You know the feeling, I'm sure, of unlocking the front door and easing across the threshold. Your luggage contains more dirty than clean clothes, and you feel road weary or mileage mangled. Yes, you have had a great time away, being with family or friends or seeing new sights or even just putting up your feet in a new location.
But it is time to be home.
I expect to feel that sigh of relief when I return home from a trip, just as I did recently, but what about the routine returns? How do you feel when you pull up in front of your house after a Target run or maybe after a pleasant dinner out with friends or even just a walk in the neighborhood?
When we lived at Sweetwater Farm in Ohio I felt my heart lift each time I turned onto our road, even before spotting our early 1800's farmhouse. Every single time, whether I had been gone for a week or so or just to the grocery store. My heart had found home.
Sweetwater Farm was my soul place. For this pilgrim, Sweetwater Farm was my sacred destination, but eventually it was time to return home.
Getting here took a few years--some pilgrimages are like that. We had good years along the way. Our life in Madison was full of many riches and our large foursquare style home with its welcoming front porch house suited us well.
Now, however, I am home. Really home, and each time, each time, I return to our small home on a tree lined-urban street I feel that same lift of my heart I felt when I approached my beloved Sweetwater Farm. There is a difference, however, for now I know I carry home with me wherever I am.
I am home.
An Invitation
Where is your soul place? Have you returned home? I would love to know.
I am not fond of vacuuming. To be honest, I hate vacuuming, and lately, in anticipation of showings of our house, I have needed to vacuum frequently. Also, dust and keep surfaces clear of clutter and do laundry daily and, and, and ...... Along with meditating and writing in my journal, my current morning routine with its list of home tending tasks to complete often seems to extend into the afternoon. I am more than willing to perform these tasks, for it is something I can do to welcome potential new owners to this home.
Even if this house weren't for sale, however, I would still greet the freshness of the morning by sweeping the front porch, for there is something so basic, almost old-fashioned about sweeping, especially a front porch.
I imagine myself as a housewife of the 30's or 40's or even 50's, wearing a housedress and full apron, standing outside the front door with broom in hand. I survey this world in front of me and wonder who will come up the walk and cross this threshold today. Sweeping is convivial, for unlike washing windows, it is interruptible and encourages pausing for a casual conversation with the neighbor pushing a stroller or walking a dog. I listen to the birds chitter chattering, hoping for a piece of discarded thread or a fragment of lint for a nest in process. I think ahead to the end of the day when my husband and I will have dinner on the porch, sharing our day's in's and out's and perhaps later will sit in quiet companionship reading until daylight disappears.
I remember the front porch on the house where we raised our children. That front porch had a swing. The rhythm of the swing seemed to match the cadence of whatever I read to our young son. Our daughter and her boyfriend, now husband, posed for prom pictures while sitting on that swing. This porch should have a swing and a young family, too. Maybe it will someday.
I begin to sweep and sense how the sweeping signals moving on, not clinging to anything, except the present moment. Sweeping clears the space. Sweeping says, "This house is cared for." The Shakers believe that their daily work, even something as basic as sweeping the front porch, is a personal expression of worship. Gunilla Norris in her book of poetry, Being Home, says, "Prayer and housekeeping--they go together. They have always gone together. We simply know that our daily round is how we live. When we clean and order our homes, we are somehow also cleaning and ordering ourselves."
In cleaning and ordering ourselves, we become more open to the extraordinary in the ordinary and the grace of everyday life. Now, if I only felt this way about vacuuming!
You know the feeling, I'm sure, of unlocking the front door and easing across the threshold. Your luggage contains more dirty than clean clothes, and you feel road weary or mileage mangled. Yes, you have had a great time away, being with family or friends or seeing new sights or even just putting up your feet in a new location. 
