Where we wait

If a man die, shall he live again? all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come. (Job 14.14)



(Good Friday and Holy Saturday: the final days of Lent)

In and out

(A guest post by George MacDonald on this thirty-seventh day of Lent)

"...home, as you may or may not know, is the only place where you can go out and in. There are places you can go into, and places you can go out of; but the one place, if you do but find it, where you may go out and in both, is home." 

Lilith (1895), Chapter 3

George is the author of numerous fantasies, fairy tales, novels, sermons, and essays. He died in 1905.  Learn more about him at http://glowwormandstar.tumblr.com/.

Where we can be ourselves

Easter 1991

(Day 36 of Lent)

Hands do the talking

 (A guest post by Eric on this thirty-fifth day of Lent)

Lacking a picture representing how the work I did on my Grandfather's farm etched an image of home for me, I stumbled upon a picture I took of my Oma and Opa's hands.  This picture helped me realize the importance hands have on a home.  Hands might be the part of the body that physically accomplishes the most that make a house a home:  building a garden to provide fresh food to the family; repairing or putting things together for display; writing a letter, sending an email; calling friends and family; providing the warmth of physical touch when the day has required so much of you; and doing the dishes, which my hands find themselves doing so much at my home or at a friend's.  When I don't know or can't put in words the emotions I have, my hands do the talking, finding a place to perform those feelings in action.  I think they are the intimate workhorses of the body or the first responders to need.  Is there an image of hands that remind you of home?

Hands pictured (clockwise): Sam Rodgers, Jackie Bonvin, Eric McAnly, Caleb Fristoe

Hands pictured: Opa, Oma

Where we shout, Hosanna!

Calvary Baptist Church celebrates Palm Sunday in the park. April 1, 2012

(Day 34 of Lent)

Where we step out of the world

(A guest post by Stephanie for this thirty-third day of Lent)

...a place where we step out of the world.
...a place where we stop pretending.
...a place where wholeness and comfort are found in silence.
...a place where we learn the most fundamental lessons of what it is to be loved and to love.

Stephanie is a crazy-busy graduate student who enjoys the few moments of repose that she can get in my home, which isn't so much a place but an atmosphere.

Where I have a room of my own

This print is the work of the very talented Kate Thomas. You can visit her website here and browse her Etsy shop here. Image used by permission of the artist.

(Day 32 of Lent)

Home is belonging

(A guest post by Everly on this thirty-first day of Lent)

 Home is where I can be myself. Where my outside and my inside are both recognized and matched. Where I am looked at and seen. Where I am understood or at least aimed for. Home is where my jokes are funny and my outbursts are forgiven. Where my silence is let be and my chatter is accepted. Where my work is appreciated, my laziness is treated with patience, my silliness is welcomed and my solitude is scarce. Home is where I am part of something greater than myself and yet home is where I am greatest. Home is sharing the burden and feeling it not. Home is where I am just a gear in the whirring machine, yet valued and content. Home is belonging.

Everly is a homebody from a family of ten (now eleven-welcome brother-in-law!) She lives on a lovely little plot called Eyrie Park where she writes, cooks, teaches and thrives.

Where I walk barefoot

(Day 30 of Lent)

A peace that lingers

(A guest post by Caitlin Lore on this twenty-ninth day of Lent)

Home is...a Sunday morning run while the sun is coming up, before everyone else has risen from bed. There is a peace that lingers on the still roads.

Home is... a good book that I can fall into every time I open the pages.

Home is... the smell of something sweet hanging in the kitchen air.

Home is... the lean of my greyhound when he tells me he loves me.

And as a soldier's wife, home is anywhere my husband is.

Caitlin Lore is a writer, runner, wife, and someday-soon teacher.  She blogs at enduringtrigirl.blogspot.com

Where my books are

(Day 28 of Lent)

A dirty kitchen

(A guest post by Erin Sanders for this twenty-seventh day of Lent)

My kitchen is rarely spotless. It is a place I cook for my family and make treats for friends. I am sure that it could be clean, but I opt to leave it a bit messy. I choose to take the time I have with my friends and family to engage them while they are with me rather than squander it by cleaning a few dirty dishes that can wait 'til later.

On a similar note, when I visit a friend's place, it feels like home when I head to their kitchen and find a cup in their cabinets, a drink in their fridge, or prepare something for us and/or our children to partake. There is a level of comfort and a sense of true community that is afforded me when I am able to hunt through a kitchen on a whim.

There is truly something about shared food and drink that is unmatched by any other experience.

My dirty kitchen is a testament to basic needs being met and hours of conversation that have taken place both inside and outside the walls of my apartment.

My dirty kitchen, and the kitchens of others are my home.

Erin is a wife to Brian & momma of 3 princesses (Mackenzie - 5 1/2, Kyleigh 1 1/2 & Kaitlyn 5 months). She has a passion for sharing life with others over a plate of cookies or while serving up a home-cooked meal.

Where we play

Friday night dominoes on the Brazos River

(Day 26 of Lent)

Home is....

Home to me is the whole family together, good food on the table, warm fire in the wood stove, games, laughter, walks, no schedules, and lingering times at the table.

(An anonymous submission for this twenty-fifth day of Lent)

Where we feed ourselves

First carrots from the garden

Also from the garden: rainbow chard stems, ready to sauté 

(Day 24 of Lent)

Finding something to stick with

(A guest post by Julianna Potter for this twenty-third day of Lent)

Home is finding something to stick with.

