Searching for Home

For those of you who are yet to read Craig Barnes’ book, “Searching for Home: Spirituality for Restless Souls,” I highly recommend it. Admittedly, he might stretch you a bit, especially with his familiarity with Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” but in the end, it will be worth it. Craig is steeped not only in the doctrines of grace, but also (and more importantly) in the journey of grace—the journey Home.

There are so many quotes from this book that I want to share with you not only for the purpose of whetting your appetite for reading the book, but also to be sure you experience the thought-provoking moment, he stimulates. The following are a few selected quotes I want to offer to you (please take a moment to savor each of them): (1) "People choose eternity in hell for the same reason they created hell on earth—they prefer the misery they know to the mystery they do not" (p. 83); (2) "There is no greater pain than to remember in our present grief past happiness" (p. 30); (3) "Being in worship isn’t the same thing as being at home but it is our only way of calling home" (p. 35); (4) "You have to give yourself to a place before you can belong, and you have to belong before you can receive anything of eternal value from that place—things like the defining convictions for life" (p. 57); (5) "A community that is nothing more than a group of individuals, all with dreams for what they need it to be, isn’t community at all. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned in 'Life Together,' there is nothing more dangerous to authentic community that our dreams for it because we love those dreams more than the people around us. Community is not a human ideal, he says, but a divine reality" (p. 60); (6) "To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul" (p. 67).

Having shared those, I saved this one for a bit of discussion: "The people who have passed through the dark night of reorientation are the most free people I know. That is because they are no longer afraid of losing anything. It is all gone. All that is left is the only thing from which they can never be separated—the love of God. And with that clarity of desire it is not hard to find the way home" (p. 115). Now, I do not know about you but this really spoke to me. Barnes says that the “most free” people he knows are those who are no longer afraid of losing anything because it is all gone—everything; everything, that is, but the one thing from which they can never be separated—the love of God!

You have all heard this old, old, question but I want to remind you of it: What would you desperately attempt to save, if you were awakened in the middle of the night because your house was on fire? Yes, there are probably as many answers, as there are people to answer, but I will tell you this: you would attempt to get whatever was most valuable to you!

I actually witnessed this the other night when a tornado was, apparently, about to pass directly over our house. We were just turning into our subdivision, when the news came and, immediately, I began having second thoughts about continuing, thinking more about finding safety. My wife, however, was frantically convincing me to continue on toward our house, which I did; although, I must admit, doing so wasn’t very wise. She, however, wasn’t too concerned about “wisdom” in the moment; instead, she was concerned about her two poodles and our wedding pictures! Now, get this picture: a tornado is on the way to our house (or so the news and several friends and family were telling us) and I am driving as fast as I can toward the house—talk about crazy!

Well, we made it home, just in the nick of time, and she ran into the house, rounded up her two poodles, Buffy and Taffy, got the wedding pictures, and headed into the basement for safety! Where am I? Standing on the back deck, with hail falling like snow, trying to decide if the train I hear approaching is the “Baltimore and Ohio” or a real, live tornado!
Enough said? Do you get my drift? I hope so because you will never really be free until you are no longer afraid of losing anything, anything but the love of God, which you cannot lose, even if you try.

Would you be honest for a moment and answer this question: What are you really afraid of losing? Is it possible that the fear of losing it, is keeping you imprisoned to those all-too-familiar feelings of hopelessness, despair, and futility, as you attempt to journey Home? If your answer is “yes,” then I have this suggestion: release whatever it might be to the Lover of your soul, to the One who died for you, and, then, you will be free—among the “most free” people I know! I really do hope that you will “take the risk.” You will be glad you did because finding Home will be so much easier.