Home is a word that stirs our emotions. At its best, home conjures up safety, acceptance, security, love and belonging. More than a physical structure, home is also the place within us where we know we belong. It provides a sense of security for what we believe, how we see reality, the choices we make and how we interact with others.
What happens when this sense of home encounters differences and a plurality of beliefs that seem to challenge how we understand who we are – our identity or how we are – within our culture? For those of us who identify with Western Christian European values, the increasing and intensifying differences in race, creed, gender, sexual orientation and language can be quite disturbing. These new voices with different beliefs are moving into the “neighborhood of our minds” and are often seen as a threat, generating fear and hate among us. Those of us who have been in the majority might feel we are being displaced from the homes we have built, which have served us so well for many generations. How do we find home today, then? As Christians, I suggest we look to Jesus and see what we can learn from him about finding a home.
When Jesus was asked, “Where do you live?” he answered come, follow me. Where he led them was not to a physical home but a new home within their hearts. He offered a new way of seeing; a way of life living from love and not fear. Jesus lived in a society that had a strict purity code separating people into those who were acceptable and those who were not, yet Jesus embraced everyone. He taught us to love our neighbor as ourselves. When asked who our neighbor is, he told the parable of the good Samaritan. Here, the person who did not belong showed mercy to the man beaten and left half dead, giving us the example of being a neighbor to all, regardless of social, ethnic or religious belief. Jesus welcomed everyone to break bread together and care for each other and all of creation.
Jesus invites us to “leave the home” of what we assumed is right, normative, the “way it is.” Jesus desires us to leave the home of our current stage of consciousness, for it no longer fits the life Jesus wants to offer us. It is a life centered in Divine Love, a life in which we live out of love and not fear.
Our sense of belonging, of home, is shaped by assumptions, beliefs and worldviews developed over the millennia. Since the human species began, consciousness has evolved in a developmental way shaped by when we lived, where we lived and with whom we lived. Consciousness has evolved, individually and collectively, with each stage developing greater complexity and diversity, yet each stage believes its worldview is the one right way of seeing. Like the air we breathe, we are often unaware of our consciousness until something happens to make us aware of it. Our discomfort of not feeling at home or belonging is the beginning of that coming to awareness.
Jesus lived in a greater state of awareness or consciousness than most people. He understood the wholeness of all of creation and humanity. He sensed that we are more connected than separate, that we are one. He invited the people of his time “to take a long loving look at the real” and see things anew.
Today, the human species is at a critical point of awakening. If we take that long, loving look at the plurality of beliefs, it helps us understand that there is no one right answer anymore. We have to encounter each other from our most authentic selves and dialogue together as to how to move forward. This capacity to create the spaciousness to perceive in new ways reflects the transformative power of contemplation. Contemplative prayer invites us to encounter God, Divine Mystery, within the deepest part of ourselves. We begin to see with the heart of love; we enter into Christ’s consciousness.
Contemplation has been part of the Christian tradition since its beginnings. Most of us just never learned about it. Resting in Divine Love, we open our hearts, let go, and become aware of our biases, prejudices and worldviews that prevent us from “seeing” all of life as kin for which we share responsibility. Jesus continues to invite us to leave the home of a limited worldview of the “only my way” neighborhood and follow him into a long, loving look at the real. It is a call to transformation and it takes work. Everyone knows a good home takes work – this kind of home, this new sense of belonging, will as well and be assured it is worth it.
Nancy Sylvester, IHM, is the founder of the Institute for Communal Contemplation and Dialogue. To learn more about contemplation, contemplative practice and the development of consciousness, visit www.iccdinstitute.org. Her book Journey-Faith in an Entangled World is an excellent resource. You can find it on Amazon.
Article published in impact, a publication of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Monroe, Michigan.