On Coming Home...

The process of coming home can be disorienting.  Pleasant, totally worthwhile, and yet...there is always that step partway home where I start to wonder if I truly belong anywhere.

Like in Houston, for example.  I stopped to sit for a while on a bench in a corridor, and as I sat there, I noticed in the crowds moving in front of me, Spanish speakers walking down the path to my right, English speakers moving to my left.  And for a second I felt like I was sitting right smack dab in the middle on a bright yellow painted line.

I was reminded of the scene from Castaway where Tom Hanks, after being stranded on the island, begins his journey home.  Freshly bathed, clean-shaven, sitting on the airplane he looked completely lost.  Out of place.  Alone.

I was reminded again of the dolphin going back and forth between the sea and the air.  Seamlessly, really.  Down for a while, up for a breath of air.  Down for a while, up for a breath of air...

And I thought to myself, maybe it is possible to live a life made in between.  Life passing between the foam at the surface, splashing back and forth among the waves.

And perhaps part of that involves living life more open handed.  Not clinging or forcing things to fit within a single mold.  Taking what is there for the moment and, when that moment is past, letting go...

Like balancing a bubble in your hand--you can admire the rainbow swirls, get lost in its fragility and beauty, but it must be done with the understanding that the bubble will, at some point, pop.  That's not to say its popping is so terrible...it is simply the nature of things.  One single bubble is not meant to last forever.  And if I learn to value it as it is, without expecting it to be more long-lasting than its nature has ensured that it would be, then I can accept it happily and, when it is gone, simply revel in what it was to me--without getting lost in the regret that it had not managed to become something more.

Going away from home and coming back again makes me aware again of all life's changes.  Of life's unpredictability.  That we are all changing.

Home needs to be transitory, in light of all of this.  I am incredibly thankful I have this home to come back to...my family, friends...but it is hard to cling when life is changing.   I am noticing a shift in my heart attitude toward all of this.  Maybe it is possible to belong to two places at once.  Maybe with the ephemeral nature of life means we make home wherever it comes.  That home is with people, wherever we happen to be...

Maybe home can have a more transitory nature. 

After all, if we interviewed a dolphin, I'm not sure he would be able to choose one place over another as his "real" home.  If he did, he would be conflicted, always clinging and striving for something more.  Every time he reaches for air, he would be resisting...or every time he fell back into the water, he would be discouraged.

I don't think a dolphin lives life so conflicted.  I think they simply accept their fate and take what life is offering them--an opportunity to carve a place and live in both.  To let both places take up equal space in them...equal belonging.  Why spend the time working out which place is "truly" home?

Life is unsettled, unpredictable, and changing...to cling to one aspect, to ask something transitory to be something long-lasting...

It doesn't work, will always result  in failure,

It's asking something to move against its very nature.

So maybe I'll take a deep breath and prepare myself to glide more fluidly in between...

Taking what arises as it arises in each place...

Not complaining or bemoaning,

Simply trusting that what is there will be again.

A transitory blessing.

To be enjoyed now, not hoarded to try to save for later.

To trust that now, wherever it goes will lead to more blessing--that this isn't the last of God's resources.  He isn't shaking the last from the cereal box in order to find enough to pass on to me. 

There is more where this came from, and in light of that, there is no need to cling.

I can let it go and appreciate both worlds.  I can be thankful for what is happening and learn to let it be.

And maybe somewhere in all of that, I'll find the secret to true serenity...

In Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand...

To have eyes to see what is long-lasting, and the proper response to all that is transitory.

To sit on a rock and let all the rest, both good and bad, swirl around in a colorful spiral--there for the enjoying, the enduring--there, but for the moment...