Читать книгу A Sort of Homecoming - Группа авторов - Страница 17

Jamie Howison

Our souls find rest in God alone

We pine, we strive, we run, we roam

And ‘neath the stray the deeper tone

Our inmost longing to find home

Come home, come home, come home39

—Gord Johnson

We called it home for eighteen years. Built in the early 1900s, it was a three-storey house that the previous owner had gone to great lengths to restore, to the extent of having it lifted so that a new concrete basement could be poured. A century-old house with a ten-year-old high and dry basement was a real find, made all the more attractive by the fact that the previous owner’s working principle had been not renovation or modernization, but restoration. All of the character was fully intact, yet the plumbing, electrical, and insulation had all been attended to. Sold.

We continued to follow that same principle of restoration over the years, adding a wood stove and a screened back porch, then redoing the kitchen and bathroom. The wood siding was scraped and painted, the heavily treed yard landscaped and planted with shade-tolerant perennials. The aging windows were all replaced, but with ones manufactured by a company that specialized in products that suited older homes. We’d tell one another that we weren’t going to move from that house until all of those stairs became a problem; not quite “they’ll have to carry me out feet first,” but awfully close. Often as I’d begin to make my way up the staircase I would place my hand on the heavy old wooden banister, feel its smoothness against my palm, and say aloud to no one in particular, “This is our home.”

And then the disruption came, unexpected and deeply disorienting, and I began a slow year-long process of letting go of that home and sorting out the question of where next. I became a very familiar face at the local Salvation Army thrift store over those months. Bit by bit I cleared things out of the basement, which, like so many basements, was filled with things that really shouldn’t have been kept. The third floor study had a hundred and fifty linear feet of built-in bookshelves, and knowing I’d not again have anything like that in a new place, I spent a week culling my library, setting out five hundred volumes to sell in a book sale I advertized at the church and on social media. Pieces of furniture, some of the artwork, the extra set of dishes we’d rarely ever used, the eight-foot Christmas tree, the ancient Singer sewing machine passed to us by a grandmother, and countless other things all had to go, for I knew that wherever I landed it would never have the space for so many things. At first it was all a bit overwhelming and even heartbreaking, but then it began to feel liberating to so freely release so much. When I heard that a young woman from the church was setting herself up in her own place for the first time, I offered to give her a couch. A friend had always been quite taken by a painting that hung in the hallway, so one day when he was visiting I just took it off the wall and gave it to him. At my little book sale I took real delight in picking out books that I thought each person might like, and letting them have them for the princely sum of a dollar or two. At the end of that afternoon there were still about a hundred and fifty books remaining, which another friend loaded into his van and took off to donate to the Children’s Hospital Book Market. Twice have I gone looking for a book, only to realize that it was one of the ones I’d let go. That’s only two books out of five hundred, which told me I’d been long overdue in coming to hold my library a bit more lightly.

I’d arranged for professional cleaners to come the day after the movers had done their work, to spend four hours doing the sort of deep cleaning that removes all of the finger marks from all of the walls and leaves the floors, kitchen cupboards, and bathroom tile gleaming. I wanted the new owners to be able to walk into the house and see it as a clean, blank slate that they could then begin to make into their own home. Once the cleaners were finished, I did one last walk through the whole house, from that third floor study right down to the high and dry basement. In each room I stopped, aware of how things echoed in emptiness, remembering all the life that had been lived in each space. I paused at the back door, and without really even thinking I dropped to my knees and kissed the hardwood floor. I locked the back door for the last time, and went out into the yard and wept.

* * *

I am deeply drawn to ritual, which is why I so naturally dropped to my knees that day. Deep within myself I had just known that I needed to do something to mark that moment, and so I did. My ritual sensibility is a good part of why I have found myself so very at home in Anglicanism, and why, in the context of my ministry at saint benedict’s table, I have done so many home blessings over the years. Sometimes those were for people moving into a newly purchased house or condominium, but often as not they’ve been for someone who is renting a new place or someone who is making some sort of a significant transition in the place they’ve called home for some time. I’ve done home blessings for people entering that stage called “empty nesting,” for a woman who had lost her husband and was needing to sort out what it meant to live on her own, and for someone who had just finished a complete remodeling of the house she’d owned for close to twenty years and wanted to celebrate a new beginning. I always encourage people to invite friends and family, and we tailor it according to what makes most sense for each particular occasion. Often we celebrate a simple communion as part of the blessing, though only if most of the people who are invited will feel fully able to participate. Sometimes there is a dinner and sometimes wine and appetizers, but one way or the other there is always food and drink to share. At various times I’ve been accompanied by a musician to get us all singing, anointed a front door lintel with chrism, splashed water all around, lit entire spaces with nothing but candles, and even swung an antique incense thurible.

