It has been over a week since I posted something here. I will try to do better. Last week was busy with lots of reading and paper writing before break and I had my weekend UM Doctrine class. On Sunday I came home to Indiana (where I am writing this) to see my parents and visit with some friends. As Jim Nabors sings each year at the Indianapolis 500, it is good to be “back home again in Indiana.” Of course, these visits are always too short, and I never get to visit with everyone I would like to. As I was beginning to pack my bags this morning to head back “home” to Delaware, OH, I started to think about the concept of “home.”

I was born and raised in Philadelphia so I often consider Philly my home. I love to go back “home” to Philly to visit family and friends, and I enjoy the sights, sounds and tastes of my hometown. Who can resist cheesesteaks, hoagies (which incidentally taste NOTHING like subs), Philly soft pretzels, real Italian pizza that you fold to eat and keep the cheese and grease from dripping (not the round pizzas cut in squares here in the Midwest – what’s up with that?), and water (pronounced “wooder”) ice? For all those things and more, Philly is my “home.” And yet when I moved to Indiana with CardioNet in 2003, it quickly became my “home.” Perhaps that had to do with the fact that my parents had moved to Indiana on a corporate move a few years before me, but I think there is more to it than that. I met people, settled in and felt comfortable here in Indy. Then after I started seminary in Fall 2006, I packed my bags and moved to MTSO’s campus in January 2007 and since then Delaware, OH has been my “home.” And since my appointment as pastor of Smithville UMC in Upper Sandusky, OH last year, I am feeling “at home” there, too.

There are a lot of places I now consider “home.” I don’t want to sound narcissistic, but as I was thinking about this, I became aware that the common denominator in all of these places is me. I realized that in order to feel “at home” in any physical location, one must first be “at home” within herself; one must be comfortable in her own skin before she can feel content anywhere else. Hmmm, it sounds so simple, but it’s definitely something that I will continue to ponder.