Coming Home
Coming Home
In a recent therapy session, a young client shared with me that she was in the process of losing her childhood home. Overall, the changes are positive and in all sorts of logical ways that make sense but the loss is real in ways that are harder to quantify or even describe.
But they can be felt. We took the time we needed to sit with this sense of loss and made space for various parts of her, some younger, some older and some that will never get to know that special place. Much had happened there, experienced as both good and bad, and there was grief for what was not to be.
She is joining a club that includes millions of members, all of whom live far from where they were born. In his popular TED talk, Pico Iyer speaks beautifully of this ever-growing group for whom home is less a place in the world and more a place within themselves, or as he put it, more related to soul than soil. He describes those he meets as he travels the world as a travel writer:
Most of the kids I meet are much more international and multicultural than I am. They have one home associated with their parents, but another associated with their parents, but another associated with their partners, a third connected maybe with the place where they happen to be, a fourth connected with the place they dream of being and many more besides. And their whole life will be spent take pieces of many different places and putting them together into a stained glass whole.
Whereas previous generations would add furniture and other heirlooms to the homes, this travelling tribe adds more aspects of themselves as part of a continuing work in progress. They are less likely to identify themselves as part of a single religious or cultural community and more an amalgam of what has come before, the places they have lived and the people and the traditions they have loved.
Despite the fears and complaints of some, this state of inner and outer multiplicity does not necessarily result in a buffet mentality where ancient traditions are available for the taking, only to be dropped for the next fad. There is a need that continues to go deep in a single tradition, path or lineage. But as we continue to grow, change, we add different aspects of ourselves that accumulate in ways that are not always neat and tidy but are in no way less real and deserving of our attention.
Over the years, Christianity has become such a path for me, not because it is better than the others are worthy of being defended, but because in its depth and beauty, I am able to meet others in a deep and authentic way. As I learn more about others and what is important to them - often in ways that escape words - I am further enriched by them. My understanding of myself and my tradition is wrapped up in my understanding of the other and what they hold as most dear. To once again quote the theologian John Thatamanil, multiplicity becomes a joy to celebrate rather than a problem to be solved.
In this context the image of the home takes on special meaning as the holder of all the parts of us. I’m told that in Jungian analysis, the basement represents the unconscious but to dream of walking into a house means to include all these various aspects. I was thinking of this over the past few weeks as I return home after being out of town for six weeks. I was in part wrapping up the Sharing the Sacred residency on Toronto Island and bringing it home with me. While I will continue to be involved with St. Andrew-by-the-Lake church on Toronto Island, StS activities will take place out of the house, including the therapy practice and our gatherings for those of us proud to be more than one thing and multiple identities.
By coming home, I am realizing a dream I have had for more than thirty years. Back then, many young Canadians were taking part in cross-cultural programs and returned home confused about who they were and what they wanted to do in the world. I dreamt of creating a liminal or temporary space where they could rest, feel and process what they experienced and to point their way towards the future. Today it doesn’t take a trip overseas to feel upside down and disoriented. Since then I’ve gained the formal and informal skills, education and experience to hold such a space and I invite to take part. The proposed name of that space? Welcome Home.