by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM February 2, 2025
What exactly is a home? A structure? A place of welcome? An incubator for relationships? A shelter from storms both literal and figurative? A center to nurture and honor and keep safe loved ones, pets, memories, and mementos? Or is home, simply put, wherever the heart is?
Altadena. Malibu. Pacific Palisades. Pasadena. We can keep adding to the litany of places, of lives lost or missing, of homes forever disappeared in fire-torn Los Angeles, in fire-ravaged California. We grieve for the thousands who have been displaced, for the many whose belongings have become mounds of ash. We weep with those whose sense of home has been destroyed, charred, or forever altered and shaken.
In “Portraits of a Deeply Meaningful Life,” Stacey Lindsay reported on a unique and artistic way to give those facing the loss of their homes “a tender well of love.” She noted the work of Jordan Heber, who has drawn from this well by painting images of homes as they once were before the wildfires and gifting those works of art to devastated homeowners. Her efforts have been replicated by Asher Bingham, a portrait artist in Los Angeles, who’s also sketching homes that have burned down. “Since I can’t donate to every GoFundMe that makes me cry,” notes Bingham, “I draw. And keep drawing.” Fellow illustrators, art students in Seattle, and a myriad of people volunteering to help with administrative tasks have joined the creative efforts to bring solace to some of the devastated homeowners.
In standing with all whose sense of home has been destroyed through natural disasters like wildfires, floods, or earthquakes, we also hold in tenderness and prayer those whose homes have been obliterated by fire raining down from the sky in bombings: Aleppo, North Gaza, Khan Younis, Rafah, Dnipro, Lviv, Kharkiv, and so many other places in our world where the sound of weeping accompanies the loss of home.
We remember the heartache of refugees and migrants who might have longed to remain in the familiar places they called home but whose dreams were upended by threats of imminent danger or life-crushing poverty or political instability. In “Home,” British Somali poet Warsan Shire reminds us that the suffering of people far away could become our own overnight, could threaten our sense of safety and well-being. She pleads with us to understand,
“that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land…”
Speaking as a refugee herself, Shire admits that her desire to return home can’t be fulfilled because
“home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of a gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore…”
For all for whom the home they loved is no more, Jan Richardson (©Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com) offers “Blessing Where A Life Was Made,” excerpted here:
Bless this place
and the life
left behind—
this emptiness
that is not empty,
this absence
that is not void.
Bless this place
that knows full well
what was made here,
that wears
the mark of it
always,
imprinted forever
by what passed by
in its intricate,
astonishing grace.
We know that all of us live together as neighbors for whom Jesus promised to prepare a place (John 14:3). What then, are we called to do, how are we called to be, in the in-between times? Even though we may be hundreds of miles away from someone else’s story of sudden homelessness, how might we be present to those who mourn for homes that are no more? What does home mean for them and for us?
Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to place before you a globe or an image of people who are suffering loss.
Gaze at the image, and notice what you see and feel.
Breathe out your compassion to all who long for the welcome and safety that is home.
Share with the Holy One your intention to be present to and hold in tenderness and prayer God’s suffering ones.
Featured Images: Mantas Hesthaven, Unsplash; Zoltan Tasi, Unplash
NOTE:
February 8-9:
Please hold in your prayer all who will be part of an Assembly of the Sisters of Christian Charity in Mendham, NJ. I will be with them to lead reflection and contemplative dialogue around the work ahead: becoming agents of healing for one another and for this world so beloved by the Holy One. Thank you.
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Dear Chris, these many examples of homelessness are indeed so heartbreaking. I sit in my warm apartment and wish I could be sharing it with some of these dear families. It is almost unimaginable to be in their “shoes” (or lack of).
Thank you for your sharing and your goodness. You are a blessing to all who come “under your shadow”.
When it’s so easy to get caught up in my own challenges, thank you for the reminder of all that’s been lost for so many. Thank you, too, for the precious words of Warsan Shire (“that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land…”). Thank you for the guidance “to be present to and hold in tenderness and prayer God’s suffering ones.” As you so often say, may it be so.
I carry a photo of my home that I grew up in and thet my Mom lived in until she died at 100. I often look at it with love and peace and gratitude for the blessings it held for me. Thank you Chris for encouraging me to hold all those people young and old everywhere in our world these days who have lost their home for so many tragic and terrifying reasons.
Thank you for these thoughts on home and for sharing the idea of artists contributing sketches of homes now gone. I am going to reach out and see how I might contribute also. I especially appreciated how you have tied in the agony in California with suffering throughout the world. It is so very important to keep a global perspective in these very troubling times.