A Sense of Home

Journal quilt (landscape) for O-Ho Quilt Guild

Google+ has got me thinking about circles: closed circles, circles like ripples bringing change, circular and circuitous paths that flow and undulate and sometimes bring us back somewhere close to our original setting-off point... although that path is never entirely circular, because some small thing has always changed while we have been travelling.

I think our sense of home and homecoming is a bit like that. It's about where we feel safe and welcomed, not always a geographic location. The places we call home are just tangible reminders of people and events that have given us a sense of belonging and shelter.

When I think about our cottage, I think about generations past and future; some of whom---like my late grandparents and my recent grandsons---have never even met each other; and yet they live in that same expanding circle. Over the years, they have had (or will have) the same sense of belonging... through stories shared and through travelling a similar curve of the path: swimming, boating, playing, reading, sharing joyful and quiet times with family and friends.

"Will the circle be unbroken, by and by, Lord, by and by?"

I ask myself how we could all include a few more people in our overlapping circles so that no-one gets left out in the cold.