HOME

by Will Walker

“Home is where the heart is,” they say. And in this case, I think “they” may be right. If we are aliens, wanderers in a foreign land, born again into a kingdom-of-heaven-citizenship, in the world but not of it, then home and heart are inseparable.

Home is a concept more than it is a locale, though the imagery and meaning of home is profoundly shaped and reinforced by the physicality of place. The idea of home, to me, has to do with security, sincerity, and realm.

Security is the feeling of being safe; the assurance that something of value will not be taken away; protection against attack from without or subversion within. Home at its best is refuge, the immaterial conversion of living rooms and bedrooms to sanctuaries. You can rest at home.

By sincerity, I simply mean that you are never more genuinely you than when you’re at home. If I suddenly begin singing random songs (and making up lyrics about how awesome I am) at work or in the grocery store, that would be considered abnormal. But at home this kind of behavior is the definition of normal. I do and say all kinds of things within the confines of my three-sides-brick that the rest of the world does not see (and does not want to). Home at its best is when people are more honest and authentically themselves.

Home is also a realm of authority and interest. The address that I return to every day is, more than any other place, where I truly have dominion. In Texas I can even shoot someone if they encroach on the small plot of land that is mine. I care far more about what happens to and in my house than I do about any other house, even the white one. So I work hard to protect and improve it, especially the people living in it. Home is a realm, my range of dominion, for good or bad.

If “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” then you might say that home is what you treasure. Someone born into the kingdom would not say that they treasure money or power or an actual house, or even things like clothes and food. They wouldn’t say it on a multiple-choice test, anyway. But what are we to make of the fact that these things are so related to our experience of home? What does the kingdom of God have to do with security, sincerity, and realm?

The challenge for me is to hold on to the concept of home without clinging to the concrete of locale. That is, I think our desires for security, sincerity, and realm are God-given, but that we are prone to satisfy them by our own means, or at least try to.

Safety in the kingdom has everything to do with home, but precisely in the sense that where we go at the end of the day is in fact not our home. The safety we feel in our living rooms is only a symbol of the safety we actually have in God’s care. The house can be destroyed, as can the lives in the house, but with God even death is not a threat. The world becomes our sanctuary as we seek refuge in the enveloping reality of God’s presence among us.

Similarly, the sense we get at home of being able to let our guard down is merely a taste of the kind of freedom we have in the kingdom to be who we are, especially as we are increasingly becoming who God made us to be. And our realm in the kingdom, rather than being confined to the perimeter of front and back yard, is extended wherever we go insofar as we are able to subject our wills to the will of the Father. For we are in Christ, whom God “raised from the dead and seated at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but in the age to come.”

I’m not saying to sell everything you have and leave everyone you know. I’m just saying that to treasure or hope in either of these as the substance of our security, sincerity, and realm is to give our hearts to them. Maybe this is why James compares friendship with the world to adultery.

Comments

[Patrick]

Good stuff Will. I am not sure I understand it all, i only hope to be half as smart as you someday. But I really like that second to last paragraph, where you talk about how we are free in the kingdom of God to be who we truly are. I cannot wait until that day where I am truly free of my body and everything of this world. That day where I will be truly free to worship Him in Heaven. And I am excited that He is continually making me free to do that more and more while I am here. Good thoughts, good thoughts.

[madeline]

these are good thoughts indeed.

for me, there is something of being known, and being known intimately, in the concept of home. i see glimpses of it whenever i talk with a good friend who is well-acquainted with and understands my heart. perhaps it is a part of the safety you're refering to, this sense that my heart can be at rest and breathe deeply.

and i i find the reverse to also be true, that at home i desire to know intimately and to learn and explore. and so i LONG for the day when i will know fully even as i have been fully known.

good grief, will, i'm sorry to say that it's been too long since i've read the blog; glad to see what you guys have been up too!