I love this series, “There’s No Place Like Home,” because of the many rich contributions from thoughtful, deep writers. There’s more to come in the following weeks and months, but I wanted to break in today with a post inspired by the community here in Spain which feels like a home away from home.
The chapel at El Palmeral.
We gather for morning prayer in the outdoor chapel, letting the words of the Celtic prayers move us into communicating with God. We’re accompanied by the strains of Anna Raine singing through parts of the liturgy. It’s a favorite part of my week here at El Palmeral in Spain.
But the closing song of our time of prayer always provokes emotion in me, for the music and words make me long for home. Here’s the blessing of which I speak, as found on the Northumbria Community website:
Blessing
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
wherever He may send you.
May He guide you through the wilderness,
protect you through the storm.
May He bring you home rejoicing
at the wonders He has shown you.
May He bring you home rejoicing
once again into our doors.
I get choked up at the going out and coming back, for it makes me remember that I’m sent. Not only am I sent from my parent’s home into the world, but I’m sent from the States to the UK. I’m sent this week from London to Elche to lead this retreat. I’ll be sent in May to Glasgow and Gloucestershire. We’re sent out, and then we return home.
Home rejoicing, as the words say. Home, thankful for the work the Lord has done in and through us when we’ve been away. Home to rest and relax and recuperate and renew. Home to work.
And I guess the song hooks into my emotions because I think of leaving the friends here – new friends and old – and yet I look forward to going back to see my family. (This is intensified because during the last singing of the verse on the last day, we grasp hands and look at each person, bestowing the blessing on them with eye contact and smiles.) And I think of all the friends and family I don’t get to see on a regular basis, because our homes are hundreds or thousands of miles apart. And the longing returns to be reunited.
And of course the largest longing of all is to be with God and loved ones in the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom that can be here and now; the kingdom to come.
May we love and bless and be at home this day.
Detail from the large mural depicting Jacob’s ladder on the back wall of the chapel.
I first met Jennie at a book launch – you can read my gaffe of the American introducing herself in my book Finding Myself in Britain. I didn’t know then that I was meeting a wonderful woman who would become the editor to that book – one who had lived in the States for five years and so could speak both languages. And a consummate tea aficionado, who helped hone that chapter on tea. But she’s more than “just” an editor, of course; I picture her with a smile and a ready laugh. I love how she embraces life, thinking deeply about her faith, with joy oozing from her. I don’t think I could live with her – I couldn’t handle her tolerance for clutter, as you’ll see below – but I love counting her as one of my friends.
We first met at a Starbucks in central London. He’d seen my profile online, we’d exchanged a couple of emails and now we’d found a quick half hour after work to meet. Time was of the essence, especially for him; we had to make a decision fast. Sure, we were complete strangers but… could we live together?
No, this wasn’t speed dating on – er – speed. He had found my profile on a Christian flat-hunting (apartment hunting) website. I had listed the area I wanted to live in and the maximum price I could afford, he had found a flat that fit the bill and needed someone to share it with.
[A note for readers living outside of London: here it’s not a big deal for guys and girls to share flats/apartments. It is very common, and culturally totally appropriate. I’m aware that’s not the case in most other areas!]
So we met and tried to size each other up – what do you do for a living? Do you like to have friends over or go out to socialise? Do you smoke? Do you drink? How much do you care about tidiness/clutter? In other words, what does ‘home’ mean to you?
Our conceptions seemed compatible, and the flat, though a dark, damp, rather chilly basement, was in an incredible location right in the centre of London, so we moved in.
We’ve now lived in that flat for seven years. I’ve loved the location, loved (in the summer months) my ‘writing cave’ in one of the old coal cellars and loved the fact that, for the most part, my flatmate and I have passed like ships in the night (often literally, as I have been coming in from an event and heading to bed, just as he is adjusting his bow tie in the hall mirror and going out for the evening!).
But now it’s time to go our separate ways. He is being posted overseas for work, and I am flat-hunting again.
Now, of course, I’m seven years older, and my criteria have changed somewhat. Then I cared about location, price, and flatmates who didn’t smoke. Now in my 40s, those things are still factors, but given that I don’t want to have to move again any time soon, I definitely want this next place to feel like home.
So what does that mean now?
In no particular order, here are four things that I have come to value (or realise I value):
1) Clutter.
One reason my flatmate and I got on so well is that we both have a similar tolerance to clutter. The various tables and work surfaces were always strewn with newspapers, letters, books, empty tea mugs, Amazon packaging and various other oddments. We both had books double-stacked and DVDs in teetering piles on the bookcases. The kitchen worktops always held the dishes and utensils we most often used and… you get the picture – we liked clutter. Home to me is somewhere where I’ve got my stuff around me and it’s OK to leave it there for a day or more until I next need it.
Books, books, everywhere books.
2) Hospitality.
I want my home to be a place where people feel welcome and want to come to eat, to relax, to hang out or to stay. I wish I’d made the effort more often to invite people over here, but apart from a few dinners, a couple of parties and the occasional Life Group meeting it hasn’t happened very much.
Part of the difficulty is that I’m not a natural ‘gatherer’. It’s hard work getting people to come to anything I organise, especially spontaneous things with no real purpose. Perhaps this time I need to choose flat mates who naturally draw others to them – then I could do all the cooking and preparing while my flatmates drum up the crowd to share it with.
On the other hand, maybe I should live alone because I also value…
3) Alone time.
I loved those weekends, and occasional weeks, when I would get the house to myself. Even though we rarely saw each other, it was nice just to know that the house was empty, and would be when you came home. I could leave the washing up in the sink for days, eat things like fish without feeling guilty about the smell, and not trip over his shoes when going to the loo in the middle of the night!
