On Home

Rachel and I have come back to the UK for Christmas. I've been thinking a lot about the word 'home' over the last couple of weeks, perhaps inevitably. I've come to love the desolate beauty of the coastal plains as much as the gently rolling green of the Chiltern Hills, so what does that mean for the word home? That i have two? Or none?

I don't suppose it really matters. When i go through customs in the States, the man at the desk says 'welcome home,' (well, he does now i've got a Green Card anyway!) when i crossed the border last night, the man at the desk told me what a bad picture i took. So there's that.

I guess home is where my life is, where my wife is, where my parents are. But those are two different places. Have i come home for Christmas? Or have i left home for Christmas? Yes. I look the wrong way when i cross the street and i'm shocked at home expensive things are, (Rachel! That's twice as much in dollars!) But my family's here, i grew up here, tomorrow, i'll go to watch the famous Wycombe Wanderers play with my dad, and howl at eleven men i've never met before. And that will feel like home too.

So what of all this rambling narcissism? Well, i've come to embrace living in two places, because it reminds me to look for a city to come, it reminds me that until Christ returns to reclaim what is His, no one who belongs to Him has a home here. No one. I remember that it's healthy to feel unsettled, it's an object lesson.

So i might be the only one in south Bucks who believes that gun control means using two hands (well, apart from Rachel anyway) and the only one in eastern North Carolina who knows what a chairboy is, and that's fine. That's good. It's wonderful to have two homes, because it reminds me that i only have one, and He was born in a manger.