Home

We all have that special place that calls to us, and often the holidays create an even greater longing in our hearts to be home.  I think of soldiers and missionaries who won’t be able to come home this holiday season, and I am reminded of the times in the past when my own brother didn’t come home during the holidays because of his military service.   It is such a lonely feeling to long for home and not be able to answer that longing.

I have learned through the years that a house and a home distinctly differ.  Home is not the house or any house where I have lived, but it is the place that pulls my spirit like a tether and draws it in like an ocean tide.  I cannot deny this force or gravitational tug.  I embrace it, and I travel home as often as I can when the homesick feeling begins to overwhelm me.

Home is the place of my ancestors, a family farm that rests on a hill in southern Kentucky.  My home is a place of beauty and wonder with thickly forested areas filled with streams, caves, animal surprises, and a dilapidated farmhouse where my great, great grandparents lived.  Home calls to my heart and recharges my spirit when it feels heavy and burdened.

The age old adage “home is where the heart is” does hold some truth.  However, home actually resides in the heart.  When we can’t be there, we can just close our eyes and pull those memories and feelings from deep within our dwelling place.  For those readers who can’t be home for the holidays, may you find some peace by scooping those warm thoughts of home from the river of memories that flows within your heart.

“Home”

I want to travel back to the birthplace of my soul

And bask on the hill in the sun.

 

I feel the earthly pull of my body,

A tether gently tugging

Toward this place that is home.

But more than just home,

This is the place that magnetizes my spirit.

I hear it call for me,

Whispering my name,

Telling me:  “Come home.”

Home.

Home.

Home.

 

I want to cross the river and go there,

Lie in the dirt and breathe the place

While I taste it,

Will it inside every fiber of my body.

I want to become that place;

I want it to become me.

 

I want to lie in the grass,

Rolling in it and absorbing it through my pores.

I want to suck it in like the kiss of a greedy lover

As it pulses energy back into my spirit.

 

I want to gently glide over the hills

Like a ghostly presence

From a time in the distant past

Around the place that is my home.

 

I want to weave in and out of the trees and rocks,

Running my fingers across each one,

A burst of textures and colors on my fingertips.

Each color feels different.

Each color shares a secret.

I am listening.  I am listening.

 

Red tail—when will you visit?

When your cry slices through the hillside,

I will answer you on that Silent Channel.

I am waiting.

I am waiting.

 

Home.

I want to scoop it up in my hands

And caress it; hold it to my breasts

And give it life.

Let it give life back to me.

 

I want to stand on the back porch

And shatter into a thousand bright lights,

Scattering with the wind

As it gently pushes me through the trees and rocks.

I know each one by names I’ve never spoken,

But felt in my essence.

 

I want to pull back the screen door

And hear the gentle creak and clap of wood on wood

As it seals life behind me,

While I feel the spirits of my people

Welcome me home.

 

Jaime McMillan © Copyright 2014 All Rights Reserved

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Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

2 Corinthians 5:1 “For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.”