Ah, little luxuries! Speaking of which, there’s one more that was never on my list before but is now right up at the top:
My writing cave.
4) Daylight.
This cold, dark, damp basement has been fine for most of these seven years, but for the last 18 months or so it’s been starting to get to me (particularly as I now work from home three days a week). I’m tired of having no idea what the weather is doing. I’m tired of always having to have lights on. I’d like to be able to see a sunset or hear the rain. I want to be able to curl up and read in the patch of sunlight falling across my chair. I want to not live in a cave!
Battersea Power Station, which I’ve grown to love dearly over these seven years.
This flat has been wonderful. I have loved being able to walk to St James’ Park or home from the West End, I’ve loved lying in bed listening to the chimes of Big Ben. My flatmate has been almost ideal, and we’ve survived seven years with barely a difference of opinion. He was a total hero when my ceiling fell down and had to be replaced while I was in hospital. He has borne being in the darker, damper, smellier room with fortitude, and his foibles have been odd but – I’m sure – no more annoying than mine.
God provided an amazing place that has been home for nearly a sixth of my life – the second longest I have lived anywhere. As I look for where – and with whom – He will take me next, I’ll be grateful for His provision whatever that looks like, but I’ll be seeking to add these little touches that make a house my home.
Jennie Pollock is a freelance writer and editor who says she’s a ‘book-loving, blog-writing, tea-drinking, London-adoring, cheerful, joyful, trying-to-be-more-prayerful, image-bearing child of God.’ She has an MA in Philosophy, a BEd in English and a commendation in tea-making from several former colleagues. Alongside her freelancing, she works part time as Director of Communications for Kings Church Kingston. You can find her online at jenniepollock.com.
When I first met Jen Baker, I was struck by her passion – passion for God, life, and those at risk in society. She’s a pastor and a writer and a campaigner and a preacher, but I sensed that underneath the labels of what she does, she’s content in her identity as a child of God. I loved reading her contribution today, especially as I’m a fellow Midwesterner with German ancestors. The pioneer spirit is one I’m grateful for in those who settled America, but as Jen says, it doesn’t have to be limited to those who’ve moved country.
If Sting is an Englishman in New York, I’m a girl from Michigan… in London.
It all started when I was 14 years old. ‘It’ refers to an insatiable desire for anything European. If I saw a picture of the Eiffel Tower – I needed it. If I heard any European accent – was mesmerized by it. Feeling out of place became common place, and I knew I had been born for a country not my own.
The transition from one country to another is no small feat, as anyone in this club knows full well.
But my cost has been far less than others I have met – and this blog is dedicated to one of those most treasured heroes.
*
As an American I grew up learning about the pioneers, spending hours as a kid dreaming of what it would have been like to cross the country in a wagon, and at times wishing I too had lived in a little house on the prairie.
We pledged allegiance to the flag every day in school; acutely aware we were pledging allegiance to a country built on the blood and vision of those who had gone before us, enduring hardships we could never fully understand in our clean-cut, Midwestern worlds. They were real pioneers, and in my mind they were untouchable legends.
I had to move 4,000 miles away to understand one of these ‘legends’ lived amongst my own family.
My grandma leaving her hometown in Germany.
Elizabeth Doubler was a pioneer. She was also one of the bravest women I’ve ever met. Barely reaching 5 feet 2 inches tall, she carried an unspoken strength and steely determination which stood her far higher than her short stature. The year 1937 saw her waving good-bye to her parents in Neustadt, Germany, at the young age of 26, calmly assuring them she would return in a few short weeks.
She never touched German soil again.
On the ship with a couple she met there.
Arriving on the New York shores of America she journeyed west to Ohio, learning to speak English and securing a job as a nurse in a local hospital. Thankfully my grandfather had tonsillitis, or I may not be typing this today!
My grandparents on their wedding day.
Whilst she was falling in love and starting a family, those she left behind were falling apart and losing their families. One day her parents and brothers were at their dining room table having dinner, when there was a pounding on the door. Her parents hesitantly opened it, finding themselves eyeballing a gun held in the hands of Hitler’s soldiers.
Her brothers were ordered to pack within 15 minutes, and they ‘enlisted’ in the army that day, never to return home as they lost their lives at war. Post war, my great-grandparents one night were abruptly removed to a detention camp, while their German town suddenly became Polish. Upon their release, they returned home to find their dinner sitting on the table as they left it…rotted.
Elizabeth had two remaining brothers, one on each side of the wall, for 30 years. Her parents, ill from the camp, came to live with her, as did her sister. A few strands of family ties reunited, yet the ache of separation from her brothers would never leave her.
One of my favourite photos of my grandmother – I love the youthfulness and adventure in her smile. She was on her honeymoon here.
Her experience crossing the ocean was immensely different to mine. My grandmother’s family was destroyed, mine as intact as when I left. She had no communication; I have instant contact day or night.
Vastly different, yet strangely similar. There was always a beautiful, unspoken understanding between us – knowing the pain of separation, yet the joy of adventure.
If I’ve learned anything from my grandmother, I’ve learned to pioneer well.
All of us, in our own way, are pioneers – blazing a trail for those who will come behind.
We don’t need a house on the prairie to bear the name pioneer and we needn’t have crossed an ocean to leave a legacy of love.
We simply need to live well.
Me and my grandmother – the last time I saw her, and my last (treasured) photo with her.
Live, as my grandmother did, with conviction, faith, strength, determination, kindness, grace, and generosity. Those values carried with her created a home in America; and those values carried with me, are creating a home in England.
