“Where is home?” I startle people with that question sometimes. I mean, “Where is the place that you consider home?” Robert Frost once wrote in Death of a Hired Man, “Home is the place where when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
Rome became home for Paul. When they came to Rome, brothers and sisters traveled to meet him at the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns. A line from a song my dad loves, and I also love speaks of a soldier coming home, “And they’ll all come out to meet me in the shade of that old oak tree. It’s good to touch the green, green grass of home.”
Paul lived in Rome under house arrest, but people had access to him. Even in Rome, especially in Rome, Paul had people. They were his brothers and sisters in Christ. Just seeing them filled Paul with courage and made him grateful. This is our holy heritage in the church. Who does that for us? Who fills us with courage? For whom are we grateful? Home is where those people live.
We lived so far from our biological family when I was growing up. For that reason, we did not return home for the duration of our two four-year terms in Germany. During that time we did not see our aunts, uncles, or grandparents. The population of the bases turned over every three or four years. People were always coming and going. But at the church we found people. Frank and Lulu Gamboa welcomed us to R.A.’s and VBS. Ann Coxwell gave me courage. Jim Hallcom made me grateful. For those years, the church became our home away from home. Where is home, for you?
