No Peace Until Everyone Has a Home
Day 37
Buechner considers the connection between having a home and being at peace.
“And then homelessness - we're all, by and large, comparatively speaking, rich people and have perhaps more than one home, and yet the question is are we really at home anywhere? Are we really at home in any of our homes? Because it seems to me that to be at home somewhere means to be at peace somewhere, and I have a feeling at some deep level there can really be no real peace for any of us. No real home for any of us until there's some measure of real peace for everybody until everybody has a home. You don't have to be a particularly conscientious or religious person for it to be true of you. I think it's just built into us. We were made by a loving God to love one another, and when we don't, even if we don't think about it and try to look the other way and we see the body in the street in a bag, that other person is part of us. Our peace is threatened by the un-peace of the others. Our homes are not havens when there are so many who have no homes. When we close our eyes to the needs of other people, whether they live on this side of the world or the other side, or under our own roofs, when we close our eyes to their needs, and thus to our own deep needs, we can never really be at home anywhere.”
Frederick Buechner, The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look, and Listen to Life, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, pp113-114.
To help you reflect…
Reflect on the interconnectedness of all human beings and ponder the possibility that your peace and sense of being “at home” is tied to everyone else’s. What would it be like to live and choose from that awareness? Listen for any invitation or inner nudging.
40 Days of Buechner is a free offering but, as an independent writer, I gratefully welcome any financial support my readers may be able to give. If you’re enjoying this journey - or have appreciated any of my free offerings in the past - and you’d like to “buy me a coffee”, you can click the link below (any amount, however small, is welcome and appreciated). I also love to receive your emails, comments and notes. Thank you so much for being here, Jen x