Home as a Place of Peace

Today brings a more personal update than usual. I apologize for being so scarce on articles over the past week or so. I moved into a new home over the weekend, and to assert that it has been difficult to work during the process would be a gross understatement. While full of many blessings, moving is extraordinarily taxing on one’s time (and resources).

There is something about moving that affects everyone on an emotional level. Where we consider home is not just physical—there’s a spiritual peace to it, or at least, there should be. So to relocate that peace to somewhere else can feel strangely surreal. Since I was raised in England, I heard the oft-repeated colloquialism, “An Englishman’s home is his castle”, which meant that people had a right to privacy and safety in their homes. As gun rights became non-existent, it was used as a rallying cry for the right to self-defense in one’s home, during my teenage years.

Nowadays, almost none of us have true privacy in our homes, with smartphones and smart speakers always reporting to some monolith (or several). The fact that these devices can make lives easier is not in question—of course they can, and do. Yet there is something being traded that prior generations didn’t know they had. The privacy that they experienced is so alien to us that anyone who tried to match it in the modern era would be considered a kook. Most of us get worried about our friends if we can’t reach them for 12 hours, and we start to feel fidgety if we haven’t checked our phones for notifications every hour.

While we can’t entirely separate ourselves from the world, even at home, I think it’s a helpful reflection to ponder just how much peace we can get from such a space, especially if one can also consider how much more at-home we will feel when we finally get to the place for which we were made, our true home.

I feel especially blessed when I think of those who don’t have the proper sense of peace at home, whether those plagued with domestic violence issues, difficult parental situations, or in cities so violent that they cannot truly live as they ought be able. A friend of mine who lives in Portland has lost that sense of peace, yet he and his wife are trapped. They have been unable to sell their house for fair compensation, because people don’t want to move into a city with Portland’s reputation. Who would want to live in a place that will be destroyed whenever the next excuse for violence hits the news? Similar stories exist for those living in cities around the country, plagued by the consequences of disastrous social policies.

I thank God for my home, including its privacy and safety. I invite you to likewise say a prayer of thanksgiving for your own situation. I’m hoping that my new (larger) space will more comfortably facilitate my writing and video productions going forward. I’ll keep all of you updated. A special thank you to the readers who helped me to move. I’m going to get back to unpacking boxes now.