The potential of home...

Fun note: I am currently sitting in Knoxville next to my co-conspirator. We are sipping tea. We are melting into the sound of melancholy music. This is beautiful.

Actual substance: It has been interesting to watch Juja Java slightly evolve from a conversation to a future reality.

I have had a lot of conversations in my life which have included, “Hey, we should do that together!” Yet most of these conversations have ended being just that- a conversation. No intended action.

Yet such is not true with Erin and I. Instead, I actually believe that we are going to accomplish exactly what we intend to do, Lord willing.

Thus, I consider this venture that we are on to be a rarity in the world. I consider it to be a very magical and sacred thing.

I find evidence of this venture, the future reality, all around me.

Nearly every hour Erin and I are together, we will inject something in our dialogue which usually consists of, “Oh and that can go in Juja. And what do you think about that?”

It is as though the dream is whispering to us all the time, in every location. The list and magnitude of Juja is growing. Bookshelves, check. Couches, check. African dishware, check. On and on.

And if this visit to Knoxville is anything like the last, I know that I will drop into a somewhat depressive stupor come Monday. It is the feeling that follows every visit with Erin. I can only associate the feeling with being homesick.

It is not at all that I feel homesick for the city of Knoxville. I suppose it is more that I feel homesick for the sentiment of a shared purposed. I feel homesick for the personification of the dream that I find in Erin. I feel homesick for the hope I find in the future when I am sitting next to my joint visionary.

And as I sit in Knoxville this weekend, I feel at home; home being defined as the place which is closest to the heart of our dream.

So we stand outside of our home, which may have been thought of and forgotten by others before us. Though the paint is chipped and the front porch is sagging, we believe in the potential of home- the potential of the dream before us.

I close with the words of the wise theologian Shel Silverstein:

Listen to the mustn'ts, child
Listen to the don'ts
Listen to the shouldn'ts
The impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves
Then listen close to me--
Anything can be, child
Anything can be.

For just as in your own home, anything can be. I say in Juja, anything can be, child.

Anything can be.

-Bethany-