Writing from Home - and Desperately Homesick

Take a break; catch your breath. Get some rest. Maybe you just need some time off. Take it easy. Don’t think so much. Don’t feel like you have to seize the day or change the world or 'produce,' let yourself off the hook. Spend some time at home.

Where is home? I’ve tried to make our little house in Highlands Ranch a home but I spend so much time here already that it feels confining. And there’s no other place (on earth) that really feels like home to me either. Not my mom and stepdad’s new house, not my dad and stepmom’s boat, not just being in the Northwest. I feel like a guest there; I don’t really know my way around anymore. It doesn’t feel much like home! A little bit, maybe. But it is hard to live a life with so little schedule or structure for very long.

To ‘get away’ anywhere else, like taking a vacation or even just a few days in the mountains (when I don’t really like being in the mountains) sounds so much more draining than refreshing. I don’t want something new and unfamiliar. I don’t want to be alone, it's not good for me to be alone and idle! I want partnership and purpose and to be part of something bigger than myself, I don’t want to just sit around being lonely and doing nothing.

It used to be that Caleb Project was my home, my family, the center of my world. There were days I didn’t want to go to the office, things I didn’t want to deal with like there are today, but in general it was hard to keep me away. My Caleb Project co-workers and contacts were my best friends; there was nowhere else I’d rather be. I don't know, maybe that's not healthy, but that's the way it was.

Well, it’s not like that now. I still have my job more or less and some of the same people are still there at 10 W. Dry Creek Circle. But for almost all intents and purposes, it’s gone. My pleasures, my memories, the place where I felt safe and known and effective, and that was the focus of my closest relationships: gone. To the extent Caleb Project was my home, it’s deserted, burned down. Something else may be built in its place, but there's not much there now. I don't know how long I can hold out, or if I can and am willing to do my bit in the rebuilding.

What do you do when you are homesick and your house has burned down?

There is one thing that sounds like going home: being with Tom! ... in Australia or Central Asia. But it seems so much to ask of one man: Will you be my home? Just because we both want a home does not mean we'd be effective in providing that for each other. I’m not in a place to make that kind of decision yet. But of course it’s often much on my mind, huge, way bigger than the stuff with work.

So, yes: I am getting over some kind of infection, but I’m also depressed, can you tell?! This things don't usually last long but they are scary while they do. One of the things I hate about being depressed is that it is so unfair to other people. We have so much to be grateful for, to be happy about, why do I have to be so negative and useless? Others try to help, but I don't know what I want, I don't know what I need and when other people tell me or try to draw it out of me I get frustrated by that too. However, I have come to believe that the only way through such a test is just that: through it. Not around it.

Well, yesterday’s sermon was on Joshua 1:1-9. Here’s what God says to Joshua, who may have felt much the same as I do at that point. Homeless, hopeless, grieving. Ill-equipped to face the future. Uncertain that he had what it took or that God was leading him. Wondering where to look for direction, what to do. Feeling alone. So God came to him and addressed these things specifically, and turned his perspective around as sometimes only God can:

After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them - to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates - all the Hittite country - to the Great Sea on the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

"Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

My prayer for myself lately is: God, do your thing; be as thorough as you need to be, and as gentle as you can be. Blogging does help, you know, in the same way that counseling does. I started this almost two hours ago, came back and tweaked it - and it provides shape for what's going on in my head, helps me get a bit of distance on it so I can tell what I'm looking at.