It is the holiday season now in the United States and most other countries of the world. During this time of year we here in the States and others abroad celebrate with thanksgiving for what we have and celebrate a gift that we were given. It is during this time that many people will travel to what, or gather in what they call "home." I have begun to wonder exactly what constitutes this place we hold dear, this place we are drawn to, or draw others to for celebrations, for remembrances, for feasts and fasts, for safety and for love. You will have to bear with me on this one as I may wander through my somewhat self-constructed belief system founded on my knowledge and faith.

   I am a believer. I believe in God the Father and His Son and the Holy Spirit. I believe as I have wet my beak in the knowledge of physics and math and as a history major in college that the existence of the Trinity is irrefutable. Bear with me please as I am not proselytising, but rather trying to describe something that we see as a place, something we feel we can go to and leave at will. To me this place exists inside each of us. It does not stand on a street or quiet boulevard. It is a gift we have been given and it is at this time of year that we give thanks for this gift and in return try as best we can to give this gift to others. For me I have come to realize that home is truly where the heart is. I know that sounds trite and cliche. However, in my experience and analysis and from what I know to be true and what I believe, we have been given a home that is not made of bricks and mortar, or of plaster and wood. We have been given a home that is a construct of love and faith, of salvation and peace. We only have to look inward to find it.

   As a child of divorce and having been married and divorced more than once, as a person who has been through some of the worst natutal disasters to strike the country I have seen all the material things that I owned, all the walls that protected me, the roof that sheltered me, shattered and washed away both figuratively and literally. I have found myself standing awestruck by the swiftness that what I once thought was mine, that what I once thought was eternal simply vanished and was gone, out of reach and forever and inexorably changed. I have shed countless tears and wasted many days trying to recover and regain the material things that I thought made up what was my home. Things that no matter how many times I reacquirred were easily lost again, things that I thought defined me and defined my "home".

   As I sit here today writing this I know I am home and wherever I am I will always be home. I hold home in my heart, in the faces of my children, in the memories of my paraents and theirs before them. I hold home in the memory of friends once known and now gone, in the knowledge of friends here now and those yet to enter my life. My home is the gratitude I have in my heart for all that has been given to me, for all of those people who have fed me, that I have fed and those who through our shared grief have consoled each other and shared a commonality that cannot be denied or taken away.

   We have the capacity to give and receive love and we must be adept at doing both. For only through being able to receive can we give back and we must give back to keep that which has been given. That is our home. That is my home. I have a home forever in me that can never be taken from me or swept away. My home is a place of love for all who dwell in it and a place of safety and joy, gladness and celebration for myself and those who visit. Sometimes my home is messy and in dire need of repair, but I have been given the tools to rebuild it no matter what assails it. It has room for infinite love and has as much to give. I will try to protect it and keep it, to honor it and strengthen it and welcome all who enter and my hope for everyone is that they have the same. A place to always dwell in love and peace and call home.