Intangibly linking hands and generations across a vast ocean of separation, as only true home is able to do.
Jen Baker is a Speaker, Author, Anti-Trafficking Director of the charity City Hearts and Associate Pastor of Hope City London. She is passionate about inspiring others and living life to the full. Since 1995 she has ministered within the United States, Africa and Europe. Her preaching challenges and unlocks personal potential within others, equipping them through revelation of the Father’s love and His designed purpose for each one of us. More information can be found at www.jenbaker.co.uk, including information on her books, Unlimited and Untangled.
I’ve found Mel Menzies to be an encourager with deep empathy for others, and a fellow lover of books (and a fellow introvert with whom I commiserate at conferences). She has weathered great tragedy with faith and grace, and shares the story of home from a seemingly normal day, when one phone call changed everything.
It is a wedding anniversary I’ll never forget. Twelve years of happy stepfamily life married to the man who had proved to be my best friend. Did we have celebrations planned? I can’t remember. That morning Paul was decorating our newly refurbished kitchen – all paid for by the advance on my book titled Stepfamilies. Perched on a ladder, he was right behind the kitchen door wielding a paintbrush doused in apple-white emulsion, when the phone rang.
Paul and me on our wedding day.
Naturally, I answered it. It was my eldest daughter ringing me from North Wales. Funny time of day to ring, I thought, given that it would cost more than her usual evening call. I don’t recall her exact words, only the context of her message and her tone of voice. She’d been to the doctor – a routine visit to the surgery. Only it wasn’t routine!
One of the doctors had been called out to an emergency. A sudden death. That of her younger sister. My daughter.
I was distraught! Paul heard my cry and came rushing in. My daughter – a reformed heroin addict for five years – had died alone in her house, leaving her baby crying in the cot. A single morphine tablet dropped into her drink at a BBQ the night before had caused her to vomit and asphyxiate.
Other phone calls followed. We prepared to make the six or seven hour journey north. Friends came to pray. Most had prayed for years for my daughter’s healing. One, a new Christian who attended the Nurture Group I led, found it hard to take: ‘How can you trust God when he delivers your daughter from a thirteen-year drug habit, rebuilds her life for five years, then allows her to die, leaving her baby motherless?’
I didn’t hesitate. It was as if God spoke through me, answering this woman with a truth she could only accept.
My daughter had sung in the church choir as a girl. Her rebellion, begun when her father left home, took her far from the life I had hoped for her. But even in the depths of her addiction, when she was begging for help to come clean, she professed a faith in God.
In the week before she died, she’d been on the phone to me several times, always in a state of stress.
‘They won’t leave me alone,’ she said. ‘They keep on and on at me.’
I didn’t know then who they were; nor what they were keeping on and on about. But suddenly, with this new Christian lady standing beside me, it all made sense.
If they had had their way, my daughter would have become an addict again, and a supplier of drugs in a part of the country where drugs were not available.
‘She would have been in hell,’ I told this lady. ‘And so would her child. God knew that. That’s why he took her home. To be with him.’
To this day I have never thought otherwise. Seeing my daughter’s body, I told the undertaker ‘that’s not my daughter in there’. Her spirit had departed – and I knew where. Throughout the post mortem and inquest, I never doubted. My daughter is at home. And as we all know, there’s no place like home. Her earthly father may have left but her heavenly father will never forsake her. She’s with him. Her child is now a lovely young adult. And one day we shall see her again. At home!
With Paul in the garden of our new home, three years ago.Our garden just after we moved in. The far side of the Bay (Torbay) is where Henry Francis Lyte wrote the hymn Abide with Me.
The story of Mel’s daughter’s life and death is available as an e-book. Written as fiction, to protect the identity of her grandchild, it is entitled A Painful Post Mortem. Profits from the print version raised funds for two charities: Tearfund and Care for the Family. Mel’s latest book, Time to Shine, is available in both paperback and e-book formats, and her second book in the series publishes in June.
Mel Menzies is the author of a number of books and numerous articles. She is an inspirational keynote speaker, who likes nothing better than interacting with an audience or running workshops. Family life is a priority and she and her husband care for two of their grandchildren twice a week. She is an active member of a large and lively Baptist Church, where she runs a Book Club. You can find her online at melmenzies.co.uk.
I don’t remember where exactly I met Catherine Campbell the first time – probably online before we met in person at the Christian Resources Together retreat. She’s just gorgeous, filled with a deep love for God and willing to share her wisdom and empathy. She and her husband have known grief and suffering, as you can read in her books, but they’ve known the comfort and hope that the Lord gives as well. I love her thoughts on home, written while she was jetlagged after a trip to Australia.
Photo: Sandra, flickr
By the time the cabin lights dimmed, the drone of the engines pitched at my brain like supermarket background music.
The inflight magazine encouraged drinking plenty of water and engaging in certain exercises to enhance comfort during the fifteen-hour flight. Dutifully I rose to my feet to see if complying might reduce my aches and pains and result in some much-needed sleep.
I felt silly, stretching and twisting in the narrow gangway. I needn’t have, for few of the four hundred or so passengers accompanying us on this journey even noticed my antics. Instead, they slept, or at least feigned sleep, snuggled up in blue blankets; eyes masked with written orders of ‘Do not disturb’ or ‘Wake me for meals’.
And I couldn’t help but wonder where all these people were going as we crossed the heavens together. Perhaps they were heading home, business or pleasure now complete. Maybe sickness, death, or personal heartache had forced them to buy the ticket. Or could it be joy, love, or a family vacation propelling them across the world in this crowded bus in the skies? One thing I did know… behind each mask was a story as individual as the person wearing it.