I always emphasize that a home is blessed by the life that is lived in it, but that it is also significant to create a ritual and sacramental pause in which prayers of blessing and celebratory hospitality are shared with some of the people who most matter in our lives. For years now I’ve been using a liturgy that includes elements adapted from a form developed by the Iona community, which has everyone gather in a circle in the living area, with one person standing on the outside as the symbolic stranger. Holding a candle, that person speaks words drawn from Rev 3:20: “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into that house.”40 This is followed by an exchange between me and the householders, which calls them to commit to having hearts open to those who come; open to seeing that in welcoming the guest in a spirit of biblical hospitality, they are in fact welcoming Christ.

Jesus, of course, was the one who famously said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,” (Luke 9:58) which, when you think about it, means that he had voluntarily rendered himself homeless for the sake of the rest of us. All the more reason, then, to follow that famous Benedictine teaching, “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me,”41 because if not us, then who? Besides, as I was rebuilding and reshaping my life and trying to find for myself a new home, I discovered something quite deeply true about extending hospitality.

* * *

The energy it requires to slowly release a place you have long called home is one thing; the energy needed to find somewhere that could be a new home quite another. After looking at the listings online I knew that I needed help, so I contacted the realtor with whom we had worked eighteen years earlier, and who, before that, had worked with my parents and with my brother and his family. His approach to his work is about more than sales, the housing market, and the potential resale value of a purchase. No, he is interested in helping people find homes, and in the case of the house my parents bought and lived in for many years, he had helped them see past all of the decorating, design, and landscaping missteps the previous owner had made, to glimpse what was potentially there for them. Had they gone to view the property on their own, they would have hardly stepped past the front entranceway. In reality it turned out to be the best sort of place for them, an open, bright, and almost elegant sort of home.

When we met together I explained to him that I wanted to live in a condominium, centrally located so that I could walk or bike most of the places I needed to go, but with at least some character. I listed the three neighborhoods I thought were most promising, and over the next month he sent weekly listings that I might consider. Though I was not quite yet in a position to make any offers, he began to take me to see various properties, as much so he could get a better sense of what I was after. Of the first four we saw only one had any appeal, and only marginally so. One of the other three was in a brand new building, and its ceilings were low, its hallways narrow, and the natural light marginal at best. Not a chance. “I wouldn’t let you purchase something this new anyway,” he’d said. “The condominium board is unproven, the quality of construction still impossible to determine. But this does give me a better sense of what you aren’t looking for.”

Then one day about six weeks later, my eye was caught by one of the listings that had landed in my email inbox. Even in the photographs you could see that the place was filled with natural light, thanks to its large windows. And are those built-in bookshelves? It was located in a former factory building in Winnipeg’s historic Exchange district, which also promised character. I called him, and the next day he picked me up to go and take a look.

As soon we walked in the door I began to think, “This is it.” The entranceway opened into the kitchen, which itself opened into a large living and dining room, with a wall of windows facing out into the Western prairie sky. Those windows ran just over sixteen feet across, and seven feet from bottom to top. Framed by exposed brick on each side, the effect of all that light was to open the whole space into the city sky. And then there were those bookcases, from hardwood floor to high ceiling, filling the entire dining area wall. Made of heavy timbers and stained a deep, rich brown, they all but filled before my eyes with my books. “This is it,” I said. “Well, lets look closer, to see what the potential problems might be. Then I’ll need to look at the condominium documents and reserve fund, to make sure it is all in order.” “Okay,” I replied, “but unless you find something seriously wrong, this is the one.”

It was—and is—the one. Aside from a bit of painting and patching, it was what the realtors call “move-in ready,” yet on the day that I actually moved in I found myself strangely conflicted. The carpet we’d bought ten years earlier on a backpacking journey in Turkey was laid out on the floor, looking as if it had always been meant for this place. As the furniture from the house was arranged, I had the same response. It suits, it fits, it reflects me, and it is good and right. At the same time there were all of the boxes of books on the floor, artwork leaning against the walls, a bed to be reassembled, and all too many other boxes full of everything from files to winter clothing to records and CDs. After everyone had left I sat and looked at what still needed to be done, and began to wonder at all that I had lost. I finished making up the bed for the night, set up my stereo so that I could at least have some music for company, dug out towels for the bathroom, and then picked up a book, my laptop, and a bottle of wine, and drove back to the house. The cleaners weren’t going to be there until the next day, after which one of my daughters was going to come with a truck to pick up the furniture from the back porch, so I went and sat out on that porch for the last time, sipping my wine, clearing off email, reading my book, and pretending I still belonged there.

