Thursday 27 May 2010

Home

home (hm)
n.
1. A place where one lives; a residence.
2. The physical structure within which one lives, such as a house or apartment.
3. A dwelling place together with the family or social unit that occupies it; a household.
4.
a. An environment offering security and happiness.
b. A valued place regarded as a refuge or place of origin.
5. The place, such as a country or town, where one was born or has lived for a long period.
6. The native habitat, as of a plant or animal.
7. The place where something is discovered, founded, developed, or promoted; a source.
8. A headquarters; a home base.

I've been wrestling with the concept of home lately. In the past couple of weeks I've needed to fill in official forms which ask the standard and, usually, simple question of 'Address'. Usually this isn't a problem. If I've bought something and want it delivered I have it sent to the college, where I live... but is it home?

My bank statements and voting papers and other official bits and bobs get sent to my parents' house... but is that home? It was for a number of very happy years, and in a sense it still is but it also isn't anymore.

I've lived in Geneva and in a tent in a campsite in France, neither of which were ever really 'home'. I don't feel 'at home' in the city where I was born, I don't feel I fit anymore in the towns I grew up in. All this has left me wondering where is my home.

I'm rapidly entering a period in my life where some huge changes are going to take place. In September, Kat and I are getting married. And this throws another huge aspect of home into my equation. We get the opportunity to create a new home, our home. We're not sure where that will be but, actually, it doesn't matter too much because 'home' will be where we both are. 'Home' is not necesarily a place.

C.S. Lewis wrote "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." Ultimately, I am a citizen of Heaven. I'm an alien in a foreign land and perhaps my quest for home will never be fully realised until the day God brings heaven to earth.

In the mean time my 'homelessness' continues... here's a video of me singing 'Home' by Michael Bublé.



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