An Eternal Home
Nov 23, 2020 | By Ashley Talton BR ‘23
Over the past two years, I have lived in three different places. I’m never really sure which to call my home anymore. One of them is the tiny town I grew up in, that I spent fifteen years in, and since March, I’ve been here again. Another is Durham, North Carolina, the city I lived in for my junior and senior years of high school as I attended the residential school, the North Carolina School of Science and Math. I loved living in Durham, and in those two short years, it became my home.
Then my first year of college came, and in a pretty short time, New Haven felt like my home, too. It was a shock to find out that I wouldn’t be back at Yale until 2021, as sophomores were asked to remain at home for the fall semester. The abrupt change from feeling like New Haven became my home to leaving for a significant period has proven to be lamentable.
While I struggle to decide which of these places I can actually call my home, the Bible tells me that none of these places are my eternal home. The English Standard Version of 1 Peter 2:11 says “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” Other translations, including the Christian Standard Bible and the King James Version, use the word “strangers,” urging us not to become too comfortable in this world. Instead, we have a home with Jesus Christ: “Consequently, you are no longer strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,” (Ephesians 2:19, NIV).
How fitting that the theme this semester for the Cornerstone Magazine at Brown University & RISD is exactly what I’ve been reflecting on: Home. I came upon Kaitlan Bui’s poem “Always” that resonates deeply with me, and I want to share a bit of it with you:
a year ago was long ago:
so many things in between,
so many reasons for sadness,
so many things that i’ve seen.
a year ago was long ago —
i longed to be fully known,
“like, love, perfect, respect me,”
can I call you my home?
yet broken friendships scarred me,
romance a short-lived hope,
each day an endless battle,
tears my only way to cope.
a year ago was long ago,
one year too much for me —
lost faith in the Impossible,
feet sinking in the sea.
— Kaitlan Bui
By Bradley Yam, SY ‘21. Bradley is majoring in Ethics, Politics & Economics.
This year I’m celebrating Easter all by myself in quarantine. It feels surreal to hear the sound of the hotel door latching irrevocably shut, knowing that it will stay shut for the next fourteen days. In here, it’s easy to hope. I could stream the Easter service from my local church, sing along with the songs and be satisfied with warm feelings and abstract ideas. This is the kind of hope of Dickinson’s “hope is a thing with feathers”, hope that whispers in the soul but asks nothing of you at all.
As much as I love Dickinson, that [hope] is too light and ethereal to stake action upon—only the shadow of the real thing.