A Million Little Homecomings

Oct 21 / Terri Conlin
I met her in senior English when she turned her desk around and said, "I want you to be in our group for this project." I was the new kid in school, having just moved stateside from the Middle East, and Phyllis was the girl surrounded by childhood friends. Later, we went to different colleges, became roommates when she transferred to my university, moved to different cities, and now are states away. But ever since that day in English, we have enjoyed an ongoing conversation of love and friendship that simply picks up wherever we left off. We always begin with, "Like I was saying . . ." as if no time or distance has kept our hearts apart. 

I am taking that kind of graceful homecoming to trusted friendship as my prayer life.

But it wasn't always so.

I only counted prayer as written prayer lists and a flow of words to a listening God. The problem was whenever my hands got too busy with work because of school, illness, family life, moving, travel, broken pipes, and flat tires, my prayer life felt disrupted, stalled even. I wanted constancy flowing through my life.

Brother Lawrence helped widen my view of prayer to include daily life - work, family, community. I laid my calendar on the kitchen island altar as an offering to Jesus for direction and redirection. It was a taste of prayer as integration and trust. 
With my heart lovingly turned towards God and others, I began experiencing prayer as less patchwork and more of one cloth. 

Still, I mostly counted prayer as what I said or did. 

What if I shifted my view to notice what God has done, is doing, will do, wants to do? 

Strahan Coleman describes prayer this way,

It could be said that all of the
biblical story is simply one big love letter from God to humanity to
you personally, to me, saying "I want you"—not only love but want. . .
in the outstretched arms of a Nazarene carpenter, 
one aching question has defined all existence
since "Let there be": "Will you love Me back?"
 (Coleman, 2024, p. 26)

That aching question hangs in the air, our bodies, our cosmos. We feel it. God aches for our love. If that makes God sound needy, all I know is He wants us and, as revealed throughout the Gospel, has always wanted us. He is porous and vulnerable, constantly calling us, saving us, and willingly freeing us at great cost to Himself.

In any lasting, faithful, loving relationship, more than words or actions are at play. There is ache, longing, forgiveness, joy, beauty, perseverance and presence. When we recognize that ache as God calling us home, we wake up to Love. Love includes God's deep longing for us, available and inborn. Still, our going is not always smooth and easy. God's invitation to Love is made in seasons of resistance and willingness, vulnerability, growth, happiness and heartache, fog and clarity, endings, beginnings, and everything in between. 

What if we counted every turn homeward as prayer between us and our God, some of it ours, all of it His?

Brother Lawrence invited us to receive tiny homecomings as gifts of God's lovingkindness, "the little interior glance," he called them. Gerald May writes, "Little interior glances are rooted in our deep, abiding desire for love and God's desire for us. We often forget the deep enduring constancy of love, but the glances spring forth to remind us."
 (May, 1991, p. 134)
 

This is much more than prayer as a list or even giving our days to God. It is an encounter. It is the body language of everlasting Love. It is a call and response happening constantly within us presently and across eras and space—ancient, immediate, and unceasing.

Trinitarian Love is so close, constant, and flowing that we might overlook its presence until we learn to rest in its generous community.

Giving ourselves time and space to quiet the world and settle our minds, our soul will learn to show up, perhaps shy, bruised, afraid, angry, sad, or numb, likely proceeded by anxiety, shame, or fear. In all honesty, when we begin any kind of listening prayer, we might want to run for the hills. But if we grow our capacity to stay, we'll meet a generous God who can soothe, shape, and stay whatever the cost. Love is already there with wide open arms and scarred hands. 

Love likes us.

May we discover with George Fox "he had an altar inside his own soul. Inside him was a hushed and holy Presence, too sacred to be destroyed, too wonderful not to be visited continually."
 (Kelly, 1966, p. 55)


Terri Conlin
Is a writer, spiritual director, creative space-maker, and occasional preacher. Terri has a BA in Architecture from the University of Texas at Austin and a MA in Spiritual Formation with an emphasis on Spiritual Direction from Portland Seminary. Additionally, she is a Certified Spiritual Director, also from Portland Seminary.

Terri has always been fascinated with design and the spaces that shape us. First, she explored space in physical spaces: textures, light, and materials like wood, stone, glass, and garden. Then, she was drawn to the spiritual spaces within and between us and our Artist God. In bringing the two together, we can discover delightful possibilities for the shapes of our souls.

Terri is a homebody who enjoys scenic hiking, reading, design, poetry, and writing while sipping dark roast coffee in a thrifted mug. A bunch of handpicked wildflowers in a mason jar or ironstone pitcher make her smile.