Home is where the heart is. Aside from the bad grammar in that statement, it is really quite profound. What do you think of when you think of home? In Michigan, I lived in a house with six other guys, but not a home. I share a house with five other men in California, but no a home. Whenever we picture "home," we are reminded of the smell of Dad's old suit or Mom's perfume as she got ready to go somewhere. We remember a bed surrounded by posters and the places in the yard where we liked to play. Home is where the heart is.
We inevitably leave the home of our upbringing for another home. Until we find this mythical "other home," we are in a very real sense homeless. We keep our hearts in a small bandana tied to a stick to await the time when the bandana may be untied. Perhaps that is why college and the period right after so often cause an existential crisis--the homeless feeling cannot be assuaged. With a nature that cries for autonomy and in a society that demands personal responsibility, this feeling becomes exacerbated. How can we live in a world that doesn't offer us a home? Can brave and enduring battles be won abroad without a home where we can rest and regain our fervor?
There is a temporal remedy for this homelessness in found within the auspices of marriage. The bandanas finally are untied and the valuable content within is put on display. This is where the existential crisis of the collegiate years finds its resolution. Moving from location to another location does not affect this status, as even a tent shared with the spouse is made a home. The howling winds of the worldly wilderness may whip through a large, but lonely house; they will not whistle within the embrace of those joined in marriage.
Yet, even marriage is but a tent for the home-seeking human being in this world. The tent is a mansion for those who do not know the Lord, for within its confines they find their greatest home. For Christians, this tent is a lookout post--there they find refreshment; there they search the horizon for the coming home; there they offer the water of life to weary travelers; there they know that they abide in a grace afforded for the home-bound until that Day comes.
Hebrews 11:8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
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3 comments:
Well said, Sir, well said.
I know that C.S. Lewis says something about this in his "The Four Loves." As long as marriage remains merely romantic love, when the two look only at each other, the union is destined for eventual destruction. Once they both turn together to focus on the same thing, the love of friendship, then they have something to hold them together for a long time (depending on the goodness of this other thing).
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