The man seated between me and the window was heading to Germany to meet up with his father. The person occupying the same position on our outbound flight to Australia was on his way back to New Zealand after a family wedding in Ireland.
He’d been home, but was now going home.
Funny that. We often look at home as being a place, but it rarely is.
Speaking at a ladies’ conference, with my husband Philip helping with the question and answer time.
I’m not a ‘bricks-and-mortar’ person. While I understand that to some people the physical sights, sounds, and smells of a certain building are very significant in marking out home for them, I’m the complete opposite.
Home for me is people. Those who love me, accept me, laugh with me, make me feel safe, and are there to dry my tears. Home is the people who know me best, and love me still; the people my heart tells me that I can’t live without.
The joy of laughing with people – we feel at home.
That’s why when our final flight landed in Dublin it wasn’t a certain redbrick building in Coleraine that made my heart jump with excitement, but the reunions I was looking forward to. Breakfast with my parents on the journey back; holding our grandchildren after missing them for three weeks; chatting with our son and daughter-in-law; catching up with my sister.
When we finally fell into bed later that night it wasn’t the comfort of my own duvet that told me I was home, but the arms stretched around me that have loved me for 38 years through thick and thin that confirmed we were indeed home!
And one day, when earthly goodbyes are said, I doubt it will be the grandeur of ‘the place prepared for me’ (John 14:2) that will captivate me most, but rather the Person who has journeyed with me (Isaiah 43:2) in this most temporary of residences.
Then when Jesus stretches His welcoming arms around me I will be able to say for sure: “There’s no place like home.”
Catherine Campbell is a speaker and author of When We Can’t, God Can, Under the Rainbow and other titles, including Chasing the Dawn, a new devotional coming in June. A native of Belfast, Northern Ireland, she now lives in the beautiful northern town of Coleraine, where her husband, Philip, is minister of the Congregational church.
As you can see in these photos, Amy Young brings rays of sunshine where she goes – I love her smile and joie de vivre. I met her online and count her as a lovely friend who brings encouragement and fun. She and I share a love of NFL football, and she’s the kind of fan who makes you even like (or at least respect) her team with her gracious advocacy. I love her book Looming Transitions, which fills a deep need for those facing times of change. Join her in asking, where are you finding yourself?
Granted, the first leg of my trip back to China had experienced a three-hour delay and I thought I might miss my international plane. But the strong sensation I had as I sank into my seat couldn’t completely be attributed from the adrenaline pulsing through my veins after I’d run through the airport.
I was a hot mess internally. FOMO (Fear of missing out) while I was in China combined with knowing China was no longer my home left me with this clear thought: Metaphorically, I am always on a plane, by myself, stuck between worlds.
When I say it was a strong feeling, I mean, a huge bouncer in a bar could not have given me a stronger sucker punch.
I was almost two and a half years in my reentry. Will it ever end?!
One of my great joys was that most of my family got to visit me in China. My sister and nieces and I are in one of the old lanes of Beijing.
This is why I love Amy’s title Finding Myself in Britain so much. Isn’t the truth that we are all finding ourselves in our lives? In light of writing to you, I thought about my life now and wondered where am I finding myself right now?
I am finding myself in America.Even though I have been back for more than two-and-a-half years, this finding process is just that: a process. Parts I absolutely love! I am a huge Denver Broncos fan and the two other times they successfully won the Super Bowl I was in Thailand surrounded by people not from Denver and watching Thai fruit drink commercials. I have LOVED being among my orange people. Other parts of this finding are awkward. I’m navigating waters in my late 40s that others navigate in the 20s. I know how to be an adult in China, I’m learning in the US.
One of the mixed joys of the last two years, in the wake of my dad’s death, is that I have gotten to take each of his grandchildren, one by one, to a game and show them where Grandpa sat and introduce them to this piece of our family history. Chloe is wearing her mom’s shirt form childhood and I am wearing my shirt from when we went to the first superbowl 🙂Taken right before the Superbowl this year . . . with my orange people!
I’m finding myself in a job that doesn’t have a tidy title. I’ve always had jobs that came with a title: teacher, English teacher, University Teaching Program Director, Member Care Director. Even if someone didn’t really know what I did, the fact that it had a short, concise, understandable title sufficed. I currently work for an online community of Christian women who live and serve overseas. I love my job, but at least twice a month a friend sends me information about a job . . . since I don’t have one . . . that makes sense to others. So, I’m finding my identity in other areas than an easily understandable job.
I’m finding myself in the editing process. Over the last year I have worked with my amazing editor Deb as we got my book ready for publication. I had no idea that an editor could be an advocate and was scared of the process. Opening up what you have been working on for years and have someone else point out the flaws or the confusing parts? Risky! But Deb showed me that she got the vision of this book and that through editing and rewriting, it could be what it has become. The editing process helped me see the Holy Spirit as my life editor. If he can do in my life what Deb have done in my writing, I have hope for us all!
I’m finding myself in my book being published. The parallels with parenting abound, so I’m going to be careful and not start gushing. I’m at the stage where the book has been released into the world, so others can have their own opinions of it. Of course, I delight when someone contacts me and says how very helpful it has been, how it met them right where they had a great need, how very much they appreciate the time I took to write it. I have to find myself apart from my book. Because there are also those who have said, “Um why did you put THAT in there?” I am proud of my book, I am happy to share with you about the content and the process, but I am not my book.
I am finding myself in a complex relationship with the church. Because it is complex, it is too much to go into detail here. But I can say this much, it is disorienting to have a part of life that had been relatively easy and a good fit, feel like the wrong size shirt. I can’t tell what needs to change. Do I need to lose or gain weight? Does the size of the shirt need to change? I don’t know and I’m not particularly enjoying finding myself in this part of my life.
