The Road Map

Home is the piece of earth that your hands have helped shape. - Eboo Patel

I have conflicting emotions about this.

I'm not talking about leaving for Santiago, Chile in six days, although I have conflicting emotions about that too. I mean about starting a Blog.

On the one hand, I'm excited by the prospect of chronicling my relocated experience for the next few months, and if the experiment plays out nicely, longer than that, wherever I go next. But I can't help writing this a little sheepishly, because I have to admit I'm critical of the whole blog culture. Honestly, who am I to decide that my experiences, opinions, musings, are important enough to plaster on the internet as if I have infinite wisdom? I know many lovely people who have embarked on adventures, and invited me to follow their journeys via the cyber-sphere. And I start out with grand intentions, only to end up reading maybe two posts, even if they are beautiful and insightful. I just can't seem to make it through a blogpost, unless there's a cookie recipe at the end of it. I'm sorry.

So I'm telling you right now, if you'd like to make this the last post of mine you read, I completely understand. So long, I'll see you in January. Because ultimately, I've decided to do this for your sake.   You incredible people who are caring and curious enough to keeping reading. First of all, thank you. I don't deserve you. And now let me say that again: this is for you. It's not a journal and it's not, I hope, a space for any self-importance. So here a few promises:

1. Here, you can expect to find a few stories and images, thoughts and realizations, to give you a picture of what I am learning.
2. I promise to be consistent, though I'm not sure how often I'll post yet.
3. I promise to be concise. You've got your own lives to live.

In the spirit of #3, I'll wrap things up with a note on the title of this blog and the thoughts surrounding it. I am in love with the notion of place. It about sums up my strange personality combo of world traveller and homebody. It amazes me how every city, every school, every body of water that becomes a part of my path etches a map on my heart, even for someone as directionally challenged as I am. I am living my life in pursuit of Home Space, settling in to all the places I know and love so that I might invite other people to explore them with me.

I was adding a spattering of Indonesian islands to my map, and sitting on a dock looking out at the immense ocean before me, when I first stumbled across one of my favorite verses in Psalms:

He brought me into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me. - Psalm 18:19

Riau Islands, Indonesia. My view when I first read of spacious place
Photo credit: Jacki Steinkamp

I can't imagine a more apt description of my God, who rescues me from the depths of my ugly human-ness, dusts me off, laughs in his delight in me and says to me: Here is a place for you. It's cozy; it's your home. But look how spacious it is. Go and explore it.

So here I go. Come with me if you like. I will try my hardest to keep my promises. And maybe I'll even throw in a cookie recipe.

Have Visa, will conquer! Finally, I feel like this is really happening.