I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes a home. My daughter and I have been displaced from our physical home for over 6 months due to family illness. Living with my elderly parents I’ve come to see home not only where the heart is but where peace is.

My mother who is on oxygen and whose movements are confined from bedroom to chairlift to kitchen table finds her home in crossword puzzles, reading, reminiscing and watching tv shows on brides or babies.

My father who is the main caregiver to my mother and not always enthusiastically, finds his home tending to projects of the house. Gardening, or small improvement projects whether hiring a painter or a lawn care company is his home; being busy with things he understands. Because as my grandmother said, “Getting old isn’t for sissies”, and not the least of which is not being able to do anything about his macular degeneration or her emphysema.

Sometime ago I wrote a great deal about my friend Pat who has been undergoing chemo and radiation for cancer. At some point I truly felt he had been physically healed from the monster. Through all of his trials he contends that it has brought him closer to God. In fact the peace in this unedited poem reflects it:

Light comes from high above

its really just rays of love

shared with all that walk his earth

from the time you die to the day of birth

but after this is another land

Since that time in September 2009 I have pondered faith and healing a great deal. In Matthew 4: 24 ; crowds were healed in Syria and in chapter 9 many were healed as Jesus commended them on their faith. Throughout this chapter it seems people are coming at him from all directions, asking questions, and getting requests for healing while on his way to heal another. In verses 9-12 Jesus says,

If the wine skins are our bodies, could not Jesus make the body new and fill it with the new wine or Holy Spirit? Is that exactly what Pat is getting? More and more new wine (light, Holy Spirit) which will make up his new wine skin in heaven eventually? Pat is undergoing experimental treatment at MD Anderson starting Thursday. They've exhausted all other possibilities. He said, "It's kind of scary getting something done that hasn't been done before, but maybe I can help someone else by doing this." Are other people's prayers being answered by this? Have we gotten our miracle already in that he has been with us so long?

What of my parents who are not believers, can I not stand in faith on their behalf as the centurion for his servant? (Matt.8:8) Or is my faith not great enough?

We are just love-light beings visiting this place making our way back home. Each step we remember a little bit more of where we came from and hopefully bring a little bit more of our home to this place where we reside, fleetingly and temporarily.

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