i would also add that home has something to do with a sense of optimism as well. young children growing up in loving homes where they feel safe and where they feel like they belong, those young children inevitably feel hopeful about the future. life is going to get better.
there's going to be more freedom ahead, more fun in the future, lots more opportunities. what i didn't get for CHRISTmas this year, i might get next year. there's another CHRISTmas always around the corner when you're young.
optimism and hope run high in a warm, well-functioning home. so a sense of belonging and a sense of safety and a sense of optimism capture a good chunk of what it really means to be home.
but what does living in the real world do to our understanding of home over time?
when young people grow up and they leave the cocoon of home and they begin to find their own way in the real world, what happens? sooner or later, they're forced to redefine what a sense of belonging is all about, because as the years go by, relationships change – even the ones you thought were permanent.
the unthinkable happens. parents split up. you weren't banking on that. marriages break up. that wasn't the plan either. loved ones leave or die. and somewhere along life's journey, that strong sense of belonging begins to weaken and crumble, and eventually an honest person wonders if any earthly relationship is going to be capable of offering a permanent sense of belonging.
can i bring it down to the personal level? some of you thought that this CHRISTmas was just going to be just like the last five or ten CHRISTmases, but it didn't turn out that way, did it? for some, there's a husband missing this CHRISTmas; there's a mother who isn't around this year. there may be the piercing pain of a recent death.
this CHRISTmas some of us are going to think a lot about how tenuous relationships really are, how thin a thread a sense of belonging hangs on – how thin the thread is.
you'll also find that the real world does a number on that sense of safety that a true home afforded in our youth.
the real world, if you live in it long, the real world rips the word “safety” right out of our modern-day dictionaries. the homes of our youth may have given us a sense of safety, but it was short lived and it, too, we learn, hangs by a thin thread.
and as for optimism, a guy said, “show me grounds for optimism, any grounds. show me any grounds for believing that by next CHRIStmas we will have a great economy. i wonder if there will be fewer homeless people, less crime and drug use, and more love between people. come on” this guy said, “only ignorant people are optimists. smart people know that the future is bleak.” maybe you're one of those smart pessimists.
friends, the real world has a way of shattering our concept of home. it shatters it. if you live in it long enough, you see those thin threads snap, and our whole concept of home is shattered. i have a sneaking suspicion that part of the pull toward home that many of us feel at CHRISTmas time is really a yearning for that sense of belonging and safety and optimism that we once enjoyed in the homes of our youth. CHRISTmas seems to trigger memories of our childhood for some reason.
just a thought from the front porch…
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