I’m also finding myself in… gardening. Finding myself in grief. Finding myself in driving. Finding myself in training my eye to look for beauty, and finding myself in the Church year. How about you? Where are you finding yourself these days? What parts are you enjoy? What parts are a bit uncomfortable?
Amy Young is an avid Denver Broncos fan and knows what it’s like to try and find yourself a friend to watch sports with you when you live abroad; so she took a picture for Amy BP when the Minnesota Vikings came to town. A sister’s gotta help a sister out! You can read more of her work at The Messy Middle and by signing up for her newsletter receive a free PDF chalk full of Tools for Navigating the Messy Middle of Life. She recently published Looming Transitions for those 4-6 months before a big transition to or from living abroad.
I can relate on many levels to Claire Musters’ wonderful contribution to the “There’s No Place Like Home” series today – loo seats left up and mud on the floors for one! But more importantly the tension of being married to a pastor and how that can change your approach to home, such as wanting to be hospitable but also as introverts needing a place to feel safe and contained. I love her vulnerability, and trust you’ll be encouraged by what she shares.
Home.
For me, home was a regularly changing place during childhood. We moved every few years due to my dad’s job and it just became normal to up sticks and move towns and homes. Dad also loved a ‘do-er up-er’, and we joked that he would throw himself into transforming each home and, just as he finished it, it was time to put it on the market and move again.
Moving regularly opened us up to all sorts of opportunities. Dad’s job took us overseas and we too spent time living in Virginia. As an adult, I look back fondly on the memories I have of spending time living in and exploring a different country (and I loved reminiscing while reading Amy’s book!).
Even when my parents chose to stay put in one town once my sister and I started secondary school, we still had a second house move (and the inevitable DIY!). It was in that town that I met my now husband, at youth group. He followed me up to London when I went to university, and, after marrying at the end of my second year there, we set up home together.
With my husband, Steve.
Starting out together
I felt so proud hosting my first Christmas for my parents in our tiny little flat; even prouder when we moved into our first bought home together. I married another fantastic DIY-er, and we spend many a special moment painting and decorating that place together. I had a wonderful surprise one day when I awoke from a long, recovering sleep to discover he had already painted what would be my new home office!
I loved that ground-floor Wimbledon flat, so when my husband first felt the inkling of a call to move to Sutton to help start a new church I point blank refused, arguing with God that he couldn’t possibly ask me to do that. I had a million reasons why – and most of them surrounded our home and its location. As my husband at that time was a record producer, his hours were appalling. I’d built a nice supportive network around myself with a church and friends within walking distance. I didn’t want to leave that safety net.
But God taught me a lot in that time – about myself and about submitting to his leading. He was so gracious. I didn’t really like the look of the town we were to move to, but, when we started house hunting, we discovered a street that looked like it should be near the seaside; most of the houses were painted difficult colours and very cottagey in feel. I fell in love with our current house – and the move was on!
A long-term home
This has been the longest I’ve ever lived in the same place, and sometimes it scares me slightly that, now my husband is the pastor of our church, we could be here for a much longer time. I still get itchy feet now and then – although I do hate the disruption of moving.
We had bought a ‘do-er up-er’, and spent many happy months creating our perfect idyll. We have always loved hospitality, and were keen to see our newly acquired, more spacious home opened up and used for meals and church meetings.
If I’m honest, however, that dream has also had a cost – and I’m still learning a lot through that process even now, 15 years later.
I can remember when my husband had spent literally days laying a new wooden floor and varnishing it countless times. We then hosted Christmas and New Year for our families. Pre-children ourselves, I watched in horror as our nephew rode round and round on his new wooden bike and left dents all over the floor. And then one of our nieces weed all over the new rug we’d literally just put down before they arrived. I kept telling myself ‘these are only things, don’t be so selfish’, but all the while slightly heartbroken as our efforts to create a lovely home seemed to be unravelling. Of course, now we’ve had our own kids that does all seem rather naïve!
Loosening up
I remember, during the extended sickness I had throughout both my pregnancies, feeling frustrated and upset that I could no longer be the perfect hostess of the small group that met in our home. Opening the cupboard where the tea and coffee is kept was enough to send me rushing to the bathroom. But it actually made my friends more at home – they loved feeling like they could simply come in and help themselves and still do so today. Sometimes there is a part of me that fights that, but most of the time I love the fact they feel so free.
Once, someone spilled a drink on our wooden floor, and about three people immediately got up to run for kitchen towels and sponges. I laughed at them and made a comment, which I thought was tongue-in-cheek: ‘wow you must be scared of me!’. They admitted that, pre-kids, I had been kind of scary and they still had that automatic response when a spillage happened. That took me aback – but also made me more determined to lighten up further.
The log burner is the latest edition to our home – I love the homely feel it creates.
A place for many purposes
Since we became part of the small group who first started our current church, our house has hosted church meetings, small group meetings, prayer meetings, lunches etc. My husband also designed a soundproof log cabin at the bottom of our garden in the hopes that he could do more recording work at home. I think it was used for just one session – but it has hosted endless prayer meetings and worship team practises!
