Since I retired, I have been away more than I have been in my house. This means that I have been rethinking what home means.

I’ve written a lot about being a peripatetic worshipper these past four years, and particularly now that I’m on the retired road. I’ve wrestled with and pondered what church means when I am a guest or worker when I attend. What does it mean to not have an ongoing commitment to a church community—which is part of what having a church home means to me.

I make regular financial commitments to support a variety of worshipping communities. Home is more than money. I also have ongoing financial commitments to groups whose purpose I support—ministries of feeding and supporting women and children.

Home has a sense of some sort of familiarity. Home has a sense of a place where peace can be found. Home has a sense of rootedness that doesn’t depend on location or a certain amount of time. It has a sense of commitment regardless of how long I am present there.

Today on this first Sunday after the Epiphany I am in Taos.

Home is sitting in front of the fire for centering prayer and contemplative reading.

Home is drinking a hot beverage in my favorite coffee place with my best friend as I write this blog.

Home is my friend and I praying vesper prayers sitting with a winter sunset.

I (we) can be a viator (a wayfarer, a traveler) and still be home.

Nadia Bolz-Weber wrote about the belonging we automatically receive because whoever we are, wherever we are, we are beloved of God:

A love that is yours quite apart from what you do or don’t do. The kind of love that breaks your heart and then makes it bigger, A love that creates belovedness in the one it rests upon.

So, Beloveds… Be loved. Just sit and be loved. Even if it hurts. Just sit and be loved and be the beloved of God. Because that is who you already are. Amen.

Is this belovedness home?

Perhaps home is about being as present as we are able, wherever we are, in our place of belovedness of God. Granted, some places are easier to be home than others. But home is always as near as our sitting within our belovedness in God.

9th day of Christmas: which G word to choose?

1. Generous.

2. Grateful.

3. Grandsons.

4. Grace.

5. Gratitude.

6. Good.

7. Grand.

8. God.

9. Giving.

9 words for 9 days of Christmas. 🎄

My Christmas visit in Oregon was even more lovely than I’d expected. My family offered the same generous hospitality they always do and more!

There was lots of cooking including raspberry and blueberry bars, sourdough bread, and Chambersville black eyed peas. Good. Grand.

My time with my grandsons was full of joy. A special gift was Jonas cooking dinner for me on Saturday night while the rest of the family was elsewhere. Grateful. Giving.

There was lots of simply hanging together time. Got to love a family that likes to read on New Year’s Eve. Gratitude.

Now waiting at the airport for the beginning of my trip home.

My heart is full of gratitude to a good and generous God that gives me more than I can ask or imagine. Grace.

My Christmas trip to Oregon was delayed due to a case of COVID in my Bend family. After celebrating Eve of the Feast of the Incarnation at St. Paul’s, Navasota (I’ve been there so often that it always feels a bit like going home to family), the first three days of Christmas were spent quietly at home.

Quiet Christmas days can be a gift. I had three slow days (a luxury for all clergy during high holy days).

It also gave me more time to process this new chapter in my life.

I told my Chambersville family when I left them last week that I was going home to write my Christmas sermon, and they asked if I didn’t have an old Christmas sermon I could recycle. Truth is, every sermon I’ve ever preached is tucked somewhere in my spirit; however, I rarely can recall what I preached. The other more important piece is that no two gathered communities are the same, and every sermon is a new beginning as I pray deeply about what God wants me to say to that unique group of people.

I loved revisiting Luke 2 for the gazillioneth time. I always anticipate what little gem that God will reveal. I won’t rewrite the sermon here, but I did hear two invitations in the Gospel:

Like Mary, we are to pause and ponder what God is doing in our lives.

Like the shepherds, we are to share God’s good news of love among us with a world that is yearning to know that love.

I’m taking those as my two invitations during the twelve days of Christmas.

Christmas flight rebooked, I’m now on my way to Oregon for the fourth day of Christmas. I’ve had time to create a new Christmas playlist.

Gently, I’m going as slowly as I can so as to not miss what God is doing.

With curiosity, I’m looking for those invitations to share God’s love.

Enough can be expressed in two ways:

Enough! with an exclamation mark meaning to stop, with a sense of irritation or frustration or even anger.

Then there is enough. followed by a period, meaning a sense of satisfaction, sufficiency, completeness.

Though these days before Christmas can too often feel like the former Enough!, for today I am sitting with the latter enough.

Some folks like to talk about abundance, which is a good thing, I prefer to set my heart on enough. There’s a sense, for me, of not too much and not too little. It feels, for me, like a perfect amount. Enough to share. Enough not to waste.

I’ve had a little bit of a grieving this past week as I finally closed down all my work connections (new phone, new computer). The team hosted my retirement party on Wednesday, and I was so very glad to be with those friends. My heart was filled with their thoughtfulness as we shared treats and laughter and painted pottery. Enough in the sense of satisfaction.

I am on the road via a flight yet again. I’m on my way to see my family in Chambersville with a suitcase full of Advent presents. Enough.

The airport is crowded with families traveling, and this third Sunday of Advent offers many opportunities to pause and pray. Time enough.

And so as I sit awaiting what is next, particularly any surprise travel always holds, I will ponder today’s beauty-ful O Antiphon:

O Wisdom, O holy Word of God,

you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care:

Come and show your people the way to salvation.

Rejoice! Rejoice!