Welcome Home

"Keep the home-fires burning,
While your hearts are yearning,
Though your lads are far away
They dream of home;
There's a silver lining
Through the dark cloud shining,
Turn the dark cloud inside out,
Till the boys come home."

-popular World War I song

I am back north in Michigan, looking at property. If we like what we see, DH and I will make an offer - almost 9 acres of God's green earth. Room for a small house with a welcoming hearth. Room to make a new home.

The picture above is the view from our proposed front doorstep. It looks out over Lake Leelanau all the way to Big Blue, or Lake Michigan for the uninitiated. We can just barely make out the Manitou islands in the distance.

I have a feeling about this one - this could be it.

We have been looking at property up here with an eye towards an eventual move for many years now, before real life and a decaying real estate market got the better of us.

Sometimes it felt like we were stuck as a fruit fly in amber - fossilized beyond belief.

But all it took was one look, and we knew.

Well, okay, maybe TWO looks - hence this journey north...

Got into town too late for supper last night and found myself at the Bluebird Bar for a whitefish platter at 9:30. When I got back out to the parking lot, Leland had rolled up the streets.

I mean, it was dark!

And quiet!

I pushed the trusty button on my remote; my headlights flashed, my horn beeped, and I was led home, or at least what passed for home at that particular moment - the front seat of my car.

And it started me thinking...

About home. And light. And what that means.

Many years back, during the holiday season, I wrote a poem about lighting a candle in the window to guide the Christ child home.

Literally, I was thinking about some of the gaudier displays of Christmas cheer spread out upon my neighbor's lawns, with light up reindeer and blow up Santas and such. I contrasted those displays with the simplicity of a single candle guttering in the winter blasts, yet burning brightly in its solitude.

Metaphorically, I was speaking of the condition of the human soul; its singular nature and our willingness to be a beacon of hope against the cold winds that blow us hither and yon within our life span.

I resolved at some point to be a candle. Not a searchlight. Not a spotlight. Certainly not a neon sign.

Nothing too bright and flashy. Just a quiet light from a simple soul. To lead my family, my friends, my fellow humans home.

Home is more than a place. It is a state of mind. It is something held within the heart.

We can bar our doors. We can pull up the drawbridge. We can stock the moat with alligators.

Or we can light a quiet candle. We can choose to BE home. To anyone who is searching for one.

No matter when, no matter where, no matter how.

We can keep the home fires burning within our hearts.