I cannot explain to you strongly enough HOW DARN EXCITED I am to be going home. I haven't seen my house since August. I have never been away from home so long in my life. When I went to UW-Madison I went home once a month since it was only an hour and half away... but the 7 hour drive is a little more taxing to make now that I go to MLC. I mean, it's doable. But women's soccer kept me stuck here over fall break and I just haven't made it back.
By the time I finally go home next week I'll have been away for 95 days. Since May, I've only been at home for 5 days over midsummer break+12 hours between August 19th-20th that was turnaround time between camp and college. So really, it feels like I have been away a lot longer. I have spent the last three summer at Camp Phillip, but even then I got to go home/see important people fairly regularly. This is the most anticipated home-coming for me personally of my whole life. I. CANNOT. Wait.
I just feel that when I came to MLC, everything else that I left behind in Milwaukee, Wautoma, and Madison all just stopped and would be the same, waiting for me when I return. Like everyone just froze or they're on a laptop's "sleep" mode. It's a similar feeling to how you used to feel when you were playing Barbies as a child (or last month... what? Did I say that?) You could leave Barbie and Ken in the red convertible and a week later they would still be sitting there grinningly waiting for you, lost in plastic rapture. People in my life aren't like Barbie and Ken though. They're mobile. They morph and feel and change just as frequently as I personally do. In 95-plus days a lot of the people I care the most about might have morphed in ways I wasn't around to witness - which is both an exciting, frightening, foreign feeling. Going home will certainly be interesting!
What really constitutes "home" during your college years?
"Home" used to be that place you lived as a child. The place with mom and dad, with your own backyard and your own room. It was your base. Your sanctuary. It (for the most part) didn't move. It was a recharge point, refuge, rock. As high school demands crept into your life, it became more and more of a checkpoint since you were always out and about. And once graduation hit, you hit the road and your "home" hit the fan. At least, for me it did. Now that I'm in college, I live at my childhood house for 3-4 weeks over Christmas, a weekend here and there, 2-3 weeks in May, and Thanksgiving break. That's it. I don't even go home for spring break or summer. About every 3 months I have to pack my whole life into gray tote boxes and shuffle my life down dorm halls, cram it into backseats trunks of tiny college junker cars, and move. It's worse in summer - I can only set up camp for a week and then I'm on the move again! In the beginning it was novel and exciting, but 3 years into it (wow - three years of college already?!) the luster's wearing thin. Part of me is just longing for the day I have a place where I can set up shop permanently. All I want is to be able to not have to wear flip flops in the shower and to have the ability leave my toothbrush by the sink. Is that kind of permanence too much to ask for?
What is home? Is it still your childhood house? Does it only take two-by-fours and mortar to make a house a home?
Is home just the place you lay your head at night - so home can be found anywhere, from a hotel in Argentina to hut in Moscow?
Is your office your home? Or work? That little cubicle or desk, is that the place you truly feel accepted and at ease? When you're flipping burgers, is that home for you?
Do you find "home" in your hobbies, sports, music, books, or TV?
Is "home" only found once, in one place, at one time? Or can you have many homes in a lifetime?
Is "home" now your group of friends? Is home found among your newly acquired family all living on your college dorm floor together? Is mutuality and college camaraderie enough to breed kinship?
Or is home found in your vices?
Money?
Stability?
Humor?
Or is "home" found in love?
Suddenly being thrust into a nomadic culture of semester-long leases and summer internships means many college students feel like they're reeling. All of sudden their permanence, their stability just got ripped out from underneath their feet; they're thrust into a sea of novelty and change. They have the chance for the first time in their lives to make their own choices. Do they want to keep going to church like their parents? Do they want to start voting Democratic after hearing years of Republican tirades at the dinner table? These college kids are footloose. They're nomads. They can choose! And people choose to search for solace and permanence we all desire in the arms of a live-in girlfriend or in the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniel's. These aren't the right places to look for home.
While romance, hazy Friday nights, or even money can give people the warm fuzzy feelings of acceptance, love, and joy that "home" used to fulfill in our lives, eventually they bottom out on you. Your girlfriend could ditch you and your "love" for "Han's from Norway, the guy she met at the gym with Brad Pitt's face and Jesus' abs" (name that movie quote), the drunken nights can start feeling seedy and hollow as you inch up into your later 20's, and with the economy tanking, money is by no means something to rely on right now. Is there anything remotely solid we can hold on to in the ever-fluctuating life of a nomad?
"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore, we WILL NOT fear though the earth give way, and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging... God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day." -Psalm 45:1-3,5
God is our home. Even as nomads traveling through the sketchy path of life, His omnipresence in not only the daily events of our lives but in our hearts leaves no room for worry or doubt. He fills up the hole that we try and cram worthless idols into. And His love covers all our flaws.
The other day I was feeling cranky, worried, and stressed about things in my life that I can't control. I was geeking out about God's plan for my life and I was wondering if choices I made recently really were part of His plan after all, because it felt like I had made a horrible mistake. So when I was feeling down, what did I do? First I looked at Chuck Norris jokes. That was good for a laugh but it didn't help my emotional wrenching state of mind. So then I looked at Natalie Dee, and pardon the French, but I found this one that sadly resembled me:
(It's just a lot easier to say that and a lot harder to actually put that into practice, you know?)
Ultimately, God is our home. We can live as many places as we want to while we're all here on earth, but in the end, our citizenship is in heaven.
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in Me. In My Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am"
- John 14:1-3
- John 14:1-3
Count your blessings, enjoy time with family and friends, and above all else, remember where your home truly is. God is love!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Katie, I enjoy reading your blog as a way to stay updated as to how your time at MLC is going, but perhaps what I enjoy most is your bridge building. I've sat in on two seminars about building bridges from the secular to the sacred, and I can hardly do it at all. But you do it beautifully every time you post. This is just one more thing that will make you a terrific Christian teacher.
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