The year before meeting my Becky, Billy Joel’s song “You’re My Home,” grabbed my attention. In particular, there was one line that has since been an integral advocate for steadiness as Becky and I have traversed the years; “Wherever we’re together/That’s my home.”
I have literally lost count of the number of times she and I have moved in our years together. This year, just as we were completing the first year in this location, an unanticipated, necessary change was brought into existence, asking us to yet again begin plans for moving. The sad reality may be that this change was not completely a surprise; but you know what is said about hindsight. Foreseen or unforeseen, it is what it is. And here we are, in the thick of ropes and riggin’, a rodeo not new to us.
At such times, it is far too easy to stubbornly continue to view with the lenses we’ve become comfortable looking through, even though they’ve been shattered by trauma, sadness, and/or disappointment. Sudden change, with its on and off, unpredictable companion of despair, can bring one hard to ground, flooding a mind with troubling assessments and doubtful questions. In such times of suffering, rushing to answer questions normal to life and living can actually disfigure original intent into the doubt and assessment that threaten to kill one’s very soul.
Questions can be like a dear friend, if we allow them to travel with us, not needing to rush to answers. And the questions to which I refer, the ones which will serve us better by holding them for a while, do not come from outside influence. Rather, these life-giving questions come from one’s very soul.
Turning
In my younger years I played a misguided game with religion. Mostly, with hindsight focused at 20/20, I was in a solo contest of approval, attempting to be good enough. I wish such a game of superfluous merit on no one. Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. I’m not anti-religion. I am against any form of so called faith misdirected for selfish human control over another. Religion is made false when merit becomes the purpose versus love. As Richard Rohr espouses, to be true, religion will always guide us from, and point us to, love.
Love is reality.
In young adulthood, I was accepted into, and came close to attending, seminary. I was 25 years old, we had been married a bit over three years, and our daughter was 6 months old. I had just completed a successful year as a life insurance agent, achieving the Rookie-of-the-Year award, and other accolades in the territory of which I was a part. It was also the year my parents divorced after 30 years of marriage.
As if all that was not enough for my young family, I believed I was being “called” into the ministry. After being accepted by a theological seminary, we sold our first house, I quit my selling job, we packed up, gathered our baby daughter, and headed toward the seminary. In the process of all this, I had a disturbing realization it was not the right time for this decision. We made it as far as my hometown, about three hours northeast of the seminary destination. I became confused to the point of despair. We rented a place and decided to stay for a time so I could supposedly figure out the confusion.
I can still feel the pain of my bewilderment all these years later. More than anything at the time, it seems I had become caught up in the reaction of others to my original (and undeveloped) thoughts of ministry. It felt good to have others be so “proud” of me. Their communication of pride, and my vain connection to what was being said, served ego more than authenticity. When I realized the truth, the agony was great.
Albeit painful, how grateful I am that I was forced along another path. As the path unfolded, I learned things in the corporate experience that became invaluable to me, to my family, and to the leaders I’ve worked with over the last seventeen years. Since consciously launching into a work that chose me, I’ve often looked back on that time. From what I now see, I continue to be grateful we didn’t make it to the seminary campus. For you see, I believe I would not have been where this work could find me had I followed through on that decision.
The ensuing years, with a treasure of experience, prepared me for now, the release into the flow of who I am in what it is I really do; what life and living was preparing me to do all along. The true diversity found in the true self of individuals has taught me things of truth that would not have been available in seminary course work, at least not in the days I would’ve attended. Since that time I’ve been on a journey deep within seeking truth in what I’ve come to know as Trueness.
Trueness is reality.
Trueness is a living paradox
of divinity and humanity,
and a creative tension
of simplicity and complexity.
Returning
Just prior to this year’s change, imploring us to open to one more transition, I’d begun to explore beyond meditation into centering prayer. As part of centering prayer’s methodology, one is taught to leverage a word; a point upon which to return when thoughts demand all the space one is attempting to open with this time of quiet. I chose Love.
When emotions had us in a spiral, I found it extremely difficult to get my spirit into the place where the word love would bring me back from the thinking. I didn’t know what to do. Along with this, the few minutes of time in the morning were not enough. I took a lot of walks in the neighborhood, and hikes along trails in our park system, as I fought back the questions formed in the boiler of disappointment and anger that this was happening.
On one of the walks, while in a particularly downhearted funk, I found myself conscious of the fact I was not breathing normally, and in some moments not at all. I intentionally corrected that by breathing as deeply as I physically could, and suddenly found a different word actually speaking to me; Home.
This transition has our move plans directing a relocation back to the state where we first met and began our life together. On the walk that day, I instantly assumed this different word was because of the talk of going “back home.” Within a few steps I knew something much deeper and greater was being spoken. Home was calling from somewhere deep inside me. Since that walk, as I sit down for centering prayer, my word home settles the mind and opens a space for love. After much openness to both home and love, as words for centering, I’ve begun to feel their confluence; that they are actually one in the same.
In the years since attaching myself to Billy Joel’s lyrical line, home became much less a place and more a territory (inner and outer) worth exploring. Becky and I have explored together within our geographical locations over the years; she is wonderful at researching our locations and planning our outings. Now, in light of current transition, I would say it is important to continue many things as we’ve always done them, and it is of great significance to consciously consider what home now means to us.
Within reason, I’m not sure if I care where we live: As long as I have my Becky, “Wherever we’re together/That’s my home.”
Notes:
Joel, Billy. You’re My Home. Album: Piano Man, 1973.
Rohr, Richard. Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
I’m a great fan of David Whyte. I love this brief video about Home:
Whyte, David. Poet, Author, and Speaker. davidwhyte.com– Langley, WA 98260: Copyright © 2018
Bourgeault, Cynthia. The Heart of Centering Prayer: Nondual Christianity in Theory and Practice. Boulder: Shambhala Publications, 2016.
