Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was content to stay at home among the tents.

• Genesis 25:27

They are to stay in that city until they have stood trial before the assembly and until the death of the high priest who is serving at that time. Then they may go back to their own home in the town from which they fled.”

• Joshua 20:6

The Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the others go home.” So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites home but kept the three hundred, who took over the provisions and trumpets of the others.

• Judges 7:7-8

“… Already one’s mind dwells upon the sights and sounds and smells of home. …”

• C.S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis to Arthur Grieve (30 March 1915)

“As Dr. Johnson said, ‘To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavour.’ (1st to be happy to prepare for being happy in our own real home hereafter; 2nd in the meantime to be happy· in our houses).”

• C.S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis (26 March 1935)

I was looking at the statistics for this blogsite, and I noticed that “Home” has more than twice the views of any post, or other page.

That got me to thinking, what is the “Home” page and when did I “create” it?

Okay, when you register with WordPress and you select a style, you have basically “created” the home page, maybe without even thinking about it.  It is just there.  Mine has a few links to other pages, a search feature, a statement that sums up the site, and then links to the latest ten posts and a link to older posts.  Other people have a great deal on their home page.  I truly never gave the home page a thought.

Without knowing it, I had “created” the page.

But the concept of home is a bit strange to me.  About a year before my wife passed away, we discussed how we had not just lived in Pennsylvania longer than any other state, we had lived in this house longer than any other house.  My wife was born in Indonesia, moved to the Netherlands, moved back to Indonesia, then back to the Netherlands, all before moving to the USA.  Once her father got sponsorship through legal immigration, they moved to El Paso, Texas.  They then moved to Port Arthur, Texas.  She joined the Air Force and, after her basic training in two different Texas cities, was stationed in two different Air Force bases in Mississippi before moving back to Port Arthur upon her discharge.

Meanwhile, I had lived my entire life in Mississippi.  I lived next door to my grandmother, then to the farm, then back to the house next to my grandmother, then to Collins, MS, then back living with my grandmother, then to Tupelo, MS, then back to the farm.  All one state, but five different houses.

And then as a family, we lived in two different towns in Texas, a short stay in Virginia, three years in Karlsruhe, Germany, a short stay in Watertown, MA, then ten years in South Carolina, four years in Mississippi (in three different houses), about a year and a half in Washington state and then to PA.  And then our children moved to far off places in the USA.  So, where is home?

Even in our retirement years, my wife and I felt that Germany was our home, in that being in Germany during the Cold War gave us the feeling that our neighbors were people we could count on.  But in the end, we can only count on God and His provision and His promises of things to come.

So, in pondering what a Home page was, it became a question of what home is.

The Scriptures are interesting.  Jacob felt at home among the tents.  He did not need a structure of brick and mortar.  He was content in a tent.  Then the Scripture from Joshua is in the establishment of “Cities of Refuge.”  The sanctuary cities of today are an abomination.  No comparison to this provision in the Bible can be made by anyone who reads the Bible.  Sanctuary cities harbor law breakers.  The cities of refuge harbor people claiming to have killed someone accidentally.  The refuge avoids the lynch mob, provides a fair trial, and if they are found innocent, they can go back home under certain provisions.  Otherwise, the punishment for the crime of murder is carried out.

And then the last of the Scriptures is how God decided who would be in Gideon’s army.  Gideon started with thousands of soldiers, and he eventually led three hundred into battle.  This was God’s plan to keep Gideon humble and let all Israel know that God was the one who spared them from the tyranny of the Midianites.  When someone was not selected to be in Gideon’s army, that person was sent home.

But what is home for you?

When you anticipate going home, like C.S. Lewis did in a letter to Arthur Grieves, Lewis could see home, feel home, smell home and taste home.  But then roughly twenty years later, after becoming a Christian, he wrote that Heaven was his home, and we only had houses here on earth.

And for the Christian, the older that you get, the more inviting that home becomes.

Yet, while I am still in this house, I will glorify God.  I will trust in God.  And the Holy Spirit will reside within me.  In that aspect, I do not even need a roof over my head to be home.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.