In Which Home is Not a Noun

Photo Credit: Ralph Cann 2011

My High school English teacher told me to never start anything I write with a definition.  But sometimes I like to break the rules, and she’s probably not reading this anyway.  So here it goes:  


The dictionary tells me that home(n) is a place. A physical structure.  A dwelling where one resides.   

Also see: house (n).

This is why leaving “home” is so heart wrenching.  It is separation.  A goodbye.  It creates an absence.  A void.  An exit wound. (Enter, homesickness)

This ex-pat heart of mine has become skilled at packing my life into boxes.  I know exactly what I would take if I had to up and go tomorrow.  But none of those things define my home.  

It has taken almost a quarter of a century for me to realise it, but I think we’ve got it wrong.  Home cannot be reduced to a person, a place, or a structure.  Home is more adjective than noun.  More of an attitude of community, a sense of belonging, and less of a physical locale.

Home is meals prepared, and meals shared.

Bread blessed and broken.

Stories shared over cups of coffee.  Pots of tea.  Glasses of wine.  Around tables.  Under Covers.   Across miles.

Home is the cold, salt wind of the North Atlantic, the whistling of a sand dune under an Arabian sun.

Home is As salaam al aikum and How's she gettin'on?

Home is a canoe ride on a breathless lake.   

First crocus through April snow. 

A deer in the orchard at dawn.

It is an accordion, a fiddle, a scoff and a scuff.

Home is the stone table and Green Gables.  It is on a little prairie and in a big woods and in an attic behind a bookshelf.

It is in my grandmother’s hands.  My grandfather’s prayers.

Home is my mother’s daily benediction as I walked out the door:

May the LORD bless you and keep you.  May He make His face to shine upon you and give you His peace.

Home is peace.

Home is not a building. 

It is not a place I can pinpoint on a map.  

Home is where I belong.  Where I fit.  Where my soul is at rest.  It is here.  It is also there.  It is in places I’ve yet to see, people I’ve yet to meet.  It is where my story intertwines so seamlessly with that of humanity, of creation, of redemption.

So where, or what, is home for you?  Leave a comment below and let me know.

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