The next morning when I awoke back in the condo, I had these funny few moments of disconnect, almost like, “Who put all of my stuff in this hotel room?” Wandering from the bedroom out into the living area, the sight of all those unpacked boxes just made me sigh. The day my realtor had shown me the place I had been able to see my books on those shelves, but now? Just boxes that needed to be unpacked. That evening my daughter and her husband came by to help me hang the art, including a large canvas he had painted for me the previous summer. That helped. Then two days later my other daughter came to help with those books, and as I stood on the ladder she handed them up to me in little bundles, all organized by category and author. That helped even more. When I got out of bed on the fourth morning, I was greeted by an organized library in a space filled with art and light and color, and I knew that this really was going to be home.

Yet there was one other discovery to be made, which ties back to that Benedictine teaching on hospitality. I discovered that each time someone came by for a visit to see my new place, it would feel even more deeply like home. I organized a house blessing with a circle of friends, which we ended by praying the service of Compline together, with smoke from that thurible filling the room to the point that I began to wonder about the sensitivity of the smoke detector. I began to invite different friends to come by for a meal or appetizers and a drink, and each time the extension of that simple hospitality did a good and deep kind of work on my soul.

I began to expand my practice of hospitality, adding, “To extend hospitality in my home on a regular basis” to the rule of life that I’d framed for myself the previous winter while on retreat. That expansion meant that I’d not just open my door to my family and closest friends, but to others as well. A particularly happy discovery was that my dining room table fits comfortably in this home of mine, and with both leaves in place it can easily seat eight guests. I began gathering my church’s adult baptism and confirmation group in my home, always over a meal that I’ve prepared, which is something I really enjoy doing. I soon began hosting our community’s monthly Artist Network meetings, at which anyone from the church who is involved in an arts practice is welcome to come for encouragement, friendship, and the sharing of our work. I’ve hosted a few gatherings of what we’ve affectionately dubbed the “Wise Elders”; basically a group of seven or eight men from the church who have an annual weekend away at a cottage where we barbeque, drink beer, nap, read, and in long rambling conversations attempt to solve all of the puzzles of our various lives. On the occasions when we decide to gather in the city for an evening, I’m quick to offer to host, and mildly disappointed when someone beats me to it. I’ve currently got a plan in the works for some “listening evenings,” in which I will invite interested people to come for a bit of food and drink, and then sit together and listen to some carefully selected music. The first one might well be the original cast recording of Jesus Christ Superstar (on vinyl, no less . . . ), which I’d schedule for the coming season of Lent, offering some sort of Lent-friendly appetizers. Who will show up for that? Well, that’s the adventure, isn’t it?

None of those gatherings are exactly what you’d call “radical hospitality,” and as I look back at the words of Frederick Buechner in his book The Longing for Home, I find myself at least challenged, if not more than a little humbled. In an essay from the book called “The News of the Day,” part of what Buechner emphasizes is how important it is that we not settle ourselves into indifferent silos when it comes to the longings and needs of the world. As he brings his essay to a close, he offers these words:

To be homeless the way people like you and me are apt to be homeless is to have homes all over the place but not to be really at home in any of them. To be really at home is to be really at peace, and our lives are so intricately interwoven that there can be no real peace for any of us until there is real peace for all of us. That is the truth that underlies not just the news of the world but the news of every one of our own days.42

Reflecting on the work and commitments of Brian Walsh, I can all but hear him say, “alleluia brother!” And I know that it is true, that there really can be no deep or real or lasting peace for any of us until there is real peace for all of us, which is finally an eschatological hope and proclamation. God is not yet finished with us and our world—thank God, because just look at what we have done—but in the meantime those of us who really believe that we’ve not been abandoned to our own devices need to keep opening our doors and opening our hearts. And when we do land well in a place that feels like home, may that never become a silo in which we hide from the longings and hurts and hungers of our neighbors, but instead may it become a resting place that gives us enough peace to muster the courage to get up and do it again.

* * *

And finally a note to Brian, for the next time something brings you to Winnipeg. I don’t have a spare bedroom anymore, so it will be different from the last time you stayed with me. But I do have a hide-a-bed in the living room, and the last guest who slept there tells me it is a good one. Just give me enough notice to get out the sheets and perhaps get something good simmering on the stove.

Bibliography

Buechner, Frederick. The Longing for Home: Recollections and Reflections. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996.

Fry, Timothy, ed. The Rule of St. Benedict in English. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1981.

Johnson, Gord. “Our Souls Find Rest in God Alone.” Unpublished lyrics, 2018.

39. Johnson, “Our Souls Find Rest in God Alone.” Used with permission.

40. Scripture quotations are from the NRSV.

41. Fry, Rule, 73.

42. Buechner, Longing, 140.