home- where the heart is?

This is the first blog on a new site.
Previous readers may remember that when I was Vicar of Marston Moor parish, I regularly blogged on our parish websites- at Tockwith and at Askham Richard.
So, welcome to this new set of blogs!

I read recently that Margaret Thatcher, after she had left office, in an interview with Vanity Fair remarked that 'Home is where you come to when you've nothing better to do', which seems to me a fairly bleak view of home, and rather disses the ineffable Denis. This brought to mind the equally bleak view espoused by Mary, conversing with Warren, in Robert Frost's poem 'Death of a hired man'.

"Home is the place where, when you have to go there ,                                                                           They have to take you in."

Do these two views say all there is to say about 'home'? I hope not; as far as the faith goes, I would maintain that 'coming home to God' is what my faith, the faith, is all about. That sense of 'gemutlich', homely, welcoming and warm, secure and always there. Ok, for many home is much more bleak, and ok, even if it's good we stray, and at other times we venture out with God into other environments than home, but somehow the notion of God as our 'true home' has captured me, and I find this vision of home stays within me, even if the surrounding landscape looks nothing like home.

The great homecoming story in the scriptures is, of course, the Prodigal Son, so eloquently and movingly depicted by Rembrandt ('The return of the prodigal son', in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg).
The compassion of the father figure, the expression on his face, and the gathering the poor lad into his father via those large hands- all these say far better than I can write, about the 'home' the 'welcome' which God extends to those who set their face towards him.

Easter, among its other meanings, is also a story of homecoming; Jesus the key, the door, the means of welcoming us into God in the richness of  resurrection life. And in this season, I have six weeks to enjoy something of its meaning. I shall enjoy exploring more of this 'true home'.