It is still weird, though, to recognize that my childhood home is no longer; at the same time, going home to a different house has created for me a more expansive understanding of what “home” is. When I think about “home” now, I think about a variety of things: my mom’s cooking, my cat sleeping through another slow morning, stacks of books and papers, different dining room tables, couches on which I’ve spent hours with friends, and so much more. These images take place in a variety of houses: ones I’ve moved out of, the place I live now, and the many houses of friends that were more “home” to me than my own residences in different seasons of life.
What do you think about when you think about “home”? During Advent, we look forward to Christ’s birth and the promise that God will make God’s home with us. We remember that God’s home is more than a building or a single body; instead, Emmanuel, God-with-us, floods this world with their presence, and that the home of God’s love is something that can never be walled away but is offered to all people in all moments. This year, though we have spent so much more time at home, we have been challenged by rapid changes in our world and may struggle to see where God is and what God is up to in the midst of everything. Where may God be making a new home with and around you this Advent?