There are, of course, times when having our home open can be quite difficult. I remember when our daughter was a baby and she woke up with an exploding nappy during a prayer and worship meeting. I was a fraught first-time mum and just needed my husband’s help – but trying to get his attention discretely was a little difficult when he had his eyes shut and seemed deep in worshipful contemplation! And there were weeks when we simply wanted a night to ourselves, but the only opportunity for that fell on the same night that the worship team needed to come through to use the log cabin to practise. Okay, so they weren’t in our house, but they arrived, made drinks and were going to come back through it at some point to leave – that certainly makes you aware that you aren’t completely on your own on date night! 😉
To be honest, the hardest transition was when my husband became full-time lead pastor at our church. The church didn’t have a building at the time (we met in a school) so the church office had been located at our old pastor’s home. When he retired the office moved to our log cabin. To start with, we enjoyed a lovely rhythm: working from home in our own spaces (my office is upstairs in our house) and then breaking for lunch together – me chatting over any writing projects that I would value my husband’s input on and he sharing any church matters he’d appreciate the same from me.
Our log cabin at the bottom of the garden has been used for so many purposes.
That all changed when he took on another full-time member of staff. All of a sudden there was another person in our house regularly – there from first thing in the morning. While they are usually based in the log cabin, I now had two men traipsing mud in the house from the garden and leaving the toilet seat up (one of my pet hates!). I also began to miss our lunchtime catch ups…
I can get quite stressed about the mess our home gets in during the week with two working parents and two boisterous children in and out of it, so, I admit, I’ve found it hard to adjust to what has felt like an invasion at times, as people come in and out for meetings, or knock on the door for a chat with their pastor (but it is me who has to answer the door because I’m in earshot of the door bell). When I’m in the middle of a piece of writing those sorts of distractions are incredibly difficult to deal with, as I need quiet to write. I know that I’ve been less than gracious quite often and God, and my husband, have been good at pointing that out to me!
I still fight with the tension of wanting our home to be open to people, and wanting to shut the world away and create a safe space. As my children are pastor’s kids I’m now, more than ever, aware of wanting to protect them. I think that they have the privilege of having their eyes opened to all sorts of situations that perhaps they wouldn’t otherwise – but I am also fully aware that their daddy is often on 24-hour call. Don’t get me wrong: he is around a whole lot more than he would have been if he’d stayed in the music business. He is able to see them when they come home from school (while the church office is still based at home – he’s currently meeting with a builder at our wonderful new building to discuss the final phase of building work: the new church office 🙂 ). He is usually also there at mealtimes and bedtimes – all things I am hugely grateful for.
I love my own little seat of peace, which my husband put together beautifully. I get to sit and overlook the garden while I spend time with God after the kids have gone to school.
Home as a safe haven
I have had quite a bit of ill health, and some time in hospital, since the start of 2016. I have needed space and time to recover, and God has had me on a huge learning curve about slowing down and not needing to ‘do’ all the time. We have been massively blessed by our church family, who have provided so many meals, had our kids to play so I could sleep etc. But there have been times when I have just simply wanted to slob about in my PJs but not felt comfortable doing so when I know the church office, and therefore our home, is in use.
After a mis-communication this week, I got showered and dressed feeling particularly grumpy. I had asked my husband to relocate his meeting down to our church hall as I felt really unwell and didn’t want to have to get dressed. He had done the school run and, when I got up, I looked out of the window to see our car – and thought I heard voices. ‘Man, he’s decided it’s simplest just to meet here’ was what I said to myself with annoyance.
I went downstairs, got some breakfast and put on some trashy TV – I simply wanted to chill out. But I was completely on edge – I knew at some point they would come down to make drinks and use the bathroom and I didn’t want to be judged for being curled up watching such rubbish. So I ate quickly, turned the TV off and dragged myself upstairs to work. When my husband eventually appeared later I broached the subject of why he’d chosen to stay at our home – only to be told they’d been down at the church building and had only just arrived back! I did feel a little foolish – but it also illustrated to me how on edge I can still be at home.
Yes there is a tension between wanting my home just for my family and choosing to open it up so it can be a blessing to others. Sometimes it’s great fun to have lots of different people in and out of our home – it gives us such pleasure as we know that that is partly why God gave it to us – at other times it feels like a sacrifice. And, being honest, it is a bit of both – but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Claire Musters is a freelance writer and editor, mum to two gorgeous children, pastor’s wife, worship leader and school governor. Claire’s desire is to help others draw closer to God through her writing, which focuses on discipleship, leadership, marriage, parenting, worship, issues facing women today etc. Her books include David: A man after God’s own heart, Taking your Spiritual Pulse, CWR’s Insight Guide: Managing Conflict and BRF Foundations21 study guides on Prayer and Jesus. She also writes a regular column for Christian Today as well as Bible study notes for BRF and CWR. Claire is currently standing in as editor for Families First magazine as well as co-writing the next CWR Insight Guide: Self-acceptance and working on her own book Taking off the mask. To find out more about her, please visit www.clairemusters.com and @CMusters on Twitter.
When I met up for a coffee with Shaneen Clarke recently, we marveled about how as sisters in Christ we can go deep immediately even though we are new friends. That’s such a gift that God gives, and one I don’t take for granted. I love her passion and her faith, and the way she travels around the world sharing the news of God’s love and life. Here she adds a London-centric addition to our “There’s No Place Like Home” series, which of course I love as an adopted Londoner. And her poem rocks.
London has a resident population of 9 million and an annual tourist population of 19 million. Its history spans Anno Domini an embanks itself on the River Thames. London boasts as the financial centre of the world as its clock at Greenwich allows simultaneous trading from Tokyo, Beijing and New York.
London has four airports, one helipad at Wandsworth and the rich can land their private jets within 40 minutes of the city centre. The centre of Government at Westminster houses the rulers of the nation with its buildings of Government huddled within walking distance. From Dick Whittington to Boris Johnson it has a Lord and London Mayor, from ceremonial to legal. This capital city houses two of the oldest professions and the one so respectfully guarded is the world centre of justice where anyone can come at fine price to seek and find justice. Its legal system designed by kings, founded by Romans has sufficient flex to allow Islamic ruling.
