Our
Dream Home
“What
is the connection between the home we knew and the home we dream? I believe
what we long for most in the home we knew is the peace and charity that, if we
were lucky, we first came to experience there, and I believe that it is the
same peace and charity we dream of finding once again in the home that the tide
of time draws us toward.”
Frederick
Buechner (The Longing for Home, p.3; Harper Collins, 1996)
Watching
the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris yesterday, I felt a peace
settle around me that I have not felt in five years. Biden’s words of comfort
and encouragement, of uniting and moving forward together seemed a soothing
balm after so much divisiveness and chaos. Not because he can wave a magic wand
and make a pandemic go away, but because he spoke like a good father who wants to comfort
his family.
We have
had a four-year immersion in the “bad father” archetype—critical, dogmatic,
demanding, punishing, terrifying. So, to have someone speak in a calming voice
and reassure us that we are “good people” was a Band-aid on the wound of the American
psyche. It is the equivalent of going home to all the good stuff we remember from
childhood—the loving parents, the good and familiar food, the smells, and the sounds
of voices we have heard since before we were born. Of course, many of us did
not grow up in that sort of copacetic environment, but it is still our image of
the ideal home—the one we wish we had grown up in. Good father, good mother, loving
and supportive environment—that is what every child, young and old desires.
When I
was in Indiana to be with my friend who was dying, his gathered siblings and
children made dinner the evening before his death. Part of that dinner was the barley
“grits” and brown bread that were traditional from their childhood. The recipe
and “just the right juju” are passed along from generation to generation. In
their moment of loss, they returned to the comforting food of that time and
place. That is home. The presence of their brother and sisters and children is
home. The jovial conversation, routine banter and reminiscences carried forward
from childhood—that is home. Whether or not one actually grew up in happy circumstances,
there are still these markers of care and love that bind us together as a family,
a clan. They are the signals that link us in time and over generations, that tell
us, “This is where I belong. These are my people. This is home.”
That is
what I felt yesterday. We returned home to the people who have cared for us since
we were a twinkle in our daddy’s eyes. There is hard work ahead. It will not be
easy. We still have raw wounds and divisions, and we will have to keep wearing
the masks and using the sanitary practices to protect us from this terrible
virus. But there is a “good father” in the house, and now, a “good mother” too,
and they will create a home for everyone who lives under their roof. That’s my
dream. I look forward to living it.
In the
Spirit,
Jane
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