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De donde eres? (“Where are you from?”)

I am often asked this question when I meet a new person here in Parral. Total strangers in a neighborhood grocery store also ask me this question, when they (somehow) recognize that I am not a local. My usual answer? Soy de Chicago. Although I’m technically not really from Chicago, it’s close enough to my new hometown, and it’s also a somewhat-recognizable name for Mexicans. That way, I don’t have to try to pronounce or explain where Wisconsin is located in the United States.

But really, where do I come from? I’ve lived in Missouri most of my life, but my family recently acquired a second home in Wisconsin. I also spent four years of my life going to college in Arkansas. And for the past four months (almost), I’ve lived in Mexico. That’s geographically speaking, at least. But if we’re talking about all the people, experiences, and ideas that have molded and shaped me into who I am, the list of influences grows long. The caring and thoughtful upbringing of my parents, the constant companionship of my brother since I was a toddler, transition between high school and college life, church experiences, growing up in the middle of the United States, and that’s only to name a select few.

As I mentioned, it’s been about four months since I’ve seen my family. That’s the longest period of time that has elapsed without my having laid eyes on them. There are a lot of things that I miss about them: my dad’s consistency and strength, my mom’s warmth and sensitivity, my brother’s sharp wit and ability to send us all into stitches with a brilliant, expertly-timed one-liner.

I miss quiet evenings when I play my guitar to entertain my mom while she cooks her world-famous chocolate chip cookies and cheerfully sings along to my strumming. My brother and dad sit on the couch, Matt doing his best to pick my dad’s extensive brain about some topic he just read about in Time magazine. There’s probably an episode of the Andy Griffith Show playing on the TV in the background, and the teapot is whistling away, letting us know that the evening cup of tea is almost ready.

I love those times dearly: I am myself, I am at rest, and there is peace, familiarity, and warmth. My family knows me and I know them. It is a time and place of joy and love. But, is that the ideal of home which I should try to obtain? Is that the “ultimate” for which to strive?

For being a missionary-nomad type for most of his life as he was, the Apostle Paul had some pretty good thoughts about home:

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

God in us and we in God. Shared fellowship with the Being by whom and for whom we were created: is that not the meaning of home? Through thoughts of missing my family, being separated from familiarity, and adapting to new places and people, my steadfast anchor is the revealed knowledge of being in fellowship with God through the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Remain there, my friends: whether you’re at home or far away from it, remain there.