Holiday Hurts & The Heart Math of Coming Home
- Laura A. Weber
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Heart-warming images of Holiday homecomings are all over the planet. It's not just Bing crooning, "I'll Be Home for Christmas" or Perry singing, "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays." Relentless marketing sells the equation that "Us + Home = (Holiday) Happiness." This all begs the question of where or what constitutes "Home." For many, it's as simple as "Wherever Mom is." Or, fill in the blank for whoever is most beloved for you. Find them, and you find happiness.
Find Love, and you're Home.
Soppy made-for-t.v. movies, truck and SUV ads, home goods stores, cookie dough companies, scented candle makers, realtors, even pharmaceutical companies are selling us on the math. And we buy because our heart tells us there's some truth to it. Home is where the heart is. Or at least it's where we want to be when the George Bailey moments of our lives happen, and we are surrounded by everyone we have ever loved, raising a toast, singing with joy!
What is a Celebration if not the energy of Joy and Gratitude pervading everything we are - especially evident in those relationships that flood us with Love?
Families reuniting, children and grandchildren coming Home, and grandparents hugging the stuffing out of them, beloved fur-babies who fill our days with chaotic delight... Yeah, they're gonna be there. Besides the usual suspects, there's the extended "make yourself at Home" family, those quirky, kind-hearted neighbors, school friends, church ladies, teammates and coaches who are just always there, who've known you since you were in diapers, and who "get" you even if you moved away. Then there are those friends, friends, friends who can't seem to stay apart when there's an opportunity to listen and commiserate over coffee or tea, or a full-on party - Tis-the-Season!
Presence is everything. Just showing up may make it Home for someone else.
It's true. There's no place like Home. Notice I haven't mentioned anything about how many beds and baths or garage stalls, what kind of counter tops, appliances or cabinets, or the age of the HVAC or roof. Home is so much more than an address and a physical structure. Ask anyone who's grown up without one. The physical structure and the location are important, yet those are not what make it Home. That's what WE do. We show up. If someone special is missing, Home can feel empty - more like a vacant house, full of ghosts. Memories with no substance. Loss without Love's legacy.
Does a house ever really reach "Home" status unless Love is there? Unless it has the imprint of seasons and time and heartaches and lessons and dreams? Unless it is open to what is New? If we don't show up with Love when we're there, can it truly be called Home?
Too many who mourn over the holidays are missing something so essential that only this fuller understanding of Home captures its essence. Those who are lost, abandoned, victims of violence, disaster, neglect, abuse, and poverty might pass the holidays in abject despair were it not for the nearness of someone who loves them, or perhaps someone who cares. When the heart is hurting, Home feels like a balm. Who can truly feel Home in a war-torn refugee camp, an alley or a highway off-ramp, a detention center, or a makeshift shelter? Home is where we find Love, the familiar Love that knows us best. That is why for some, Home is illusory. It doesn't exist. And it doesn't magically appear in December each year for those who live without Love.
What Love are we coming Home to this year? How are we widening the doorway? It doesn't really matter in the end where or how we gather, or what finery, or lack thereof, decks our halls. What matters is the Love we bring into Home. How we show up each day: Listening. Patient. Kind. Bewildered. Faltering. Laughing. Crying. Authentic. Peaceful. Conveying Good Energy. Creative. Resourceful. Practical. Care-Giving. We might be able to buy our Dream Home, but it can be like living in a nightmare unless Love makes it real.
A hollow cave and a manger might be a better Home than a lavish mansion, if our family and creature-kin are surrounding us with Love. For me, Home's an evergreen grove with my pack nearby, singing and laughing till dawn.
Our Common Home, Earth, is in need of this kind of Love. Many keystone species are missing, extinct, cut off from essential habitat, Water, and food. We need a global Homecoming, a rushing back to the Place where we first discovered Love, or where Love first encountered us among the wider "We." It's not just humanity that needs and brings Love to our Earth Home. All Creation does that. If we listen closely, as the song says, Nature sings! Our arbor elders and wild-kin, Sister Water and fertile soil, fresh air, gorgeous plant-kin, prairies, stunning mountains, hills and valleys - all rejoice to be Home. Their collective beauty, fragility, industry, play, and melody coalesce to make our Common Home a place where we can ALL thrive, where we can be fully ourselves, where we can be truly known, where we can feel Love that grounds us and makes us whole.
This Holiday Season, let's do the math. To find Home, calculate for a wider "We," and measure in Love.
"ALL of Us + Love = Home"
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