What We Came Home To
Coming home after a long time away makes you see things differently. For instance:
I came home... and saw our house differently. Our bookshelves and closets looked so crowded! (See previous post about my book purge.)
I have a bunch of Norwegian family stuff accumulated that I wanted to share with my brother and cousins. For instance, I had four embroidered coffeetable tablecloths!
I came home... and feel there's less I need - physically and otherwise. There's less I want to buy, or eat, or hold onto, when I feel fed and remember that my security is in God, my loved ones, and being grounded in myself.
I came home... and I felt more grateful for our dog and cat, Odo and Lilith.
Sometimes, it's a pain having pets. You can't travel easily, they leave fur everywhere, and you have to deal with the poop sitaution.
But they also need affection. And sometimes I don't have much of that left at the end of the day. As a priest, I don't dig ditches but I can still wear myself out at the end of the day being available, being a listener, and being kind so much of the time. And so, when the cat wants me to be available to pet her and the dog needs me to give him some attention... it's often annoying instead of sweet. So, it's good to come home and remember their funny personalities and how nice it is to have them around.
Lucy, our housesitter, fell in love with our pets while we were away. She left us a note with a list of the nicknames she and her friends came up with for them: 
Her boyfriend, Alex, made a drawing of Odo on our grocery-list wipe board:
And I came home... and saw - really saw - the abundance in my garden. Spending a week in California, which is still stuck in a terrible drought, made coming home to rain, green grass, and even humidity (!) feel lush and full. Taking the train through the high desert West - where the ground is mostly dirt, sand, and rock - makes our overgrown lawn look like a watery paradise.
And the garden is overflowing with life and color!
Cherry tomatoes
Tomatillos (first time growing these)
Cayenne chili peppers
Sunflowers
Nasturtiums
Zinnias and Stonecrop
Delicata Squash 
And...a gourd squash vine that is TAKING OVER our backyard. 
It grew from a volunteer seed near our compost bin. I let it grow, it seemed like such a vigorous little thing. Well, vigorous is the right word.
Because now it's sprawled all over! It's in the shape of a big "T", as if the plant has stretched its arms along our back fence, like a couch, and propped its feet out on the lawn...! It seems to feel quite at home. 
(See the little gold blobs along the fence line, in both directions?)
It's kind of fun that we got all these for free, just because of a bit of compost.
Anyone out there want some gourds?
Just to "keep it real," I also came home to...
- a giant pile of mail, mostly junk
- an abundance of weeds
- a car that needs an oil change
- suitcases of dirty laundry
I'll leave home and come home again a few more times this fall. This was just two weeks. What will more be like?
A sabbatical is about going away so that you can come back. So you can return refreshed, but also different. I can already feel the passing of time, the new experiences, the trust of my congregation while I'm away (and mine in them), and this space of time for me, Adam, and God, doing their work in me.
