In all the world there is no better feeling than coming home. There is no stronger word to capture the emotions: home for Christmas, home for the holidays, home-word bound.
Remember the fondest home-comings! One Christmas Eve my brother came home in the late afternoon, to fill our hearts that were worried he would be unable to join us.
My granddaughter comes running through security at the airport. "I'm going to give them such a big hug," she had said. Three hours of delicious visiting as we drive home through the night.
Poets and song writers have expressed it so aptly:
Home is the sailor, home from sea.
And the hunter home from the hill.
("Requiem" Robert Louis Stevenson)
In Homer's epic tale The odyssey Ulysses spends ten years trying to return home to his wife and son and his beloved homeland Ithaca. There is nothing sweeter in all the world than coming home.
As pilgrims from another world we are all journeying towards our eternal home. One hymn puts it best:
Going home, going home
I'm just going home
It's not far, just close by
Through an open door.
At the end of a long life we expect the sweet reward of home:
Momma's there expecting me
Papa's waiting, too
Lots of folk gathered there
All the friends I knew.
To that place where there are no tears, no pain:
Nothing's lost, all's gain
No more fret nor pain
Wide awake with a smile
Going on and on.
The thoughts for this reflection struck me when I looked at the farm house where my siblings and I grew up with Mom and Dad. The house is empty now. No longer do we gather there as family and know home. Like pilgrims seeking another home we make the emotional adjustments.
My grandfather's house no longer stands on the prairie. But it is more than dust in the wind. All who once lived there have gone home "through that open door". And there is much to celebrate! In time all our siblings and we will join the generations that have gone before us.
Love is the constant! When we depart this realm we take love with us. To people of faith there is much to celebrate. Life begins on this earth, but it does not end here:
Momma's there expecting me
Papa's waiting, too
Lots of folk gathered there.
When our work is all done, our cares laid by, like it says in "Going Home", we will have no more fears. "Our real life begun", we will be "wide awake with a smile". There is much to be thankful for.
