"I am home"

"Are we there yet?" is the quote I placed on my profile here. It makes me laugh. "Drive faster, drive faster."

This week I began something new, and so I return here to begin anew speaking in this public space of the net, where so many speak that I wonder who is heard. The new beginning that I have this week is to lead a regular church meeting, gathering with other lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LBT) women. Such an awkward phrase, and perhaps an awkward group. We laughed at ourselves, a church full of misfits at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church (TVUUC). It is good to laugh at ourselves; it is a make-yourself-at-home sort of feeling.

"Are we there yet?" Perhaps we are, at least for a moment now and then. When our women's group met we talked about a reading from Thich Nhat Hanh's book, "No Death, No Fear." Master Hanh is 83 years old this year, a star that will soon go out, from this realm anyway. In this book he says "I have arrived, I am home, in the here, in the now." He asks us to memorize this "little poem" and speak it to ourselves often. "I am home." I want to feel at home, in my skin, in my mind, in my family, my church, my community, in the world. Usually I don't. Many of us, especially us misfits in the eyes of the world, don't feel at home.

What does it mean to be at home? We say "Make your self at home" when we want to be hospitable. I think it means: you can take your shoes off, and rummage around my frig for a beer and a snack. Several years ago I hosted some of my (then) partner's family as house guests and I wanted them to make themselves at home. But they never did. If I didn't serve them food, they did not eat. They were nervous and so was I. It was a long hard visit, though we all meant well. I do not know why I couldn't make them feel at home. It is not as simple as it seems. For me, to be "at home" means I can be plain, say what I think, go braless, and take a nap if I am sleepy. Maybe I wasn't plain with them, maybe I wasn't okay with their plainess.

Often when I think of going home I think of heaven, or as Master Hanh would say, "The Pure Land." Do you know the old spiritual song, "This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through"? That is how I feel, not belonging here, waiting to go home to the spirit realm. But it is not time, I am still here, alive in this lonesome world, spiritually a homeless person. Master Hanh goes on to say:

"The Pure Land is not somewhere else; it is right here, in the present. It is in every cell of our bodies.... What we carry with us determines in which dimension we dwell."

Are we there yet? "I have arrived, I am home, in here, in the now." So now I am building a little realm of home, of heaven, within this life of mine. It may be a trailer in tornado country, but it is a start.