Home

As I write this I am thousands of miles from my home. Without even trying I can picture it in my mind. My street, my neighbors, the house that I live in, are as present as the mug of tea sitting on the table in front of me. So, when I think about “going home,” I have a very clear image of a specific place.

When I’ve traveled a long distance my concept of home broadens. I wonder if this is universal. When returning home from a foreign country, I feel like I’m home as soon as I’ve have cleared US customs, no matter what state I’m in. I wonder if those astronauts whose return to Earth has been delayed for so long will feel at home as soon as they hit Earth’s atmosphere? And millennia from now, when people are traveling to distant galaxies, will they rejoice in their homecoming when they see that familiar spiral of the Milky Way?

One time, as I was driving my very elderly father home from a visit about an hour away, we turned the corner into his neighborhood and he joyfully announced, “we’re back in our territory!” He has now crossed the threshold into eternity, and I wonder if the whole of the Universe is home territory for him now.

It seems to me that “home” is an expandible notion. Like a set of nesting dolls, it can begin with one small building, then stretch and stretch until it includes a town, a country, a planet, a galaxy, and eventually perhaps, the limitless reaches of space. Home opening into home, opening into home, opening into home, until the soft voice we hear saying “welcome home” comes from every corner of creation.

Welcome home.