Searching for home in a vast (and fast) world.

A blessing for all who feel somewhat homeless sometimes.

Rain pouring down in-front of our window.

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Thank you for reading, sharing and supporting Cloister Notes, a letter for dancing monks, weary pilgrims, and wounded healers.

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Dear fellow pilgrim,

Do you know the feeling when you feel homeless in your own home?

When you wonder where you belong, I mean, truly and deeply? When you feel almost guilty that despite the beauty around you, you feel inwardly homeless?

I know these feelings very well. As a traveler between worlds they have been my constant companion.

**

Last week we arrived back home in the American Midwest, at least physically.

My luggage still stands untouched waiting to be unpacked. My desk still waits patiently for me to stop by.

I walk the pristine neighborhood of our little college town, stopping here and there to chat with lovely people.

But stranded in-between work schedules and home life I walk homeless-ly through my own home.

Watching the clouds passing by like from a distance, the beauty of our overgrown garden as though in slow motion, my child giggling and enjoying the comfort of her long-missed home, when like through cloud, it dawned on me:

I might be home, but my soul is not - yet.

She must be still wandering between the worlds, flying with the clouds, wondering how to come home.

Above the clouds and a vast world my soul still flies.

I have always been a slow traveler. And when I fell in love with this American professor the greatest doubt was not our love. It was the travel!

Falling in love with this man, the considerate voice in me said, you will spend the rest of your life on air planes. Despite that this is not the most eco-conscious way I would like to live, it also requires us to cross oceans in a few hours.

Bridging continents in less than a day.

What could be considered a blessing of the modern world also has a price tag.

We often travel faster than our soul can fly!

Do people know where home is when traveling faster and further than ever before? When moving from one place to another for business or wellness or family visits?

Are you home in your home?

**

Only the yard gives me reprieve in these wired in-between-days.

Caring for the overgrown garden beds, planting some young tomatoes with my little one, walking through clumps of fresh cut grass, and picking flowers to bring inside is the only medicine which works when my soul is in-between.

The garden always invites me into the present time. Thank you garden! Thank you, “viriditas.”

So, dear fellow traveler, if this resonates at all with you, and since you are still here, it might well have done so, I was wondering what blessing I can give you for these in-between-moments of our life, when home is not home (yet) and our heart needs time.

Are those moments not threshold places themselves, when the old has not passed yet and the new not fully yet arrived and we feel like treading water?

My dear fellow writer

Christine Vaughan Davies

just wrote a beautiful poem on those in-between spaces in her last post. And thus, since my soul is still traveling, I am grateful to share her words with you today. (You can find her whole post on hospitals as thin places here.)

Thresholds

by CHRISTINE VAUGHAN DAVIES

One quiet eve, when memories dance,

The veil grows thin, a fleeting chance.

Where earth and sky begin to blend,

In tears and whispers, souls transcend.

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A mountain peak, a wild expanse,

A silent chapel, a mystic trance.

Remove your shoes on hallowed ground,

Assuredness of God abounds.

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So let us seek, with open eyes,

These thresholds where the spirit flies.

In every moment, every breath,

The thin place beckons, life and death.

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For here we find, some transient grace,

A glimpse of truth, a sacred space.

In each new hope and fervent prayer,

Thin places linger, everywhere.

***

And may you find home on your journey even in in-between places,

Almut with Chuck and little one

PS: If you can, leave a heart, a word or a line which resonated with you in the comments, so we know you have been here :-)

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In case you missed it

Longing for a spirit moment.

On being Martha (and Mary).

Whatever you are carrying, love carries it first:

To your broken heart

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