Laura's Sermon/Iona Thought Number Two (May '09)

Laura's sermon brought me many thoughts and is well worth a read if you have the time at http://shapeastarlaura.blogspot.com/


These thoughts are going to come out very jummbled so please excuse me and feel free to give up reading as I ramble nonscence.

"Where are you from?" What is home?

Iona. Still a different place, just as in my last blog. So not only different in it's time, in the way it passes by, but in the way what happens during that time affects you and what it makes you. Does it bring out who you really are? Does it make you cover up who you really are? Is it a home? Is it a cover up home? To me I know the answers to those questions. But for anyone else? Everybody is individual so everyone will have a different answer, a different opinion.
Being born somewhere, being brought up somewhere, going on holiday somewhere, visiting friends and family somewhere; it all adds up to make us who we are. Being born in England and having an English dad makes me party English, fair enough. Being brought up in Edinburgh and having a Scottish mum makes me party Scottish, fair enough. Having a large Irish family makes me partly Irish, fair enough. But are any of these places and roots my home? And is being from 'my home' where I am from?
For me, home is no one place in my mind as being home to me is being comfortable and belonging with where I am at that time. I don't often keep my two feet in the same place for very long so shouldn't I be comfortable at home wherever my feet land me? Some find this odd, not natural, just a bit wierd. Some are rooted in one place and will always come back to that as their one and only home. And as much as Edinburgh is my home and I know I am likely to keep bouncing back to it, does that mean it is my one and only home?
Any of you reading who know me will know that I count Iona as my home. Even when not there, it is my home. Just as even when I'm not in Edinburgh, it's my home. But where my heart is is where I am also home. Around those people who I love, and who love me in return and with God. I belong with those people and I belong with God. And isn't home really just a belonging?

A belonging that we all search for and need.