Home is a place

I annoy myself as a writer. One of my favorite authors is C.S. Lewis. I can always tell when I've been reading something of his because my writing tries to sound as whimsical as he did. I'll use words like "indubitably," "proper," and "rather," and I'll end my sentences with "Indeed!"

I also annoy myself with how much time I spend thinking about why I write stories. I spend so much time thinking about it that I often don't get around to the actual writing.

Sometimes, a memory is the spark: going to a football game with Dee Daw, proposing to my wife, or an evening spent with what might have been a cult.

Other times, something happens, and I try to make sense of it.

And the rest of the time, I want a place to make dumb jokes. 

Rarely do I start with an idea. I want to. I want to begin with something I know is true, MY TRUTH, and serve it fresh from the microwave. But I've learned that when I start with some truth I'm certain about, it indubitably packs a lot of artificial heat and improper noise and is rather trite. Rather trite indeed!

I'm trying to prove how smart I am (and use big words).

I say all that because today is different. Today I know something: home is a place.

It's Holy Week here (next week for you Orthodox folks). With Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, the story's meaning is pretty straightforward: home is a place. It's not a word, it's not an idea, it's not some escapist longing for crazy people, it's a place.

You've felt it. You've had moments where the air breathed easier, time eased by like the river where your grandpa liked to fish, where the fragrances, be they wildflowers or garlic bread in the oven, are so thick you can touch them. It's a porch, a kitchen table, or a living room where the Braves are on. It doesn't take a theologian or a poet to tell you what that's supposed to mean: you know what a home is. Your senses have told you that much. And you're either searching for it in a someday, tasting it in the present in sweet, fleeting morsels, or missing one.

Jesus invited us to his home. And he had skin, breathed, ate, used the bathroom, smiled, sneezed, and laughed even after the resurrection (remember Thomas). The house he's invited us to must be a real place, too.

"If it were not so, I would have told you."

Even still, I look up at the night sky. "Anything is possible for you. Why this way?" There is weeping in this garden.

But it will be all right, by and by, and all the sweeter.

May we taste home for the sweet moments we sense it. May we tell stories of the places we've lost, the people who are gone, the ones who made those places for us. May we know a home is a place.

He is risen. He is risen, indeed.