A SPIRITUALITY OF HOME
“ WHEREVER YOU STAND, BE THE SOUL OF THAT PLACE.” — RUMI
BY MELINA RUDMAN
It is a cool and rainy Easter morning as I begin this reflection. I am in my writing spot (a comfortable old sofa in the living room,) tapping my first thoughts onto keys that make words appear on a screen. There is a mug of hot coffee in easy reach. My dog, Luna, lies warm, fed, and happy beside my outstretched legs. We are home.
We are home where there is focaccia dough rising on the kitchen counter, galette crust chilling in the refrigerator, and five Easter baskets destined for the grandchildren waiting on the dining room table. We are home.
I believe our homes reflect and reveal us to the world. This is true in all the places we call home: our nation, our physical shelter, our hearts, our lived (and thus truest) beliefs. The great Persian mystic, Rumi, said: Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place. I believe our souls, our words, our actions, intentions, and lives leave imprints upon the fabric of time and space. There is a palpable difference in the way places feel to us, Creatures that we are, we know when we are in a place where there has been great suffering, great peace, great awe, evil, or joy.
My own home is a sturdy house where my children grew up; my mother aged and died; my father and my in-laws visited, sat for meals, and celebrated family; a place where my grandchildren now play and “help” in the gardens. Home is where my husband and I have loved each other some 40 years now, even when times are tough, money is tight, even when we disagreed about almost
everything, wondered who we were becoming, and whether we could make this marriage work.
This place is a container: full of memory, energy, dreams, decisions, and their consequences. It is like a book still being written; holding the stories of our lives in words and illustrations, changing and evolving as we do.
At 67 years of age, I am grateful to finally be at home in myself, too. I am occupying my own life; living into my beliefs, sharing my words, creating quilts, baking bread, making gardens, growing older and (hopefully) wiser, and more loving.
This has not been easy work, though healing and freeing work never is. When I was younger, I had a recurring night dream about my house (which never looked like my actual house, but was the home of my psyche and persona.) In the dreams I would find entire new wings of my home: rooms that I had never entered, rooms I was afraid to enter. For some months I found myself needing to journey through dark tunnels in the basement; places where I feared monsters and death itself were lurking in wait. I would walk through this darkness (my own unconscious) with a group of people (who were all aspects of myself) shining our flashlights before us to know where to step next.
Of course, the darkness never killed me or even harmed me. The dreams taught me that fear feeds the shadows and shadows feed the fear in a terrible symbiotic loop. As Jesus says in the
“THAT THE CITIZENS OF MODERN NATIONS DO NOT INSIST ON SAFE HOUSING FOR ALL OUR SISTERS AND BROTHERS SPEAKS TO HOW LITTLE OUR HEARTS HAVE GROWN OVER TIME.”
My prayer for us all:
May we be and provide homes for those who need shelter and refuge.
May we welcome and wash the feet of the weary, may we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, tend the sick, educate the ignorant, soothe the fearful and love one another.
May it be so. Courage my dears.
non-canonical Gospel of Thomas: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
Walking through those scary places with and within myself saved me. Now, within myself I am finding a sacred heart, a refuge, a fountain of living waters, a garden in which to put down roots and bear fruit. There are still fears and phantoms to meet and heal, but mostly there is peace. I am grateful for that, too.
That I am home and at peace within myself is a good thing, because I feel I am without a home in my own nation in these days of rising authoritarianism, and it is disconcerting and distressing. I no longer recognize my country, or even some of my neighbors. I live in a blue state, in a purple town, and still, there are those who wear their fear proudly in the form of red hats; those who shout their ignorance with yard signs and decorated pickup trucks. Like the shadows and fears of my dream-work; our nation needs to face the truth of how we began, who we have always been, and who we will become if we choose love or choose fear. I pray we choose wisely. We shall see.
“Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his
head”. (Matthew 8:20) Jesus wandered, though he was not lost. He was always at home within himself; yet lived with no home in a world that did not recognize him. His world, like ours, was an age of empire with all its oppression, injustice, and violence. Poor and homeless himself, he met the hungry, the sick, and the poor in spirit right where they were: around their fires and in their camps and rough shelters. For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, Jesus highlighted the trauma of being without place. That the citizens of modern nations do not insist on safe housing for all our sisters and brothers speaks to how little our hearts have grown over time.
Still, some 2,000 years after that first Easter, the risen Christ makes a home within those whose hearts offer welcome; those whose hearts belong to love, and whose lives tear down walls, open doors, invite in, make room for, wash feet, set tables, serve meals, and join hands with.
Melina Rudman is a writer, spiritual director, the interim coordinator of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Union Theological Seminary, and author of Sacred Soil A Gardener’s Book of Reflection (Anamchara Books). Melina lives with and near her family in Rocky Hill, Connecticut.