Disorientation

I popped my head into Kate's office in my desire to find a warm place to be for a few minutes since I need to stay away from the house. She asked if there was no pastor's note this week. That's how disoriented I have been all week.

Disorientation. Discombobulation. Those are the keys words for this week. Last Friday, all the packing away, with some things yet to be sorted, was done. Our house went on the market.

"We are living in someone else's house," one of my sons said. "Or what will soon be someone else's house."

We have to keep it spotless, ready to show at a moment's notice, with us out of it. Then the snow and the cold came. Through days of no school we had to find places to be for most of the day, just in case.

Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament scholar, talks about the cycle of orientation, disorientation and reorientation for the Hebrew people. They are oriented towards God; they turn away and are called back; they are reoriented towards God.

Our orientation has been towards having a house of our own after years of living in parsonages. We have lived in disorientation for the past five plus years since Jeff was first diagnosed with  cancer. We are being reoriented to what's important. A home is more than a house. A home is where we are together, wherever that may be. Home in the biggest sense is being together in the presence of our God who is Holy Triune Community.

This process of disorientation is not a bad thing but it is uncomfortable as we are slowly moved towards a new orientation. It helps me to remember where my true home, my true center is to be.

Psalm 131
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
 But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
 O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time on and forevermore.