At Home in the World: Reflections on Belonging While Wandering the Globe

by Tsh Oxenreider

Lean in to the struggles; give thanks for the easy times. Hard doesn’t mean wrong. You’re on the right path.

am personally in the midst of walking the Canterbury trail of Anglicanism. With some intention, we aren’t visiting local church services this year, keeping near instead our Bibles and our Book of Common Prayer. Neither Kyle nor I doubt the tenets of our faith, but we are on a spiritual pilgrimage, desperate for freedom to question, brood, and venerate, without the necessities of ecclesiastical culture.

The priest prays in Italian, and a voice in English whispers, It’s time for you to return. God, I never left, I reply. Neither have I, says the whisper.

I would stare at my own bitterness, turn it over and over in my hands, beg God to reveal its purpose. I would sit in silence and hear God say, Your bitterness is not about me. It is about your brokenness, the weight of this world from which I’ve already set you free.

stare at the yellow candles at the altar. Where do I return? I ask. The priest speaks, and people stand. I copy. Community. To the order of humanity and neighbors. Home. God, I ask, where is home?

Silence.

The answer I hear every time I ask t...

Saint Francis gathered twelve men to break bread and live in the mountains near birds and trees. He made his home wherever; the whereabouts weren’t the issue. He lived in community.

He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.