“Let Home find me again, so that I know just where I am. In the hand and heart of You, who makes all things new.”
JOEL BIDDERMAN
Home is Calling is a song that I wrote as I contemplated a quote by author Frederick Buechner. In his book The Longing For Home, he wrote:
“I believe that home is Christ’s kingdom, which exists both within us and among us as we wend our prodigal ways through the world in search of it” (pg. 28).
I thought about my journey, and the prodigal ways that I’ve wended – the wildernesses, the loneliness, the joys, the heartbreaks, the defining moments. And through it all, Christ’s kingdom (the Creator’s Good Road) has beckoned, wooed, pursued, and captured me again and again.
thoughts from the journey
Home is Calling
Home again. A common denominator in my spiritual journey over the years has been the idea/identity of being a visitor, and in this metaphorical way of thinking, "home" is Heaven. I've quite literally been a bit of a nomad too, but we see this idea in Scripture woven all throughout its text. Scripture is written to an exilic people, strangers, and foreigners, and "home" is the place of union with God - back to Eden. But the idea of home [...]
Home is Calling: Mountain Tops
I’ve recently been listening to a series by the Bible Project in which they highlight that “in ancient Israel’s imagination, the mountain is where the heavenly realm in the skies meets the human realm on land. In this place, people can access God’s wisdom and power and his very presence.” It’s in this place where Heaven and earth meet, and in this narrative, we see how the presence of God comes down to dwell with people in the tabernacle in [...]
Home is Calling: Rerooting
Sometimes in our journey home we have to be far enough away from it to return with new eyes. Call it what you will, a repentance of the soul and mind, or fresh, new ways of seeing. In my journey to the Pacific Northwest I pushed myself (with my family) as far as I could to the ocean in the Olympic National Forest. The beauty of the Northwest is captivating. When you’ve grown accustomed to the dry desert that seems [...]
Home is Calling: South Fork
I returned home to a sacred place in the region in the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest. It’s a place where in my teens I experienced God in a substantial way. Just a few miles out of the town where I lived, I would often hop on my motorcycle and make my way to the picnic and trailhead area of the South Fork Colorado River that could be reached by driving down a winding road into the park area. Covered by [...]
Home is Calling: The Mogillon Rim Trail
Today I walked a trail along the Mogillon Rim, that I would walk (and trail run) in my early twenties, and it took me to a rock on which I used to sit, write music on, pray on, get lost in my thoughts...really, I used to meet with God there. It was a return to a thin place of quiet and consistency. There is a theology of place where we see Creator getting man’s attention. Sinai, Jerusalem, Bethel - the [...]