Returning home

... For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul, 
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. 
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, 
Born here of parents born here from parents born the same, and their parents
the same... 

From Song of Myself, Walt Whitman 

It is an experience of being connected to country that I cannot explain. And I am increasingly glad that it is not subject to explanation. I can just enjoy it. And be transformed by it. 

On several occasions as I was walking through the Italian countryside over the past week I had to stop as a deep sense of joy overwhelmed me. On one occasion I said aloud, ‘I am so happy I could cry’. I have similar experiences every time I visit Italy. 

I am writing this as I sit in a hotel lobby preparing to return home. Having written the word ‘home’ in the last sentence, I find myself pausing to reflect on what that word means for me. I do feel at home, very much at home when I am in Brisbane. It is my place. My family. My community of faith. My story.

And yet this morning while on the train traveling from the countryside of Lazio to Rome, I found myself already feeling ‘homesick’ as I prepare to leave this place where my heart sings. Feeling homesick for a place that is not my home, and yet in some ways is more home than home. 

My family story has no connection at all with Italy. One of my children took a DNA test a few years ago and discovered that our ancestry is entirely anglo-celt. The feeling of being at home in Italy is sufficiently strong that I could be tempted to put it down to reincarnation, but I don’t give the idea of reincarnation much credence except in the sense that my body is made up of atoms from the great carbon soup of the earth system and those atoms will return to that soup once my earthly pilgrimage is over. No doubt some of my atoms have lived in Italy before. 

So, as I wrote earlier, there is no explanation for my sense of attachment to Italy. And as I also noted, I do not need to have it explained. In an earlier piece I reflected on how I experience a feeling of connection, of home coming, when I drive the Pacific Highway and cross into the Manning Valley where I grew up. I have spent almost no time in the Manning Valley over the past 45 years, and the highway has been rerouted since I left ‘home’, and yet I still feel a deep sense of belonging as I catch the first glimpse of the mountains on the far side of the valley. 

My sense of being at home in particular places gives me a deep sense of appreciation for the way the First Nations people of Australia speak of Country and their relationship with it. It also reminds me to appreciate the mystery of being incarnated: 

I am a person who encounters the world in an embodied and relational way; 
that my spirituality is shaped by my relationship to place; 
and that we are more than rational creatures. 

Above all my sense of being ‘at home’ in particular places reminds me of the importance of honouring the world in which we live and of the importance of caring for country. Our connection to country means that an injury we cause to country will see us injuring ourselves. 

Peace, 

Peter+