Home is Whenever I’m With You

Dear Loved Ones,

For some reason I cannot yet place, it’s been a tough transition back to New York. For one thing, I had the best summer imaginable and the thought of returning to the challenging work ahead never looks fun from this vista. In addition, much of my circle of friends from the past two years have relocated to different locations across the nation and the majority of those who have stayed in NYC have moved on to different jobs and thus different circles, beginning new lives. Sure I’ve only been back a couple weeks, but I don’t, in any way, feel like I’ve returned home.

At the same time, when I was in San Diego I didn’t quite get that sense of home either. Yes, I had an incredible time in SD, enjoyed every minute spent with my wonderful family and friends, and was tempted almost daily to quit my NYC job, get an apartment by Petco Park and move back to the most beautiful city in the world, but it still just didn’t feel like home. Not in the present “ah, home sweet home” sense at least. (San Diego will ALWAYS be home in the way that Austria will always be home to Schwarzenegger).

A funny thing happened when I had just gotten in the long and winding security line at the San Diego airport to return to New York: I tossed on my iPod, recently filled with new songs, and one of my new favorites began the shuffle. The chorus of this song, by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, goes:

“Home

Yes I am home

Home is whenever

I’m with you”

This put a giant smile on my face. Why? It was a reminder to me that my home isn’t here on Earth but in Heaven, and I’m doing God’s work, following His call for me to help the less fortunate through teaching, showing students love, some of whom have never had someone to love and care for them. There are going to be challenges, and God never promises an easy journey, but what He does promise is a Home in Him, and Home is whenever I’m with Him. I can’t say I’m happy to have absent the physical sense of home, but I know that the blessing is in the struggle, and I really couldn’t imagine being happier with where I am in my life as exciting things are happening, exciting things are to come, and they’re all blessings from following Him. I am Home.

(You can check out the song and video here. Now, if you do check it out you will notice that it’s actually a romantic song, but as Cartman showed us in South Park, any romantic song can be turned into a Christian song by changing a few key words)

for the wild,

andrew