There's No Place Like Home

A sterile description of home includes words like “house, apartment, or other shelter” and “usual residence” of a person or group. However, this simple four-letter word holds a wealth of different meanings depending on the person and their perspective at certain time in their life’s journey. Pliny the Elder said, “Home is where the heart is,” and Leon Redbone referred to home as “where you hang your hat.” I have knickknack in my home, a gift from a dear friend, which says, “Home is where the Army sends you.” Military service members from any country can tell you exactly what they consider home and what they miss most when away attending the needs of the nation. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., reflected “Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”doing that which you are called to do, or where you belong.” For some, home is a place having four walls and a roof with a specific address. Helen Rowland saw home as “any four walls that enclose the right person.”For others, home is a people, as in family, an institution, or an organization. From a religious standpoint, home is communion with a deity and within some constructs, an active, intimate, and personal relationship with said deity. One of the many beautiful characteristics of home is that it is not simply one of these concepts, but rather many and in various combinations and mixtures of these concepts. These combinations are as unique to each person as their DNA. Having recently retired from my service to the United States Army, I find myself considering the myriad unique qualities of home in my own heart and mind. In my travels, I experienced a kaleidoscope of home from all over the world. In my observations, the most common ideas of home include people more than structures, relationships more than possessions, and communion and harmony more than contention and discord. Home is where love grows and is shared between each of us and God through Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit. Throughout history, many composers have captured the essence of these concepts in their personal avenues of expression through music. Within this program, I gathered a very limited collection of my own ideas of home from personal experiences and experiences of friends’ pleasant memories with the hope of stirring warm thoughts of home within your heart and soul.