Physician come heal us
Holy Mender us blind ol lepers can not find our way home

Refugee just like me please don't leave You're our only...
Home, Home, Home, Home...

Compassion come save us
Holy Lover us warmongers ruined this place we call home

Refugee just like me please don't leave You're our only...
Home, Home, Home, Home...

When they sang that, we all made a tramping sound with our feet for the basic rhythm, and chanted the low "Home, Home" mantra. It was meant to express that we are continually on pilgrimage, yet always home in God.

I think I've been distracted from these truths lately, which is unfortunate. I think I've distracted myself. Perhaps because of my strong desires to find a good place for Heather and I to marry and be able to raise children. But this walk is helping me to remember home, both where it cannot be found and where it is always found.