I am not what you would call a decisive person. This is not due to either pickiness or apathy, but rather, I think, to the fact that I like almost everything and everyone...for a while. Every topic, major, career, city - they all offer something interesting, but over and over I've found myself grow antsy halfway into any endeavor, waiting for the next to begin.

Avery is the first exception to that. At the beginning of our relationship, in the midst of a whirlwind of falling completely into another person, I wondered when that feeling would come back, when I would feel the need to pack my bags. Miraculously, that feeling has never come, and the worry that it ever will has gone away, too. I wonder if part of that is that Avery is not the person I saw myself with. I always imagined I would be with someone stoic and shy, someone who liked discussing philosophy and made me take up environmentally friendly hobbies. Instead, I found someone who, for all his depth of soul, is inherently silly. And it's perfect. His charisma, his energy, his child-like excitement for life - they're all things I couldn't have known I would want so much.

Finding someone to become your home, someone with whom routine becomes something to look forward to, someone who makes you love and cling to the word "constant" - it's magical. But it's also terrifying. It is to find what you have always been missing and to have no real guarantee that it will always last. It is to worry that, although you feel you could never want anything more than this person and this moment and this feeling, you have no control over whether that person will always want the same.

So to find home, to find something worth sticking with, is to give up control. It's to put all of yourself into something and hope. To cling to hope.

Julianna is a friend of Bethany's, and thus a fortunate woman.

Putting down roots

(A guest post by Grace for this twenty-first day of Lent)

Home is where I have chosen to put down roots, both literally, as in my garden, and figuratively, as in the relationships I have established. I have put down roots through showing hospitality, through getting to know my neighbors, and even through getting to know the local landscape.

My home is a place I can choose to open to others. I can’t show hospitality in a place that’s not home. For me, it is easier to invite people into my home than it is to invite people to other places, such as church. At home, I have some control over the environment, everything from the temperature to the lighting to the way it smells. I also have control over who else is going to be there. Inviting people into public places is more risky because there are more aspects of the place that are beyond my control. Yet, home is a place from which I can choose to exclude others. I can make it my “castle” and use it for protection.

Home has a kitchen. It is the nerve-center of my home, because from my kitchen comes good food, hot tea—the means to provide sustenance to my family and friends. I can’t imagine showing hospitality without food, and I can’t feel at home in a place without a kitchen. There is a big difference between taking someone out to a restaurant and inviting someone into my home. In a restaurant, we may “entertain” a guest, but it’s not hospitality.

When I worked a job and had an office, the office was my personal space, but it wasn’t home, partly because there was no kitchen. In an office, I can wear a mask. People who come into my home see who I really am. It’s hard to keep up a false front in my own home, especially with my children running around.

A familiar landscape can help make a place feel like home, but I've found that home is with my husband and children, and in that sense, I can be home in an otherwise alien land. It would be worse to be in a familiar landscape without them than to be in an alien one with them. I may not have chosen to live where I do, but I have chosen to make the place that I live home.

Grace and two of her daughters make cookies to share.

 Grace is a contented wife of a college professor, with whom she often opens her home to college students. They have three children and are expecting their fourth.

Where good things rise

(Day 20 of Lent)

Where your story begins

(A guest post by Emily Davenport on this nineteenth day of Lent)

Home is where I’m in charge.

I’m responsible for dishes, laundry, cooking, cleaning, and nesting.  As a child, I complained whenever my mother asked me to help with housework. Now, I look back on my laziness and ignorance with sadness.  It takes a lot of energy to maintain a home, and I don’t even have children.  My mother had two daughters, a full time job as an English teacher (read: lots of papers to grade) and cared for her ailing mother on the weekend.  She did it all. I eventually learned to help more, but I viewed it more as an inconvenience rather than active homemaking. Miraculously, I grew up, and now I take great pleasure in caring for our home and making it a haven for my family and our friends.

Now that I have my own home, I think back to my fantasies of “One day, when I have my own home I’ll...” and smile. I have dinner parties, just not as often as I would like. I have flowers on my dining room table. I’ve finally started an herb garden. I have a dog, Maggie. It’s a strange feeling to be on one’s own and realize that you have the power to create traditions. Growing up, we’d always have a special breakfast on Saturday morning--eggs and sausage, cinnamon rolls, or muffins.  Now, every Saturday morning I make a special breakfast of eggs, hashbrowns, and waffles.  When we first married, I wasn’t intentionally trying to carry on this tradition--I just wanted to treat Kevin (and myself) to a big, delicious breakfast on Saturday. Looking back, maybe I was trying to carry over what I knew and loved from my family into my new family.

As we look forward to having children one day, I know that traditions and projects will be crucial to forming our family’s identity.  For me, part of becoming an adult is the realization that  I can select and reject things about my upbringing. Creating new traditions takes intention and time and effort and planning.  The reward is a renewed sense of identity, time, and purpose.  I’m inspired by traditions of my family and friends: Christmas cards, breakfast for dinner, going to Fall Creek Falls, road trips, homecoming parades, Sunday letter writing, Friday night movies, Taco Thursday, listening to CarTalk.  I am excited and humbled by the thought of being the co-author of my family’s story.  Maybe home is not my address, but a sort of bubble of traditions, vocabulary, and expectations that follows me wherever I go. As we meet other people and learn about the world, our bubbles intertwine and grow richer and deeper. 

Emily Davenport happily makes her home with her husband Kevin and dog Maggie.  Her current Buechnerian vocation is as a high school librarian.

Where things bloom

(Day 18 of Lent)