It is the world centre for any religion; its willingness to allow freedom of speech and demonstration caters for all. Its two cathedrals house the ranks of Christianity and its abbey at Westminster marries and buries monarchs. Its Royal Family is the oldest and has survived and thrived as ultimate ruler with little power to rule.
Its underground tube rail system along with its Victorian sewer systems creak at every edge crying for renewal as they wash through the masses and their waste daily. The ever increasing density and pressure of commerce attracts the rodents, rats and foxes of all shapes and sizes. The opportunities to house, feed and attract the people compound every business opportunity and its streets are paved with gold. Yet its homeless lie there and beggars are allowed to beg on streets, trains and buses occasionally moved on by its Community Police force. From Robert Peel its Peelers, Coppers and Bobbies have maintained order with the City and Metropolitan Forces.
London with its streets designed for horse and cart is the busiest traffic grid in the world served by two circular roads north and south with one single circular motorway which from air looks more like a car park. Its famous black cab has been allowed to be usurped and attacked by mini cabs, Addison Lee and Uber bring clamour and chaos to private transport whilst its daily congestion charge and road camera fines line the coffers of its government.
Its incredible labyrinth of museums, art galleries and concert halls wrapped in the bow of history is the envy of the planet. The old Tower of London as the seat of original government no longer executes people but stands as an attraction to many a ghoul, whilst the location of those hung drawn and quartered at Smithfield and Marble Arch are still proudly spoken of. Its London prisons built in Victorian times remain as torrid reminders to the populous and the scales above the Old Bailey a reminder of how ones life can so easily tip the wrong way.
London boasts the tallest building in Europe built on the wrong side of the Thames yet like cancer continues to feed all tributaries of life. Its main line railway stations connecting the masses via tunnel to Europe breaks with our island status yet the 2000 year debate to be joined with our continent continues. Its London buses driven no longer by the Jamaican but by Somalians and Ethiopians no longer know where Trafalgar Square is; the 87 languages heard create the buses of Babel daily.
It’s a city that somehow works, it’s a city of constant change; yet the longer one lives in it the more stranger one becomes. Squeezed like toothpaste, one can see one’s personal end and as we long for London of old we reminisce and are saddened at its plight not might. It’s the centre of all yet we know there is a better life beyond but we are glued to its connectivity, vibrancy and opportunity.
Shaneen and her family – true Londoners.
Shaneen Clarke is an author, speaker and evangelist who speaks and ministers internationally and has written Dare to be Great. She has been responsible for many educational and women’s initiatives and instigated the Ritz Tea in London where famous leaders address faith issues. She is a fluent Punjabi and Mandarin speaker in addition to her native English, and is married with two grown children.
We can be at home with members of the family of God, wherever in the world we find ourselves. What an amazing truth and gift, as Sharon Brown so movingly writes this week in our home series. I rave about her novels in the Sensible Shoes series, in which her characters live out the spiritual disciplines in a rich and layered way. I never thought fiction could be such a wonderful vehicle for bringing the spiritual disciplines to life. Read them! And please join me in reading her story about a speaking engagement where it all went seemingly wrong.
Recently I found myself far away from our home in West Michigan in order to speak at a conference in Edmonton, Alberta. My first morning there I was introduced to Sue, my volunteer guide for the weekend. “It’s my job to make sure you’re taken care of,” she said. “Each of us makes sure our presenters get where they need to be.” So we talked that morning in the hotel lobby about shuttles and meal times, workshop locations and other logistics. The conference was a well-oiled operation, and the first day of leading my intensive six-hour workshop on responding to the love of God through the practice of spiritual disciplines went off without a hitch.
Until.
Until I ate something for dinner that did not agree with me. And my reaction to that something was so violent that I ended up flat on a couch in the presenters’ “green room” with a conference center medic trying to get my blood pressure to register.
Far away from home.
With my husband Jack and our son David.
Because the medic could not get my blood pressure stabilized, the paramedics were called at 9pm, and I was transported by ambulance to an Edmonton hospital, with Sue sitting in the front seat, holding my purse. “I’m not leaving you,” she insisted whenever I (rather incoherently) suggested that she should go home to get some rest. “This is what I signed up for.”
This was SO not what either one of us had signed up for. But she never complained. At 2am she and her husband, Howard, were still sitting beside me in an Emergency Room waiting area, me slumped over in a wheelchair, an IV port still in my hand, and Sue with her hand on my shoulder, gently rubbing my back and saying periodically, “The Lord is here. Jesus is with you.”
Yes. He was.
The hospital staff asked if Sue and Howard were “family.” Yes. They were. They are. Far away from home I was reminded of what it means to be at home in the body of Christ, to be loved by brothers and sisters who have only just learned your name.
Sue and her husband Howard, celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. This sweet picture captures their spirit.
“As the Father has loved me,” Jesus said, “so I have loved you. Now abide in my love.”
I love Eugene Peterson’s rendering of that verse: Make yourselves at home in my love.
This is the theme I write about, the theme I speak about, how God invites us to know ourselves as he names us: beloved children who have been called to make ourselves at home in his love. And when our hearts need to be assured and reassured of that love, what a gift to have brothers and sisters embody it, reminding us that wherever we are, we are at home in him.
In Edmonton I was thrilled to meet a “member of the family” who has long been a mentor and inspiration for me: Philip Yancey and his lovely wife, Janet.
By the grace of God (and through his power being perfected in my weakness), I was able to lead two more workshops just hours after being released from the hospital. Food poisoning, the doctor declared, after investigating a myriad of possibilities.
