Hiding Your Heart

rights reserved Ryan Hyde

I have dreams about packing.

Unpacking.

Repacking.

Suitcases, boxes, again and again and again.

I take things out, I repack them. I make things fit better. I simplify, I clean, I pack, I sort.

Over and over and over again. And I’ve been having these dreams for the past two years. For one of those years, I was settled in a place that I thought would be home for years. I never thought I’d have to leave. And then things began to change.  We began to get a sense that God was calling us away from the ‘home’ that we knew. And now, we’ve been on the road since November.

Vagabonds.

We’ve been practicing Peregrinatio, or holy wandering, to a certain extent. But mainly, we’ve been going through a process of having everything stripped away from us so that we come even closer to the promises that are being whispered so quietly in our wilderness. We are having to leave things behind in order to press even deeper into the mysteries that are being prepared for us.

A long, long time ago, I wrote a snippet on one of my very first blogs:

rights reserved hobvias sudoneighm

Home is not where you hang your hat, but where you hide your heart.

It’s campy. And if I were to write it again today, I might use less alliteration, or perhaps craft something a little nicer than ‘hang your hat.’

But I cannot get past the truth I keep discovering in this statement.

The truth that I am learning that ‘home’ is wherever I am, as long as I’ve hidden my heart properly.

If my heart is hidden in my things, then I have to have them to be comfortable. For me, it was all sorts of things: my good cooking gear, certain books, particular linens for the bed or the bathroom, even my laptop. And there is nothing wrong with having lovely, nice things. That is part of the blessing of Creation. That we get to enjoy life and the living thereof. But when my heart is hidden in stuff, it feels like so much dross. It just never really satisfies. If my pots get a bit banged up, I need the newest ones to make me feel better. I need a new laptop, because my old one is too slow. The internet is crawling, so I need a new service package. It’s always about more, better, faster, shinier. It’s never enough.

I could also hide my heart in my husband. At first glance, that seems like a good plan. After all, I married the guy. But have you ever noticed that humans tend to mess up occasionally? Or even that you fail as a perfect person and get annoyed by silly things? When I depend on my husband to fulfill everything for me, I begin concocting ridiculous expectations. I seem to think it’s perfectly fair for me to expect him to do everything I ask, when I ask it, without question. I want him to do it the way I would do it, and without grumbling or any difficulty. And then there are the simply male-female discrepancies. For many things, he can say “I love you and wish I could help,” but he can’t in honesty say, “I totally understand.”

So then I could try hiding my heart in my community of people – but based on recent vagabond status and the fact that my heart is SICK with missing my family…That one doesn’t cut it either.

But when I hide my heart in the Divine. In the one who gives me life and breath and who GAVE me my blessings of things, husband and community…

That’s when I find myself instantly at peace and ‘Home.’

Because of the goodness, the fullness, the Divine presence and peace and power. If I’m hidden in the Divine completely, I am kept grounded, no matter where my wanderings take me. I am reminded what it means to be loved, treasured, and completely accepted. I remember that I have everything that I need – even if I have to rediscover what my *actual* needs are. I remember that because those I love are held by the Divine, we’re all together in that place of peace and rest.

So, today, as I’m struggling with not having my own ‘Home’ yet, I’m going to take at least 15 minutes to sit in the Divine presence and remember that no matter where I am, I am HOME.

Because I’ve hidden my heart in that treasured place.

And that is all the home I’ll ever need.

What things take the place of ‘home’ in your life?
Where have you hidden your heart that fails to satisfy?

What is one thing you can do today to remind yourself that you are welcomed into the Home of the Divine presence?