“Something about your voice. Something about your eyes. I don’t feel so lost. I don’t have to hide.” (from the song “Eternity” by Lizz Wright). At a point of real turmoil in life, I’ve been struggling with redefining and recreating “home”. Somehow Lizz has hit upon something that resonates with me about “home”.
Maybe it is not so much something one seeks as something one gives.
Maybe it is not “place” as much as “space” that is intentionally created where it is needed… at just the right time and in just the right way creating acceptance, understanding, significance, and love unconditioned with expectations, obligations, and demands.
I know I’m a stranger in a strange land (it doesn’t get much stranger than earth, than humankind).
I know NOTHING is permanent.
So maybe that “home” of my childhood that seemed so permanent can no longer be a “place”. Maybe the “home” of my life now must become the “space” I create around me wherever I am, wherever I go, whenever I’m around people that need a “space” of acceptance, understanding, and signification.
A space where those that feel invisible will be seen.
A space where those that feel unheard will find a voice.
A space where those that feel insignificant will find significance.
A space where those that feel misunderstood will find understanding.
A space where those that feel unacceptable will find acceptance.
- Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
- where there is hatred, let me sow love;
- where there is injury, pardon;
- where there is doubt, faith;
- where there is despair, hope;
- where there is darkness, light;
- and where there is sadness, joy.
- O Divine Master,
- grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
- to be understood, as to understand;
- to be loved, as to love;
- for it is in giving that we receive,
- it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
- and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
- St. Francis of Assissi
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- We are all longing to go home
to some place we have never been
— a place, half-remembered, and half-envisioned
we can only catch glimpses of
from time to time.
Community.Somewhere,
there are people to whom we can speak
without having the words catch in our throats.Somewhere
a circle of hands will open to receive us,
eyes will light up as we enter,
voices will celebrate with us
whenever we come into our own power.Community means
strength that joins our strength
to do the work that needs to be done.
Arms to hold us when we falter.
A circle of healing.
A circle of friends.Someplace where
we can be free.- Starhawk
Ron Irvine
January 1, 2010
When I was doing a life planning process called a MAP, I was asked to tell three stories of significance to me in my life; two from the distant past, and one from the more recent past. The one that bubbled up from deep within first was that during my whole childhood, everyday I came home to a hug from mom. Everyday! This laid a foundation for my whole life. All my adult life I have been trying to recreate this sense of home, of belonging, of unconditional love. But my attempts have ended up broken in pieces. With bloodied hands, I pick up the pieces of my broken heart and try to piece them together knowing that they will never go together in the same way that they were as a child. That was a very different world then. This is now, and somehow I feel driven to find “home” in this new context of a broken heart in a broken family in a broken world. This writing is a step in that direction.
Ron Irvine
July 14, 2010
So after 8 months of trying to live this new concept of “home”, I believe it more than ever. But sometimes it seems that the more I believe it, the more elusive it becomes. Why is “community” . . . “home” such an indelible image in my heart??? Why do I feel that “place” IS important? Why can’t I, in my idealistic thinking, just create a “space” I call home wherever I go. Maybe because I”m still an earth-bound creature that needs “place”. Maybe I need a “place” called home in order to be strong enough to recreate this “space” called home wherever I go.
This feeling of homelessness eats away at me daily. I have within a sort of eternal sense of home, “half-remembered and half envisioned”. It is not that I am such a visionary that I can envision an eternal home. It is also that I have experienced it deep within . . . somewhere . . . somehow. I have this sense of having eternal soul mates and an eternal family that I know and long to return to. It is so strong that I need to recreate it here on earth, just to survive.
Is this so unreasonable to long for . . . to pray daily for Starthawk’s words?
Somewhere,
there are people to whom we can speak
without having the words catch in our throats.
Somewhere
a circle of hands will open to receive us,
eyes will light up as we enter,
voices will celebrate with us
whenever we come into our own power.
Community means
strength that joins our strength
to do the work that needs to be done.
Arms to hold us when we falter.
A circle of healing.
A circle of friends.
Or am I just crazy???