大象传媒

Good morning.聽 When I go to the supermarket in the centre of Cambridge where I live, I often see a woman outside asking if anyone could spare any change. I鈥檝e never seen her inside any shop or building, and although I鈥檓 told there are night shelters she鈥檒l use on very cold nights and that over the years she has been offered secure accommodation and work, I still see her on the street - most of the time sitting outside the supermarket.

I wonder if she ever calls it 鈥榟ome鈥�?聽 A friend of mine lives on a boat on the Cam, just because he thought it would be fun and I know an army chaplain who鈥檚 moved house 15 times in the last twenty years.聽 Is home wherever we happen to keep our belongings? Or is it the feel of a favourite comfy armchair? - or maybe it鈥檚 a future goal, struggling to save enough money for a mortgage so that there is a place to call home.

Home is deeply subjective. Novelist Hermann Hesse once wrote, 鈥淥ne never reaches home. But where paths that have an affinity for one other intersect, the whole world looks like home, for a time.鈥澛�

Restlessness and rootlessness are part and parcel of the Christian spirit.聽 And the reason for this, as Augustine said, is because 鈥榦ur hearts are restless until they find their rest in God鈥�. At some point on our Christian journey we realise that - what we thought was home isn鈥檛 really home at all.

And so we pray that on our Christian journey, regardless of whether we lay our heads on a houseboat or in an army barracks, or a homeless shelter 鈥� we may ultimately find our true home in God, where all of us will receive the warmest of welcomes.聽 Amen.