Home

These days are a bit crazy and very full. Between the Pope's impending visit to Philadelphia and the presentations, events, and reflections that come with such a visit and the beginning of the school year, I am trying to balance all that life holds.  I leave later today with nearly two dozen first year students for a retreat weekend.  In many ways this is an exciting and an overwhelming time for them; I can relate.  

I hope in the week ahead to be able to share my reflections about going into my second year of ministry, as well as my encounters with papal pandemonium.  In the meantime, I offer a poem that has come in these first few weeks of school as I reflect on the idea of being at home and discovering where exactly or what exactly home is.

Home

Go to a place you call

home

they said

And my mind ran

to the top of the stairs

to the closet

with the window inside

And like a little child

it climbed upon the piles

of blankets within

to peer out on the world below

That is where I go

when they say go.

lodged in my brain somehow

where I long for

where my heart is

the home that I carry

from place to place.

A single piece of lace

hanging in the window frame

a geometric star

as if to say

here.

here is where to come

here is where to stay

here.

here is home.