Reflections on the Meaning of Home
Jen Pollock Michel
Foreword by Scott Sauls
To my husband, Ryan:
Having and holding you is my joy.
To my mother, Jan:
Your love bears all things.
Thank you.
If I had one particular complaint, it was that my life seemed composed entirely of expectation. I expected—an arrival, an explanation, an apology.
Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping
Contents
1 Nostalgia: The Longing for Home
2 Angel in the House: A Brief History
3 Taken In: The First Maker of Home
4 Border Crossings: On (Not) Staying Put
5 Perished Things: And Imperishable Home
6 A Suffering Servant: The Labor of Love
7 House of God: The Church as Home
8 Love and Marriage: The Routine Work of I Do
9 Saying Grace: Feasting Together
10 Cathedral in Time: A Place Called Rest
More Titles from InterVarsity Press
Foreword
Scott Sauls
I am currently in my forties and yet have never been fully or finally at home.
Throughout our childhood, Mom and Dad moved us to a new city every two years because of corporate job transfers. Childhood was followed by four years of college, six months teaching tennis in Kentucky, a three-month hiatus in Atlanta, and three-and-a-half years in Saint Louis for seminary. After that, we spent twelve years planting two churches in two different states, followed by five years in New York City and, to date, almost five years in Nashville.
My wife, Patti, and I swear that we are never leaving Nashville. We are in full agreement, the two of us are, that we are finally home.
But are we?
We also swore, early on, that we would give more lasting roots to our kids.
But did we?
Recently, our oldest daughter graduated from high school. To commemorate her accomplishment, Patti and I wrote her long letters from Mom and Dad. In those letters we walked down memory lane reflecting on and getting nostalgic about her eighteen years of life. As we reminisced, it dawned on both of us that while we gave the girl opportunities, we never gave the girl roots—at least not with respect to place. To date, she has lived in seven different homes and attended eight different schools in five different cities.
Contemplating the quasi-nomadic upbringing that we imposed on our daughter, Patti wrote in her letter from Mom, “I am so so so sorry . . . and you’re welcome.”
The “I’m sorry” part makes good sense. Moving of any kind is disorienting, especially in childhood. It uproots a child from friends, teachers, neighborhoods, and familiar spaces. It digs a hole in the heart, uprooting and rerooting like that. For better or for worse, our daughter’s story has become the same as mine. It’s a story with no lifelong friends or neighbors or houses from childhood. Instead, it’s the story of a traveler.
What good could come from seven homes and eight ...
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About Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of HomeTo be human is to long for home.Home is our most fundamental human longing. And for many of us homesickness is a nagging place of grief. This book connects that desire and disappointment with the story of the Bible, helping us to see that there is a homemaking God with wide arms of welcome—and a church commissioned with this same work. "Many of us seem to be recovering the sacred, if ordinary, beauty of place," writes author Jen Pollock Michel. "Perhaps we're reading along with Wendell Berry, falling in love with Berry's small-town barber and Jayber Crow's small-town life. . . . Or maybe we're simply reading our Bibles better, discovering that while we might wish to flatten Scripture to serve our didactic purposes, it rises up in flesh and sinew, muscle and bone: God's holy story is written in the lives of people and their places." Including a five-session discussion guide and paired with a companion DVD, Keeping Place offers hope to the wanderer, help to the stranded, and a new vision of what it means to live today with our longings for eternal home. |
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