What a terrible experience, those who heard the story through the grapevine declared.
But I had a different testimony. I got to see the glory of God. I got to see the love of God made incarnate through his people. I was given an experience that brought to life for me (again) the words I long for all of us to embrace in ever deepening ways. “I’ve loved you the way the Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love.”
Even—and especially—when we’re “far away from home.”
Sharon Garlough Brown is an author, retreat speaker, and spiritual director. A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, Sharon has served on the pastoral staff of congregations in Scotland, Oklahoma, England, and most recently in West Michigan, where she co-pastored Redeemer Covenant Church with her husband, Jack, for many years. Her spiritual formation novels, Sensible Shoes and Two Steps Forward, follow the journey of characters who are learning to rest in the love of God. Her third novel in the Sensible Shoes series, Barefoot, will be released by InterVarsity Press this November.
I’m delighted to welcome Penelope Swithinbank to the “There’s No Place Like Home” series. I knew of Penelope before I knew her, for she and her husband arrived at my former home church in Virginia shortly after I moved to her native England. They now run a gorgeous-looking retreat centre that I long to visit in the beautiful English countryside. We most often “see” each other online now, and I so appreciate Penelope’s wise and gracious insights. Her post had me smiling and tearing up.
“Shrimp for supper,” I announced to my hungry husband. “Same recipe as that one I tried in the States last week.” I think he started salivating. We had visited our American grandsons in America, and I’d found a new recipe which we’d loved: skewered shrimp. Now I wanted to recreate it in Wiltshire, and had eagerly pounced on a packet of shrimp I’d spotted when shopping.
Time to cook; I’d soaked the bamboo skewers in preparation and slit open the defrosted packet. Out tumbled tiny, tiny pathetic pink things. Not the large succulence I was expecting; these were miniscule. Lots of them to be sure, but far too small to be threaded on to skewers.
And then I remembered – we are two nations divided by a common language. What England calls prawns are what America calls shrimp, and they are huge in the States and tiny in the UK. I should have looked for ‘jumbo prawns’ or ‘tiger prawns’ in England. At least I had remembered that zucchini are courgettes and summer squash merely the yellow ones.
We ate shrimp and courgette risotto for supper. It was edible (just) but not what was expected, and a poor substitute.
Same word but different meanings. And I had forgotten my translation skills. The years we spent living in the States should have reminded me of the need for interpretation. I used to dread using some word in a sermon that might be perfectly normal and acceptable in English, but have an entirely different and unsuitable meaning for my American congregation.
“Let’s make a list of differences,” Patti exclaimed enthusiastically, as we told each other about trunks and boots, pavements and sidewalks, bonnets and hoods. A gloriously correct Southern Lady, Patti found paper and pen and drew a line down the centre (center!) of the page. She wrote at the top of the left hand column: “English” and listed trunk and sidewalk and hood. Her pen hesitated at the top of the righthand column and she turned back to me. “So what do YOU speak?” she asked, bewildered.
Two nations divided by a common language, said George Bernard Shaw.
And then there’s “home.” Where is it? What is it?
American granny.
When we lived in Virginia, despite the fact that we were ‘having a blast,’ and following the Lord’s calling to minister there, I often had moments of overwhelming grief. I would wander into my elder daughter’s bedroom and stand there sobbing, knowing that she was thousands of miles away in the UK at university and that my son, also in England, was now married and would never join us to live in the States.
It wasn’t place I was missing, but people, family. When we were all together, whether in England or Virginia, that was ‘home.’ Eating together, laughing, sharing memories, sharing griefs and joys. Enjoying one another’s company.
And now, with family both sides of the Atlantic (the younger daughter married a Virginian!) I have one foot each side of the Pond. Where is ‘home?’ And whichever side of the Pond I find myself, half of me is missing what, or rather who, is on the other side. I miss the company of my family.
English granny.
Cue a sermon illustration, of course. My preacherly mind wonders which one to pursue – the language of heaven, the homeliness of heaven (oops, homey-ness for American readers) …
But it’s people, family, relationship, which impacts most, I think. Home, for me, is both America and England. I want to live in both, at the same time, holding all those I love around me forever. I could happily live in either – or both. Wherever my family is. I long for their company. But two-thirds live in London and a third in Virginia. When I’m in one place, I long for the other.
And what about heaven? Do I long to live there too? With my church family, with the communion of saints, with the Lord forever. Do I long for the company of heaven? Com pane: with bread, eating and sharing in the feast that will be ours in heaven.
“And then there will be one huge family reunion with the Master. So reassure one another with these words.” (1 Thessalonians 4:17–18. The Message)
Bet the prawns – or shrimp – are larger there, as well.
Penelope Swithinbank is the Director of Ministry for Ministries by Design. She is an ordained Anglican priest and a trained Spiritual Director. She is married to Kim and they run the Vine at Mays Farm, a Christian retreat centre in Wiltshire. Penelope and Kim have 3 grown and married children and 6 grandchildren. She loves reading, the theatre, walking the dog and looking after her grandchildren on both sides of the Atlantic.
I love this series, “There’s No Place Like Home,” because of the many rich contributions from thoughtful, deep writers. There’s more to come in the following weeks and months, but I wanted to break in today with a post inspired by the community here in Spain which feels like a home away from home.
I get choked up at the going out and coming back, for it makes me remember that I’m sent. Not only am I sent from my parent’s home into the world, but I’m sent from the States to the UK. I’m sent this week from London to Elche to lead this retreat. I’ll be sent in May to Glasgow and Gloucestershire. We’re sent out, and then we return home.
