More on Home...

Home seems to be the one thing that comes up in my life all the time. Yes, of course, the familiar thing of dating and the lack thereof is always a constant too, but this is the one that sends my emotions in a whirlwind every time.

Home is the one place that I always long for. I live in New York. My family lives in Tennessee. There are days and moments when I long to be with the people who know me the best. In the familiar surroundings of neighbors who wave when you walk by or tell your dad if they saw you speeding on your way to work that day.

But Home is also New York. My apartment on the upper, upper, upper west side, as I like to call it. When a day at work is long and drawn out and all I can think about is my hot pink pajama pants and being curled up on the couch in front of the TV watching some reality show. (It's a guilty pleasure)

And if Home is the place I long for the most, then I am longing for my Heavenly home. The place where I truly long to be. Safe from pain and harm, there in the open arms of the one who has always pursued me.

This is something I have been thinking about a lot. As I was riding the subway to work the other morning, drinking my coffee and reading my book, I came along this and it only made Home more desirable.

"And as McCall put it, " I turned to God, thinking he was a fool for wanting me." Which, of course, is the nature of love, isn't it?

It's a wonderful thing when your heart guides you to the very One you need the most. The strange thing about God is that the One we deserve the least is the One we need the most and the One who desires us the most (so much for abandonment issues). At the core of her story, McCall tapped into something that drives us all, although most of us don't want to admit it. There was some meaning behind her madness, going from a Klan rally to a Black Panthers meeting to a gathering at a church in a nightclub.

As she put it, "I was always seeking a place that felt like home. I wanted to feel like I fit in, and I was desperate for it."

I am convinced that all of us are searching for a place called home, a place where we can close our eyes and sleep, a place where there is warmth and we are somehow unafraid, a place where we gather around the fire and the room is filled with laughter and love.

My wife, Kim, has fallen in love with the story of The Notebook. Without giving away the plot, there's one line near the end that captured my attention. When James Garner's character was asked to leave the retirement community where his wife was required to live due to her alzheimer's and go home with his grandchildren, his answer was "Allie is my home."

Later during one of my travels, I had the chance to watch John LeCarre's The Constant Gardener and to my surprise, the entire film culminated with the same theme. This time it was Ralph Fiennes referring to Rachel Weisz, who played his wife. When he lost her, he lost his home.

So many of you have been my home and never even realized it. For that safe place, for that belonging, for that love...I will forever be grateful.