Homes & Tornadoes

I used to have a rabbit called Holger, who'd bite through our furniture and leave the Styrofoam spilling out of the couches and traces of sawdust in his trail. You could always tell where Holger had been, such was the magnitude of his culinary adventures.

The chaotic scene which ensued stood in grave contrast to our normally neat and tidy home. And because we lived on the 4th floor, we couldn’t let Holger out into the garden to blow off steam. We had to accept the whirlwind that he was - for better or worse.

Funnily enough, after a while I got used to the Styrofoam. I’m sure everyone has a list of home improvements they intend to get around to. At first they bother us immensely, but after a while we kind of get used to them. And because they often carry a story with them, we can even begin to treasure them. So this got me thinking that, while science can tell us how to build a house, it can’t tell us what makes a home. Without us it’s just a house. We tidy it, paint it, put coasters under cups, hang our family photos on the walls, and allow rabbits to gnaw through furniture. Home is the one place that we can shape exactly the way we want it.

Philosopher Alain De Botton says:

"People have strained their backs carving flowers into their roof beams and their eyesight embroidering animals onto their tablecloths. They have given up weekends to hide unsightly cables behind ledges. They have thought carefully about appropriate kitchen work surfaces. They have imagined living in unattainably expensive houses pictured in magazines and then felt sad, as one does on passing an attractive stranger in a crowded street"
A lady I once knew was always changing something about her house. Whenever I visited her she was holding a curtain rail or assembling a new piece of IKEA furniture. She should have been crowned the Danish version of Martha Stewart, but unfortunately became really ill and had to drop the interior decorating.

It’s a tricky path we’re on when our homes begin to define who we are. But when we repeat the much loved phrase home is where the heart is - we’re talking about a deep longing which I believe God has put inside each of us. Yesterday’s Location, Location reminded me of this. The usually calm Phil Spencer almost lost his rag at the husband’s indifference to the locations he’d offered blood, sweat and tears trying to find.

“You must have an opinion about where you live” Phil asked in disbelief.

Husband just shrugged

“As long as my wife’s happy – I’m happy”

Happy days.

Wouldn’t house hunting be so much easier if all husbands were this servant hearted? Small or non-existent garages would pose no problem as long as the wife was happy as clams - apparently open clams give the appearance of smiling. Even in the city of Murmansk, Russia, where men build their garages far away from where they live to escape their humdrum lives, husbands would forego their garage privileges and spend the money, instead, on outdoor patio extensions.

In real life, of course, relationships are about giving and receiving and choosing a home should be a joint decision. It's just that finding a home is easier when you know where your heart is. For the husband on Location, his home was wherever his wife was. No doubt, people add something vital to what it means for us to feel at home somewhere. It also strikes me that though God created the earth to be our home, and declared it good, it doesn't look the way it's meant to. Our home has been messed with – as if scoundrels have plundered it and laid it bare. We are reminded of this every time we witness the suffering that leaves children as orphans and people without a home. In DR Congo, four million lives are estimated to have been lost due to conflict induced poverty. Over 2 million people remain internally displaced living in camps, and there are more than 300,000 Congolese refugees in neighboring countries.

So after thinking about this giant mess we’ve made of our earthly abode, and the pictures that accompany these thoughts, something begins to stir in my heart. A hope for a better future; a better home for the next generation. Because real mission is not written as a list of rules on a papyrus scroll, but on the hearts and lives of ordinary people like you and me. And we’re not alone; hundred thousand tiny dots connected make a much bigger picture. It’s really important to recognise that the little bit each person gives is crucial to the bigger picture. What would happen if the church invested its resources in responding to pressing issues such as homlessness? Rob Bell says: "from my experience, if the church was fully engaged, there are a number of issues that would go away". I agree. I dream of a church where the sick are healed and oppressed are set free; where we are stimulated to new levels of endeavour; where we refuse to denigrate others because, they too, are created in God's image.

Finally, I stumbled across this…

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's mansion are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” John 14:1-3

Mansion huh? That’s a pretty huge house in human standards, but when Jesus talks about mansions I think……gargantuan, massive, towering. It’s pretty awesome that Jesus is preparing a room for us in a ginormous mansion! He will come again, don’t ask me how, and personally receive us into heaven one day.

Wohoo.

No matter how beautiful or decrepit our earthly homes are, compared with the one God has prepared for us, they’re probably always going to look in a poor state of repair.

Like the kind that would lose it's roof in a tornado....