Article February 14, 1976 Issue

The Spiritual Meaning of Home

THOMAS ALAN WALDMAN

"Home" is a very tricky word. Like a lot of our language, it's been corrupted by usage. The brass band and confetti "Welcome Home" that greets the hero has very little in common with the judge's edict to a runaway, "I'm sending you to the Home." Mary Baker Eddy's several clear statements on home include this one from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "Home is the dearest spot on earth, and it should be the centre, though not the boundary, of the affections." ^{Science and Health, p. 58;} We may already know the words, but how important it is that we prove them! We're asking for trouble if we neglect the spiritual qualities of home and think of home solely in terms of house or apartment, of location, size, prestige, resale value.

Recently I had proof again that, as the Bible says, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." ^{Ps. 46:1;} With our children off to college, my wife and I opened our thoughts to new careers. When the opportunity came, it meant moving across the country. Our house didn't sell by the time we had to go. Then came trying to find a new place to live—and how we tried! Hotel rooms, a sublet, an apartment. Each place met the needs of the moment, but we felt so, so transient, so homeless. Then one evening a passage from the Bible almost jumped off the page as I read these familiar words of Christ Jesus': "In my Father's house are many mansions." Well, at first I was tempted to respond: Right! In the past few months I've lived in most of them! But then I finished the verse, "I go to prepare a place for you." ^{john 14:2;} From this I saw that our need was to stop looking at houses and quietly, confidently, pray, "Thy will be done," ^{Matt. 6:10;} knowing that God was already supplying us with the spiritual ideas that constitute home.

Well, we turned wholeheartedly to considering what we longed to see expressed in our home—this "centre...of the affections," a quiet sanctuary, a haven for others. These requisites, we knew, would be only the outward expression of spiritual qualities embodied in our conception of home. Since the true sense of home is in the realm of infinite Mind, obviously we would find it, not by searching for the unsearchable, but by acknowledging the qualities already present in consciousness. The prophet said, "What hast thou in the house?" ^{II Kings 4:2;} not, What can you go out and find? We knew that Mind is another name for God and that God is all He is, wherever He is. And that's everywhere.