Home-ily

We're currently remodeling our house. Repainting, relandscaping, rethis and rethat. So the house looks a bit different. Having spent some eighteen years of my life in this house, it is a strange feeling. Even so, no matter how many changes we might make, so long as my family is here this will be a place I call home. Yet if my family all moved, but the house stayed the same, it would still be a house, but would not be home. So what makes home, home?

First, in no particular order, what sprang to mind concerning home:

- Home Sweet Home

- Home is where the heart is

- You're Like Coming Home (Lonestar)

- "Let's go home, Sam."  (Frodo to Samwise Gamgee in LOTR, after delivering the ring to the elves)

- Irvine, Oxford, and Westmont

- Family and friends

- Narnia

- Heaven

What really...um...struck home....is the universality of the recognition of Home, across and within cultures and societies. Home is so inherent, and runs so deep and strong, it cannot be ignored. Corrupted or attacked, yes; ignored, no. Is it so essential that every major world "religion" is forced to somehow incorporate the concept of home. But that's not right. Ironic, even. Truth simply cannot be shut down.

The natural question, then, is where does this come from? Why do we have this?

Consider this excerpt from Lewis' The Last Battle. It comes after the destruction of the old Narnia and at the edge of entering into the New Narnia and Aslan's Country.

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right forehoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried:

"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!"

We live in an "already/ not yet" kingdom; a kingdom not fully revealed. The clearest glimpses of the kingdom, whether in Lewis' writings or a person or Communion, are the clearest glimpses we have of Home. Home is where we belong. Home is a matter of identity, and fidelity. It's where we were made to be. Everything I have ever known of Home points to this: we are at home when in right relationship with the King and the Kingdom.