My Bluetooth in the van doesn’t recognize how I say home. I ask it to call “home” and it says “unrecognized.” My son listened to me saying “home” the other day and said, “Mom, you say it with an “L” in it – that’s why the voice recognition system doesn’t know the word.”
“Home” with an “L” in it. I like that. Maybe that’s what makes a house a home – the “L.” “L” for love- a place of rest, a place of joy and laughter, a place where tears and sorrow are shared, a place where I can be myself and be loved for who I am, not who I should or could be, a place where I am encouraged and listened to. Home – a place where I feel safe and secure.
Unfortunately, there are times when the “L” can slip out of Home. Times of stress, anxiety, trauma and disaster can totally change the safe and secure feeling of our homes. The flood, eight months ago today, rushed into our community and into our homes and stole away the sense of our houses and our town as impenetrable, safe and secure.
Those who have returned home have discovered that our homes don’t feel quite the same. We had longed to get back to our homes during the evacuation, but something had changed by the time we walked back in the door. Those who lost their homes, or are awaiting word on whether a rebuild will be possible, are living in the disconcerting and unsettling sense of not knowing what home is going to be for them. The water breached our living space, our safe space, our resting space. It took away the familiar everyday items we counted on reaching for. It stole precious items that connected us to loved ones, friends and treasured experiences. It took friends and family away from our community. It closed businesses and changed lives forever. In many ways, the water took the “L” out of home.
We, however, do not need to be victims of this disaster. Empowered by God’s Spirit and working together in support and love, we can put the “L” back in our homes and our community. The flood has no more power over us than my Bluetooth has to change the way I say “Home.” Yes, we are tired and traumatized. Yes, we are stressed by all the changes and uncertainties. But we can make both our homes and our community places where we feel safe and secure, places of rest, once again.
If you find that the tension within yourself and in your household is taking away your sense of home as a place of love and rest, there are counsellors and ministers who would be glad to listen and to help you find ways to release the stress and rebuild relationships.
If your home does not feel the safe and secure place you want it to be, let’s do a house blessing, calling back all the good and wonderful memories, and filling every corner with God’s Spirit.
For ourselves, for our children, home needs an “L” in it. While it provides for our practical needs of shelter, a house needs to be much more. When we walk through the door, we need to breathe deeply, a sigh of relief, releasing the stress of the day, and hearing the words, “Welcome home.” We need to feel enveloped in love and warmth, and wrap the rest of our family in that same love and warmth, so that we all know that in this place we are loved unconditionally, encouraged and listened to without judgement, held in joy and in sorrow, and reminded always that God is with us; we are not alone.
While my Bluetooth might force me to say, “Home” without an “L” in it just so I can call home, we can’t let the flood take the “L”, the love, the safety, the joy out of our homes and our community.
There is support. There is help. And most of all there is God!
I offer you the words of this hymn as blessing and hope today:
Make our house a home, o God;
a place to calm, refresh the soul.
Safe for fears and tears and joy
where you restore and make us whole.
Make our house a home, o God;
with room to learn and room to be.
Place of listening and respect,
our first and best community.
Make our house a home, o God.
in which our spirit’s truth finds birth.
All we are, all we can be
will flow as blessing to the earth.
Make our house a home, o God;
throughout the seasons of our days.
Rhythms of rest and work and play
lived out in gratitude and praise. Susan Lukey 2007
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