Home
by Father Paul Keenan
 Within each and every one of us, there lies a place called "Home." It may look and feel different at various points in our lives. There are times, perhaps long ones, in which Home seems to be conspicuously absent.
(Did it move away and forget to tell us, or did we wander off from it?) It is there nonetheless and if we are not presently aware of living in it, we are necessarily engaged in the search for it. Home is that place where we feel the greatest inner warmth, where we can go to be ourselves, and it is where we must go if we are to fulfill our purpose in the world.
Home is an inner place, not an outer one. It is important for us to know that, and to know it for sure. Numerous people and influences in our lives will blithely assure us that Home is somewhere on the outside. People spend lifetimes, fortunes and much, much energy trying to find it or create it outside of themselves. But until Home is found on the inside, all our best efforts to build it on the outside eventually come to naught.
Contrary to appearances and to common belief, Home is not something that can be lost. Certainly, there are times in life when we feel rootless, Homeless, sitting among the ruins of shattered lives and broken dreams. In those times, everything in our experience tells us that all is lost, that we are lost. The truth goes otherwise. No matter how discombobulated our lives seem to be, there is still that inward place to which we may turn for solace.
The illusion that we have nowhere to turn, that we might lose our Home, is the basis of fear. When someone or something threatens to take away our security, our life, our domicile, our means of support, or people that we love, we become afraid and often panic. The basis of that fear is our belief that our very roots can be taken away. Our enemies will have us believe that they have the ability to destroy us. All their power over us lies in their assuring us of the truth of that belief. They will sue us in a court of law, they tell us. They will soil our name in the public square. They will make a laughingstock of us. They will rob us of every penny we own. It is in just such moments that we must remember where our true Home lies and how impossible it is for them to destroy it. Even the ravages of illness, no matter how severe, or the suddenness of an unforeseen accident cannot destroy the foundations of Home...
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Copyright Fr. Paul Keenan. This article was originally
published at our website, SoulfulLiving.com, in December 2003,
as part of Soulful Living's "Graceful Living" Issue.
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