What is Home? How can we identify 'home' when we live in such a mobile culture? How can we live out 'community' getting to know those around us and building relationships in a continuously transitional world?
Some thoughts to start us off...........
'Home Sweet Home'
Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home! ........
How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile,
And the caress of a mother to soothe and beguile!
Let others delight mid new pleasures to roam,
But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
To thee I'll return, overburdened with care;
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there;
No more from that cottage again will I roam;
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet, home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
(Parts of Poem 'Home sweet home' by John Howard Payne, 1979-1852)
Quote
"Maybe the single most important thing we can do if we want to grow spiritually is to stay in the place we are." (From book: The Wisdom of Stability - Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture by J Wilson Hartgrove)
........I've always had quite an adventurous spirit. Something I think I inherited from my darling mother! I love to travel and I always imagined myself having quite a nomadic lifestyle moving from place to place (maybe country to country) in my life. I love exploring. I love meeting people from different cultures and with different backgrounds. But something in me is changing. How can I explain?
Let's start with the Poem. John Payne obviously lived in a different time period to us and as I read his poem I reflected on the differences in today's world. How many people identify 'home' with 'A fond father's smile' or 'a caress of a mother.' How many people identify home as being 'sweet place' which is unchanging. In this climate, Christian family or not, there are a lot more broken homes. Furthermore if you have lived in a lot of places, you may not associate home with where your parents live (especially as an adult). My family lives all over the world - Ireland, Switzerland, Kenya, Canada and my parents live in another part of England to me, somewhere I have never permanently lived myself. In Payne's time I imagine that most people did not travel that far away and probably had brothers, sisters and friends all living locally.
With the rise of Facebook and the internet life is changing. I realise that my generation was probably the last to remember 'life without internet' or when people first got mobile phones. Not only do people live and move with regularity but our technology for communication and relationship building can often be superficial with out mobile culture. Now you can get the latest Apple phone which you can not only tell it to ring someone but tell it to write the text message for you! Heaven forbid you would want to talk to that person, besides you are far to busy. So let the phone do it! Also if I might suggest, we are breeding a generation of 'restless' people. I sense in me a restlessness I could not explain until recently. Is this restlessness a product of being in this mobile and transitional culture?
In J Wilson-Hartgrow's book he addresses the issues of the mobile culture and sees wisdom in rooting ourselves in a community for a long period of time. He looks at the issues of boredom, achievement and idolatry as being consequences (or causes of) this mobile culture. Perhaps a bit harsh? I'm not sure but I certainly think boredom and achievement can be part of the 'restlessness.' The media and every advertisement around us all encourage us to earn good money, get a brilliant career and look fabulous. This is not just part of the secular world. I've met too many people in churches whose ambitions only circulate around work. Once they have got to the top of the ladder and have a nice big house then they will be happy. God doesn't condone or encourage laziness (Ecclesiastes 9:10) and stewardship is a good thing. But it is worth asking, 'what will I have to show when my work and my house turns to dust' (Matthew 6:20) - heaven is not a place where we will be boasting about our achievements.
But moving on. Where does this restlessness come from? I think the root of the restlessness is thinking 'there is something better around the corner.' Even as I'm at Bible College I find myself trying not to think 'what is round the corner, will I meet someone? What will I do next year?' Part of this restlessness, as has been said, may be rooted in the false ideologies of achievement and success. But another thing I've observed in Christendom and the secular world is this attitude that 'life is all a party.' Don't get me wrong I think that we should have fun. I love spontaneity. I have a motorbike which I love to ride around and one could say I’m risking my life unnecessarily. Its good to have fun but I don't want to waste this life on triviality. I think people grow up a lot later these days. Life is a party, they have fewer responsibilities. Every now and again, its good for us to stop and think, 'where am I headed?' However neither do I want to always thinking about what is ahead and working out my selfish ideals and not enjoying the present. The pace of this life and mobile culture is that very few have the time for 'now.' God is in the now. Building relationships is in the now.
In his quote above, Wilson-Hartgrove suggests that stability is good for our spirituality. He suggests that because we move from place to place we are not so easily able to impact the world around us, the community in which we live. What community?! I mean the neighbour next door, the person along the street. The beggar sitting on the roadside. If our world is so wrapped up in work, house, mortgage, our small world and successes, how can we carrying out Jesus' presence into the world and live in the 'now’? It is worth noting in Jesus life that he lived in a very small and closely difined area yet his ministry impacted the whole world. When we love the person in front of us it should have a ripple effect.
