No Place Like Home

As we tell the story of our lives, setting grounds us in what will be important to the plot.

Harry Potter's destiny unfolds at Hogwarts.

Anne Shirley finds identity at Green Gables.

But place does not define characters only in novels. The concept of home feels important in real life...

...because it is.

Place defines each of us as the pages of our own story turn. Author Phyllis Tickle writes that place communicates deep principles guiding life. Tickle encourages us to particularly pay attention to the place we first remember as home.

I remember standing on a dusty farm lane at the age of 11 thinking, "When I fall in love, I will bring him to this place. (Because this place and I are one)."

Looking in either direction I could see no one. But I could hear the old tractor engine over the hill laboring water out of the Ogallala Aquifer into a long, sweating-cold pipe. The pipe fed the icy river flowing down every-other row of corn, a refreshing contrast to hot, humid, July mornings in Nebraska.

I spent around four hours every day during the summer in this place. Looking across the strings of perfect, smooth corn rows. The grasshoppers jumped from leaf to leaf, a quick gentle counter-'phtt-phtt', against the greater smooth rhythm of the wind. Dad drove a four-wheeler between the well, my mother, my three sisters, and I, motioning when to start and stop opening gates to release the water. Another movement in the great symphony. And we were all one--small parts of a greater experience.

I think about the place of my childhood, and I think about how it formed me. How I learned to recognize my smallness, yet my significance in the greater picture. How I learned to cherish watching something grow into full life.

What are the places of your childhood?