The people close to us hurt us the most. Sometimes we feel most alone when we're with family. Often we're homesick even when we're home.
These are a few of the painful ironies of the human condition, ones that become even more acute around the Holidays.
In our globalized economy, where many of us do not live in our "hometown", and perhaps far away from our family or origin, what does it even mean to go "home for the Holidays?" We are displaced, nomadic people – especially in a city like Portland where so many come seeking separation from a town or family or church that was confining and wearying.
Portland may be a more generous and welcoming place in which to make a life than the place we deliberately left, but that's certainly no guarantee that we'll ever feel truly "home."
The nomenclature around homelessness has been shifting recently; it's now considered more appropriate to refer to someone without a permanent, indoor living situation as "houseless" rather than "homeless." This isn't needless linguistic tinkering; it's more accurate.
"Home" designates an existential, or even cosmic idea rather than merely a physical place. We can accordingly be comfortably housed and still feel homeless. Similarly, at least the spiritually- and emotionally-mature among us can lack housing and yet experience a sense of home inside of a human community and/or support structure.
I love the idea of the church being that community, both for people facing housing scarcity as well as for nomadic professionals who move to Portland in search for home in its more existential and spiritual sense.
The writer Frederick Beuchner said, "home is where Christ is" and this is what we'll be talking about tomorrow in the final sermon of our "Places of Advent" series. So far we've looked for God in Bethlehem, Nazareth, Dreams, and in the Desert. Tomorrow Portland is the place of Advent where we hope to find God.
As usual, scroll down for more information on what's going on at Intown and I hope to see you tomorrow.