When I lived back down south (I have recently moved) I continually felt that the pressures of work and church involvement prevented me having time for my neighbours (yes even church, ironic!). It was lovely though when i went home recently to go visit one of my neighbours and have her throw her arms around me tearily. I often felt I didn't see her enough but for her to be so warm with me showed me the value of building friendship with our neighbours. But I was also saddened to think that really she was the only neighbour I had had time to really get to know. There are lots of lonely people out there but do we have the time to engage with them?
And so I think my attitudes are changing. I'm realising the importance of stability. Even as a single person without family responsibilities, there is wisdom in stability. Not all may be called to stay in one place but perhaps we all need to consider it. Perhaps our relationships and families would be less broken if more Christians learnt to live this way. Wilson-Hargrove makes another quote, "Stability is a commitment to trust God not in an ideal world, but in the battered and bruised world we know." Part of the problem with achievement and success is this sense 'we have to make everything better.' But we know the world is battered and bruised, are we going to ignore it or engage with it?
So when I went back to my home town two weeks ago (that is the place I have lived the most in my life - though no biological family there now!) I realised that I'd been homesick for the place. Not the buildings, the people. I had lots of family there made up of my friends, particularly those in my church and previous workplaces. I felt like God say to me, 'would you come back here if I asked you too?' I thought to myself, 'God I was always supposed to go away to Bible College and never come back I was supposed to travel here and there and everywhere!' Then I thought to myself, why? Why did I feel this restless need to not go back. Why this need to move about and not be rooted? Because actually it does not help me build community and be Jesus' presence to the world if I'm permanently mobile. The funny thing is out of all the people in that town I miss the most, my dear elderly neighbour is one of them. The effects of community!
"Lord help me to enjoy where God has placed me now, to build up relationships here and to learn to enjoy your presence and be your presence to the community you have placed me in. Lord show me the community you wish me to be rooted in the future. Take away the restless side of me that is not of You. Help me to realise what things are eternal and what things are worthless in Your eyes. And thank you for the web of family and friends I have. They are so precious to me. Amen"
Some thoughts to start us off...........
'Home Sweet Home'
Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home! ........
How sweet 'tis to sit 'neath a fond father's smile,
And the caress of a mother to soothe and beguile!
Let others delight mid new pleasures to roam,
But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
To thee I'll return, overburdened with care;
The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there;
No more from that cottage again will I roam;
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
Home, home, sweet, sweet, home!
There's no place like home, oh, there's no place like home!
(Parts of Poem 'Home sweet home' by John Howard Payne, 1979-1852)
Quote
"Maybe the single most important thing we can do if we want to grow spiritually is to stay in the place we are." (From book: The Wisdom of Stability - Rooting Faith in a Mobile Culture by J Wilson Hartgrove)
........I've always had quite an adventurous spirit. Something I think I inherited from my darling mother! I love to travel and I always imagined myself having quite a nomadic lifestyle moving from place to place (maybe country to country) in my life. I love exploring. I love meeting people from different cultures and with different backgrounds. But something in me is changing. How can I explain?
Let's start with the Poem. John Payne obviously lived in a different time period to us and as I read his poem I reflected on the differences in today's world. How many people identify 'home' with 'A fond father's smile' or 'a caress of a mother.' How many people identify home as being 'sweet place' which is unchanging. In this climate, Christian family or not, there are a lot more broken homes. Furthermore if you have lived in a lot of places, you may not associate home with where your parents live (especially as an adult). My family lives all over the world - Ireland, Switzerland, Kenya, Canada and my parents live in another part of England to me, somewhere I have never permanently lived myself. In Payne's time I imagine that most people did not travel that far away and probably had brothers, sisters and friends all living locally.
With the rise of Facebook and the internet life is changing. I realise that my generation was probably the last to remember 'life without internet' or when people first got mobile phones. Not only do people live and move with regularity but our technology for communication and relationship building can often be superficial with out mobile culture. Now you can get the latest Apple phone which you can not only tell it to ring someone but tell it to write the text message for you! Heaven forbid you would want to talk to that person, besides you are far to busy. So let the phone do it! Also if I might suggest, we are breeding a generation of 'restless' people. I sense in me a restlessness I could not explain until recently. Is this restlessness a product of being in this mobile and transitional culture?
