Wherever I Am, I Am Home (If The Race Is Over - Part Two)

Rich Mullins (1955-1997)

The following is Part Two in a series based on the song "If The Race Is Over" by Daniel Nahmod.

Where do I go if I'm right where I'm supposed to be?

Where do I go if wherever I am I am home?

It's a question I'm presently wanting to answer.

Do you regularly feel like you're "right where you're supposed to be?" Or are you often like me, restless and often wanting to travel someplace else. This can be a physical place, or a new place within our hearts and minds.  Those who know me know that I really like to read, and I read mostly spiritual/inspirational books; I don't do much actual traveling.  And I think that there are times when our hearts and minds do need to travel to a new place, where we break out of some sort of shell or cocoon to a place of more wholeness and health.  But I think a lot of time when we are restless, we should really think about it before moving. Sometimes we are in a restless state for a reason. Sometimes we are facing a challenge in order to spur us on to personal growth. Sometimes we are right where we're supposed to be. I know that it's very hard to sit on our hands and not run when we face uncomfortable feelings, but it can often be a lot more helpful than running around distracting ourselves.

Where do I go if wherever I am I am home?

While not all of us are called to be wanderers, restless modern people on a continual pilgrimage, some people are.  I am thinking of the late Christian singer/writer Rich Mullins, a very influential figure in my spiritual life over a decade ago. Rich Mullins was a humble, giving man, along with being restless.  He made sure that never saw how much money he was making off of his music albums, instead having a board of directors handle all of it and simply pay him the same wage as the average American worker of the day.  In the last years of his life, Rich moved onto an aboriginal reservation in New Mexico and taught music to children; he lived in a trailer.  He is sometimes referred to as a "Homeless Man," but I think in many ways Rich knew that wherever he went he was home within God.

Again, we often hold onto "things" too much. We wonder why it often feels so good when we do our spring cleaning or when we move and decide to throw out the things that do not serve any purpose anymore. The reason it feels good is because I think many of us are meant to live an uncluttered life.  Rather than hold onto possessions, even a physical house that may have been in our family for generations, we are often sent on a journey of the soul. But wherever we travel, we can have a sense of being "at home." We can do this if we have cultivated a relationship with the Divine within, who of course travels wherever we travel.  Home, then, is not a physical place, but rather a state of mind and soul, where we rest in God, wherever that may be; at work, at school, in the hospital, on a plane, around the dinner table.

Two questions that I encourage you to ask yourself today are:

1. What if the unrest I am feeling has a purpose and what if I need to sit with it?
2. What can I do to unclutter my life and feel at home wherever I may be?

Blessings to you today,

Mark Andrew

(If you'd like to acquaint yourself with Rich Mullins' music, which is Christian-themed, I suggest his collection simply entitled "Songs." Even more, an excellent biography of Rich is "An Arrow Pointing to Heaven.")