When I was in Tibet, home was my little orange tent. It contained all I needed--my journal, a pen or two, my "bedroom" (sleeping bag), my library (Parting the Waters by Taylor Branch), my bathroom (don't ask), my cupboard, which contained a few crackers and a bottle of water. Our group cooking tent was sort of a summer kitchen.
My tent was my personal space and, when I needed time to myself, it was the space where I thought about the people I was missing. I called them to me, often by writing letters to them in my journal, visited with them. Wherever we are, the home we are looking for is perhaps a place we can go to be warm, to be nourished, to be restored.
Recently, here in Iowa, we had our two grand kids from Wisconsin for a few days. As we were driving back to Wisconsin, I mentioned to our five year old granddaughter how great it had been to have her and her brother, but that I knew they would be glad to be home. "Yes," she said, "home is where they know how to do things."
That's the more succinct way of putting it.
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