In J Wilson-Hartgrow's book he addresses the issues of the mobile culture and sees wisdom in rooting ourselves in a community for a long period of time. He looks at the issues of boredom, achievement and idolatry as being consequences (or causes of) this mobile culture. Perhaps a bit harsh? I'm not sure but I certainly think boredom and achievement can be part of the 'restlessness.' The media and every advertisement around us all encourage us to earn good money, get a brilliant career and look fabulous. This is not just part of the secular world. I've met too many people in churches whose ambitions only circulate around work. Once they have got to the top of the ladder and have a nice big house then they will be happy. God doesn't condone or encourage laziness (Ecclesiastes 9:10) and stewardship is a good thing. But it is worth asking, 'what will I have to show when my work and my house turns to dust' (Matthew 6:20) - heaven is not a place where we will be boasting about our achievements.
But moving on. Where does this restlessness come from? I think the root of the restlessness is thinking 'there is something better around the corner.' Even as I'm at Bible College I find myself trying not to think 'what is round the corner, will I meet someone? What will I do next year?' Part of this restlessness, as has been said, may be rooted in the false ideologies of achievement and success. But another thing I've observed in Christendom and the secular world is this attitude that 'life is all a party.' Don't get me wrong I think that we should have fun. I love spontaneity. I have a motorbike which I love to ride around and one could say I’m risking my life unnecessarily. Its good to have fun but I don't want to waste this life on triviality. I think people grow up a lot later these days. Life is a party, they have fewer responsibilities. Every now and again, its good for us to stop and think, 'where am I headed?' However neither do I want to always thinking about what is ahead and working out my selfish ideals and not enjoying the present. The pace of this life and mobile culture is that very few have the time for 'now.' God is in the now. Building relationships is in the now.
In his quote above, Wilson-Hartgrove suggests that stability is good for our spirituality. He suggests that because we move from place to place we are not so easily able to impact the world around us, the community in which we live. What community?! I mean the neighbour next door, the person along the street. The beggar sitting on the roadside. If our world is so wrapped up in work, house, mortgage, our small world and successes, how can we carrying out Jesus' presence into the world and live in the 'now’? It is worth noting in Jesus life that he lived in a very small and closely difined area yet his ministry impacted the whole world. When we love the person in front of us it should have a ripple effect.
When I lived back down south (I have recently moved) I continually felt that the pressures of work and church involvement prevented me having time for my neighbours (yes even church, ironic!). It was lovely though when i went home recently to go visit one of my neighbours and have her throw her arms around me tearily. I often felt I didn't see her enough but for her to be so warm with me showed me the value of building friendship with our neighbours. But I was also saddened to think that really she was the only neighbour I had had time to really get to know. There are lots of lonely people out there but do we have the time to engage with them?
And so I think my attitudes are changing. I'm realising the importance of stability. Even as a single person without family responsibilities, there is wisdom in stability. Not all may be called to stay in one place but perhaps we all need to consider it. Perhaps our relationships and families would be less broken if more Christians learnt to live this way. Wilson-Hargrove makes another quote, "Stability is a commitment to trust God not in an ideal world, but in the battered and bruised world we know." Part of the problem with achievement and success is this sense 'we have to make everything better.' But we know the world is battered and bruised, are we going to ignore it or engage with it?
So when I went back to my home town two weeks ago (that is the place I have lived the most in my life - though no biological family there now!) I realised that I'd been homesick for the place. Not the buildings, the people. I had lots of family there made up of my friends, particularly those in my church and previous workplaces. I felt like God say to me, 'would you come back here if I asked you too?' I thought to myself, 'God I was always supposed to go away to Bible College and never come back I was supposed to travel here and there and everywhere!' Then I thought to myself, why? Why did I feel this restless need to not go back. Why this need to move about and not be rooted? Because actually it does not help me build community and be Jesus' presence to the world if I'm permanently mobile. The funny thing is out of all the people in that town I miss the most, my dear elderly neighbour is one of them. The effects of community!
"Lord help me to enjoy where God has placed me now, to build up relationships here and to learn to enjoy your presence and be your presence to the community you have placed me in. Lord show me the community you wish me to be rooted in the future. Take away the restless side of me that is not of You. Help me to realise what things are eternal and what things are worthless in Your eyes. And thank you for the web of family and friends I have. They are so precious to me. Amen"
Good one. Paul and Di say that if you are going to be somewhere more than two weeks, make it home.I think there's a lot of nostalgia in my outlook, not good.
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