wandering home

I'm writing under a little time pressure. After recently fracturing my left pisiform bone from a bike-stack, I've been having neuropathic (basically burning nerve) pain in the inner part of the left arm, forearm and hand. In short, the night dose of amitriptyline makes me sleepy within 1hour: I took it 45minutes ago. I also need to rest up before a 12 hour drive with stop tomorrow.

We're moving to Melbourne for a year as of tomorrow. For work, for adventure, for learning, for growing, for closer relationships and for challenges, but ultimately for what? Why leave home, friends, family and most of all comforts? Things were, and God-willing, nice, easy and just right.

My family and Danielle's family have been families of wanderers. Not pointlessly, not unwillingly, but certainly big movers. Danielle had spent several years in rural NSW and San Francisco in her childhood; I of course migrated from Hong Kong with my family and have moved homes 4 times since settling in Australia. All the places we had been to were made "homes".

But as a Christian, I honestly never feel at home, not here, not there. Yes, I have a single residential address, I am an Australian citizen, a permanent citizen of Hong Kong. I also enjoy relaxing in a place that lets me put my feet up, like those Victorian husbands. But, I am still looking for home. Home is this collective memory that we hall have but all realise we haven't got. It's forever elusive. If the place you're presently at is home, then, why change, why modify, why move interstate? Why wander?

I'm not really moving in a sense, as we have our home in NSW still. We have plans to return, to rebuild and to provide stability for kids. That's because I want to give the children a sense of home. More than that, by the Grace of God, I wish they will see that the truest home for all people, not just Christians, is Heaven itself. Now that's HOME, a mansion with many rooms for the children of God, all having access through the Lord to the Father of the mansion, the Centre and Life of the party.

Once there, I will, we will, not wish to move out. It'll be a place where all, once made perfect, will enjoy perfection forever. Paradise, who wants in? And who would wish to leave?

For 2012, Melbourne will do just fine, and have I said that it is a better place than Sydney? As objective as I can be, it is better in many ways. But whilst on Earth, I have earthly vestiges, I linger on the idea of home, so Sydney, however imperfect it is, will be home for now. But I'm clear, that my longing lies elsewhere and further than here. I remain, inwardly, a wanderer.

Good night, the amitriptyline and Danielle are calling me to sleep. I can't even stay up to watch Federer lose to Nadal in the Australian Open semifinal.