Love Home

Love Being Home 

I could say that since the moment I left home in 1993 for college, I have been running. There was a time before I was married and had children that my roommates actually asked me why I even paid rent. You are NEVER home they said. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d8pvD_4Pd1A

I love to serve; it's my guilty pleasure. Granted, I like cake too, but serving in the world from here and there and everywhere is truly my joy. I have a the residue spirit of St. Dominic, I love putting my sandals over my shoulder and engaging in full-time itinerant ministry. 

"The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." --Frederick Buechner

That "place" has been out in the world for 22 years. 22 years! A place where some people likely feel uncomfortable; I feel very comfortable. I love meeting new people ever week, ever day. I love praying with strangers. I love working with teenagers and young adults; the hard to reach. I like telling stories and hearing stories...

But things and place change.

I have been called to push beyond MY comfortable "place" into a new "place."

I was telling some of my friends just today that I was thinking initially that my body was demanding double the rest that it usually receives. I know now that it needs four times the rest it once needed (I have an autoimmune disease). My home is becoming more and more my "place." My itinerancy is becoming less and less physical and more and more spiritual. 

Mother Teresa was once sent a letter by a teenager girl asking what she could do to help with the mission in India. Mother's first and immediate answer was: "You must love home."

You must love home. It is first.

You must love the place in which you have been placed. 

These words are ringing in my ears today; they are in the gentle breezes of my rest.    

Stephanie, you must love home. Stephanie you must love your place, in this moment. Stephanie you must be present to the holy presence that is now, not what will be nor what has been.

So, as we enter fall and into the warmth of our homes, let us not be afraid to be home-- to love our home, our place, our present. It is first. For ourselves and those that surround us... 

Be present.