Creating a Home

Well it has almost been three months here in Omaha for the Resurrection House interns, and as I was driving my regular route back to the Resurrection House, from Church of the Holy Spirit, I began to think how this was really becoming my "home." I am becoming more and more familiar with the land, the city, my home at Resurrection House and Church of the Holy Spirit, but it is within more then the physical entities of Nebraska that I have come to find and create a new home. As I come to know and be a part of the communities here within the greater Omaha area I find myself identifying with Nebraska, as my home. Going to the grocery store and running into neighbors, enjoying coffee every Tuesday morning with parishioners from Church of the Holy Spirit at the Bellevue Panera, seeing familiar, friendly faces at local Episcopal events, and knowing I have friends to call on to share in times of joy and pain. Through these events, experiences, people I can see myself being enveloped by, and embracing, the home I have found within the communities here in the heartland of America, so far away from the place that was my home three months prior.

As I listened to Bishop Barker's sermon yesterday evening, Sunday November 20, 2011, at the Bishop's Seating Evensong, I found myself identifying with the beautiful picture he painted of coming home, to Nebraska, to Omaha. He spoke of the physical landscape and of well known places, but most importantly he spoke of the people, the communities he had once embraced and was now coming home to as they welcomed him with open arms. Hearing this, I found began nodding my head and finding that a big smile had overtaken my face as I was able to associate his feeling of comfort and home hear in Omaha, in Nebraska, within my own.

So, thank you, thank you to the people of Omaha, of Nebraska. You knew I might only be here for a short while, but you still accepted me as your own and gave me the gift of finding a new home, and for that I am truly thankful. I look toward the next sixth months of my time here with joy and excitement as I come to grow with you and  your communities here in my new home of Omaha, Nebraska, "The Good Life."