[Magdalen] Where is home? (was Re: RIP Dorothy Mengering, 95.)

[Jay Weigel]

Never mind, Roger. You are making this about something else. My comment
goes back to something you may not even remember, if you ever knew it. It
was Peanuts strip, or maybe it was even one of the specials, where Charlie
Brown was talking about riding in the back seat of the car and going to
sleep and feeling safe because your mom and dad were in the front seat, and
how growing up was about losing that feeling. My comment was meant
something like that. When your mom and dad are gone, you just know you
can't go home again, wherever home feels like it is. For me, and I suspect
for a lot of us, there is a feeling that as long as at least one parent is
alive, your inner child can go "home", wherever that may be. Once your
parents are gone, you can't go there any more. I can't explain it any
better than that. Those who didn't have a good relationship with their
parents won't understand that, perhaps, or won't have that feeling, and I'm
sorry for them. I was homeless for awhile, but now my home is wherever my
S/O is.


On Thu, Apr 13, 2017 at 7:02 PM Roger Stokes <roger.stokes65 at btinternet.com>
wrote:

> On 13/04/2017 21:34, Jay Weigel wrote:
>
> > I was sad when my mom died, and I still miss her, more so than my dad.
> When
>
> > your parents are gone, it means you can't ever go home again. I'm not so
>
> > sure I like this business of being at the head of the generational train,
>
> > either.
>
>
>
> This weekend should really focus our attention on that question. Do we
>
> hark back to where we came from as home or look to our eternal home? Not
>
> long after Joan and I got together I took her to the city where I was
>
> brought up (Rochester in Kent which traces its roots to Roman times). It
>
> didn't take me long to realise it was not home for me. My parents still
>
> lived in the general area, but they had downsized into a retirement
>
> apartment block from the house I left in 1965, over 20 years previously,
>
> to go away to university. My old school had been demolished, leaving
>
> holes in the old city walls where corridors had passed through, and
>
> while much remained it had a different feel. I had moved on and so had
>
> the city.
>
>
>
> When retirement beckoned, and with it the need to find somewhere else to
>
> live as I had to leave the Vicarage, I had to decide where my new home
>
> would be. It didn't take long. I was coming up to 15 years in Bedford,
>
> the longest period I had ever spent in any place in my life by a
>
> considerable margin. I also knew that I would need to build a new life
>
> apart from the parish and I already had the basis of that here with
>
> non-Church activities. My parents had died, so there was nothing
>
> attracting me back to Rochester. I was not going to move to be closer to
>
> my son and his family who might well move (they have) and my older
>
> brother lives half an hour away, not that we are close because we had
>
> not been in the same part of the country since he went to university in
>
> 1961 when I was 14.
>
>
>
> Basically it was a no-brainer, possibly helped by the number of times I
>
> have moved. This is my 19th, and hopefully last, home on this earth.
>
> Joan was similarly loosely attached to any concept of "home", defining
>
> it as where you could put the kettle on. This has been a bit of a stream
>
> of consciousness but are we not, as Christians, called to sit lightly to
>
> the things of this world while we focus our hopes on what is yet to be?
>
> We are called to be in the world but not of it.
>
>
>
> Roger
>
>