A feature piece from our very own Godfrey Penduka, writing on kwapenduka.wordpress.com
Home, where is home?
I also want to go home! Like many immigrants scattered around the globe, holiday times are often moments of reminiscing about home. Moreso, as one looks around and everybody near you is pulling a suitcase towards the station or the airport, it becomes a bit emotional. My favourite comfort words are “home is where I am”. Now these words are not sufficient, for home goes way beyond just “me”. What makes home, home? And where is home?
“Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule,” one writer describes.
Many hearts ache for such a place. Where can it be found? For family means so much, but the deepest desires are never their responsibility to fulfill. Friends will give memorable times, but even memorable moments fade as time rolls on. Even while home with a loving family, having downed tools or hung university pencils for a well deserved break, feelings of being lost sometimes assail the mind. We sense we are but strangers everywhere we are. We truly belong neither here nor there.
But there is a place where lost and vacant souls can truly belong to. It is especially made for such souls. If you are like me, you probably want to know where this place is and when we will get there. In one of the Chronicles of Narnia, young Lucy and Aslan have this conversation,
“Oh Aslan,” said Lucy. “Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?”
“I shall be telling you all the time,” said Aslan. “But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder….”
Aslan’s place is that which is described above, a place of eternal love, a place of confidence and a place where hearts are sure of each other. This is a place which even the homeless, who find comfort on a bench in a dark park, can call it home. The masses of refugees flooding the well developed nations, they too can have a home. After all it is home for the wandering lost soul.
Now if you are like, moyo wako uchidokwairira musha unouya urikure, yearning for the home of righteousness, then we shall blog about our home and talk about how strangers live in a place not their own. And as we talk about our beliefs, our ethics and our practice, slowly we will begin to experience a replica of our true home here on earth. Because we too want to go home!