{"id":1441,"date":"2011-07-05T16:34:13","date_gmt":"2011-07-05T23:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richarddahlstrom.com\/?p=1441"},"modified":"2011-07-05T16:34:13","modified_gmt":"2011-07-05T23:34:13","slug":"home-wherever-you-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/richarddahlstrom\/2011\/07\/05\/home-wherever-you-are\/","title":{"rendered":"Home – wherever you are"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

My wife and I are standing on the rocks en route to the Guttenberg Haus<\/a>, high in the Dachstein region of the Austrian Alps.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen this hut from my room, down in the valley, where I stay when I teach in Austria<\/a>, but I\u2019ve never been here in the summer, when its open.<\/p>\n

As we pause for a sip of water I look down and see the ski jump facility in Ramsau, a small Alpine village that lives by farming and tourism.\u00a0 I realize, as I look at this ski jump, that I\u2019ve stood beside it often.\u00a0 The first time was with a friend who\u2019d been a student at our outdoor ministry in the Cascades.\u00a0 She lives in Ramsau and we walked to the top of the ski jump together.\u00a0 Another year it was with a group of students, as we hiked from the school, up to Ramsau, to the ski jump and stood at the top. \u00a0Two years ago I stood down there at the ski jump with m whole family as we enjoyed \u201cChristmas in Austria\u201d, as my teaching responsibilities and our children\u2019s schedules converged to create a moment of travel together.<\/p>\n

I come and go.\u00a0 The ski jump remains.\u00a0 But each time I return, the ski jump has more meaning, because it\u2019s filled with memories.\u00a0 There are similar memories in other places in the world: a small island in British Columbia, a chalet in Rocky mountains, a chapel in Montana.<\/p>\n

These are places I\u2019ve gone, nearly every year since 1994 as a guest teacher, opening up books like Genesis, Exodus, Ezekiel, the Minor Prophets, to help students understand their meaning, always with a view toward inviting the young students from various places on the globe into the adventure that is the Christian life.<\/p>\n

People often ask me how I came to teach at Torchbearer Bible Schools.\u00a0 While I share more of that story in my latest book<\/a>, the short version is that I found a kindred spirit and friendship with the director of the Canadian school years ago, and since then opportunities have opened to share Christ at the various schools.<\/p>\n

The other thing people ask me is what it\u2019s like to be with people for only a few days, dropping into, and then out of, their lives.\u00a0 I sometimes hear people say, \u201cWhat\u2019s the point.\u00a0 You\u2019re never going to see them again?\u201d<\/em><\/strong> There are several things worth saying in response, things which reveal the tension all of us must face between being \u2018at home\u2019 and being \u2018sojourners\u2019.<\/p>\n

1. We\u2019re called to be fully present wherever we are.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Buddhists call this mindfulness.\u00a0 Jesus<\/a> calls it, \u201cdon\u2019t worry about tomorrow\u201d<\/em>.\u00a0 The preacher<\/a> calls it, \u201cwhatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might\u201d.<\/em> This means that we\u2019ll live most fully if we can learn to feel at home, wherever we happen to be on a given day, in a given moment.\u00a0 For several weeks a year, I speak with people I\u2019ll probably never see again.\u00a0 But they\u2019re no less important than the people I see week in and week out in Seattle.\u00a0 All of us, best friends or strangers, are made in the image of God.\u00a0 All of us have questions, issues, fears, longings.\u00a0 So, if I\u2019m tossed in for a week \u2013 I need to be there, present with those people: completely.<\/p>\n

This has application for all of us, because whether we travel or not, we inevitably find ourselves in situations where, either we\u2019re leaving soon, or others are leaving soon.\u00a0 As a result it\u2019s tempting to distance oneself and disengage.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m a student.\u00a0 I\u2019ll only be in Seattle a year or two\u201d someone says.\u00a0 What they mean is:\u00a0 \u201cI won\u2019t invest, won\u2019t commit.\u201d\u00a0 One year, one week, one day?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter.\u00a0 It seems that Jesus found a way to be fully present, and what it home, if not the place where we\u2019re invested \u2013 really there for others?<\/p>\n

2. We\u2019ll never be fully at home anywhere.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I know the day will come when I\u2019ll never see the ski jump in Austria again.\u00a0 Whether it\u2019s a year from now, or twenty, or even longer, at some point I\u2019ll stop teaching there and when that day comes, it\u2019s unlikely I\u2019ll return.\u00a0 The little village filled with memories is, for all it\u2019s beauty and richness, not really home.<\/p>\n

Ah, but what IS really home?\u00a0 Seattle?\u00a0 It\u2019s more home than Ramsau, surely.\u00a0 Relationships run deep there.\u00a0 I\u2019m presently enjoying the fruit of the kind of long term relationships that can only be realized when you stick around with people for fifteen years.\u00a0 There\u2019s a richness to the knowing, a depth to the sharing, a security to that which has stood the test of time.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a sense in which this falls short of the fullest sense of the word home, because the real sense of full security, the real sense of shalom, the real sense that we\u2019ve arrived at our destination, will never be realized until the full reign of Christ.\u00a0 This was one of the main points of Hebrews 11, where great lives of exemplary faith are held up for our consideration.\u00a0 \u201cAll these\u201d<\/em> we\u2019re told<\/a>, \u201cdied without seeing\u2026.\u201d <\/em>Home \u2013 in the fullest perfect sense, is always just beyond our grasp.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0We\u2019d better live with the tension<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fully Present. <\/em><\/p>\n

Never quite arriving. <\/em><\/p>\n

Pick the first without the second, and you\u2019re endlessly trying to make heaven on earth out of each encounter, each relationship, each cup of coffee.\u00a0 That\u2019s a formula cynicism and hurt feelings. \u00a0Pick the second without the first, and you\u2019ll never jump into the abundant life to which you\u2019re called.\u00a0 You\u2019ll forever dance around the edges, waiting for the stars to align so that you can commit to intimacy, community, place.\u00a0 That\u2019s a formula for despair and discouragement.<\/p>\n

A martyred missionary once said, \u201cWherever you are, be all there.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ve been \u201call there\u201d with friends and family in Germany and Austria for the past two weeks.\u00a0 I\u2019m coming home \u2013 all there \u2013 to Seattle, and it\u2019s good to be back.<\/p>\n

Through it all, there\u2019s one constant \u2013 who never leaves, never forsakes\u2026never. \u00a0He\u2019s the truest home we have.<\/p>\n

Which is more challenging for you: \u00a0being fully present \u2013 or living with the reality that we\u2019re never \u2018fully home\u2019? <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My wife and I are standing on the rocks en route to the Guttenberg Haus, high in the Dachstein region of the Austrian Alps.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen this hut from my room, down in the valley, where I stay when I teach in Austria, but I\u2019ve never been here in the summer, when its open. 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