I once clipped a funny story from Reader’s Digest submitted by Joanne Mitchell. She wrote, “My brother adopted a snake named Slinky, whose most disagreeable trait was eating live mice. Once I was pressed into going to the pet store to buy Slinky's dinner. The worst part of this wasn't choosing the juiciest-looking creatures or turning down the clerk who wanted to sell me vitamins to ensure their longevity. The hardest part was carrying the poor things out in a box bearing the words ‘Thank you for giving me a home.’”
That's
a little hard to take. Dinner with Slinky cannot be a mouse’s idea of going
home.
Another
woman tells of a time when she was at home with her children and the telephone
rang. In going to answer it, she tripped on a rug, reached out for something to
hold on to and grabbed the telephone table. It crashed to the floor and jarred
the receiver from the cradle. The table fell on top of the family dog, which
leaped up barking and howling. The mother’s three-year-old son, startled by
this noise, broke into loud screams. The woman mumbled some colorful words and
finally managed to pick up the receiver and lift it to her ear. Before she
could answer, she heard her husband's voice over the phone say, “Nobody's said
hello yet, but I'm positive I have the right number.”
Now
that sounds all-too-typical – from peace to pandemonium in about two seconds.
Any of us who have raised children or even any of us who WERE children probably
get it.
Families
today come in all different shapes and sizes. And when peace turns into
pandemonium, one may long to get away from it all, at least for a while. But
the fact is, we each are born into families and we seem to have an irresistible
urge to start new ones. At a deep level I believe we know that the family is
just about the most important and probably the most enduring institution ever
created. Regardless of what a family looks like, whether or not children are
present, home is a place where our souls can finally connect with the soul of
another; a place where we can, and should, feel safe, cared for and even
special.
In
1688 Johannes Hofer, a Swiss medical student, coined a word to describe an
illness whose symptoms include insomnia, anorexia, palpitations, stupor, and,
above all, a persistent thinking of home. The word he coined was “nostalgia.”
There is a yearning within the human heart to return to that place where we
were secure, loved and made to feel important.
Songwriter
Paul Simon picks up the feeling when he sings that “every stranger’s face I see
reminds me that I long to be homeward bound…”
If
we can’t be homeward bound, can we make “home” out of where we are? Home may be
as much a state of being as a place. We talk about feeling at home when we feel
at peace or when we feel comforted. “I am at home in this place,” we might say.
It’s a state of well-being and solace.
If
home is as much about attitude as it is about latitude, then we never need feel
too far from home. That’s good to know, especially during those times when we
find our thoughts homeward bound. Can you make the place you are a space of
peace? Can you find comfort in your surroundings and warmth in the company of
friends? If so, even if you’re not at the place you live, you will be at home.-- Steve Goodier
