Theology of Home: Anticipating Eternity
on monsters and practicing the hope of resurrection here and now
Hi friends,
I hope you have something restorative planned for your weekend, which could mean you don’t have any plans at all. We’re planning on hiking a trail and continue discovering new-to-us corners of Kansas City. My kids have started school full time and my husband and I both work in different directions now, too. Our weekends together feel more important than ever.
This newsletter contains the first essay in a series I’ve planned to explore the theology of home. I’d love to hear your reflections, questions, and suggestions. What would you like to discuss here together? You can leave a comment, reply to this email, or reach out to me directly. I sincerely would love to hear from you.
As before in previous newsletters, you’ll find the essay, some questions and actions for reflection, and a blessing. If you are a paid subscriber, I’ll be sending out bimonthly letters which dig into the topic a bit more in between the public essays.
I hope something here is what you need today. I’m so glad you’re here.
With love,
Janette
Fouke, Arkansas is a small town on the edge of state lines where Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana meet. Founded at the end of the 19th century and named for its first entrepreneur James H. Fouke, it has 860 residents, five churches, and one Monster Mart. Prior to European colonization it was home to Native American Caddo people; current residents and guests alike still find arrowheads and other artifacts reminiscent of a different time. In the 1920s, notable outlaws Bonnie and Clyde hid there during the prohibition era after committing violent crimes and trafficking liquor. But Fouke’s real claim to fame is its legendary monster which had enough of a following to inspire the cult classic 1972 film, The Legend of Boggy Creek. Locals still tell tales and give personal accounts of southwest Arkansas’s very own Big Foot, and in doing so, contribute to some of the south’s best folklore. This Boggy Creek Monster was rumored to be tall and large, ape-like, and ran with “long swinging arms and a swift, galloping gait.”1
Over the years, the legend has provided something of a money-maker as the town has profited from selling wares and hosting an annual festival in celebration of their claim to fame. Perhaps the very first person to capitalize on the Fouke Monster was one 12 year old boy who, in the 70s, gave paid tours to visitors from across the country. Customers would ride with him in the bed of a truck while he pointed out locations where the monster had been spotted. A brilliant idea, no doubt, even if his older brothers who drove the truck kept the profits.
An internet search about the Fouke Monster will tell you all of this and more, and sources will identify that 12 year old boy as Perry Parker who lived in Fouke until he was 15. I used those sites to confirm my details, but really, I didn’t need to. I heard these stories firsthand from that boy who, much like the town’s namesake, grew up to become an entrepreneur in his own right (now he keeps the profits). He’s also a gregarious friend, teller of tall tales, and my dad.
Fouke, Arkansas has been home to four generations of his family, and it’s where he and my mom made a home for themselves and shared it with me when I was born one May day in 1988.
To write about home I feel the need to both go back to the beginning and look to the end. Home is both physical and spiritual. We all have an origin story which includes an account of our first physical home. And we have our homes we return to at the end of the day, homes where we have learned how to exist in the world based on our experience of safety or the absence of it. Home refers to our homeland, the place of our ancestry, and it’s the homes we create for ourselves, though maybe far from where we started.
Home, as a spiritual place, is one of belonging. It’s a place where we can flourish and learn who we are, and who we are becoming. Home, as a feeling, lends itself to creativity, risk-taking, hospitality, and curiosity. Knowing the emotional safety a home provides gives us room to rest. When we say we feel at home, often what we mean is “I feel safe and warm and connected to my sense of self here.”
Home is also the way Christians often speak about the resurrected life we will experience after Jesus’ second-coming. Scripture sometimes refers to this heaven as our “eternal dwelling.” I must confess that as a child I didn’t enjoy imagining what heaven would be like. Imagining eternity was like trying to see the end of a long, straight, and narrow road as it disappeared into the landscape. Forever was is a concept I struggle to grasp. I’ve yet to encounter anything that comes close to existing forever. Even stars die eventually.
It’s interesting to notice that the emphasis on heaven in my own discipleship was placed more on the eternal part than the dwelling part. The best answer I could get from pastors and Sunday School teachers was that it would be a happy place where we worshipped God forever. Can I admit here that I thought that sounded rather… boring? I couldn’t understand why everyone was so excited about that. You mean to say we won’t do anything else?
Now, I can’t say the following with any certainty. I’ve not yet experienced the resurrection life, though I have had glimpses. I’m mindful of St. Augustine who said “If you think you have grasped it, it is not God you have grasped.” So I take my own ideas and reflections here with a grain of salt. I hope you will, too.
Personally I’m of the persuasion that our true home, our eternal dwelling, is made up of the same stuff of our lives here, but instead of hardship and suffering, we will know wholeness and healing. I believe we will still exist in relationship with one another, that we will have responsibility to steward what we’ve been given, and much like in the garden of Eden before the fall, we will live in harmony with nature and all of creation. I believe we will still have feelings, we will invite people into our homes for laughter late into the night, and we won’t feel the restlessness that so often makes up the human experience.
Is this all literal? Metaphorical? I don’t know.
I do know that Christians can sometimes live their whole lives with a degree of escapism for the eternal. As a result, it’s no surprise we as a culture seek after our “forever home,” a physical place where our checklist of dreams is met. In reflecting on my own homebuying process over the summer, I see that I was sometimes more concerned about the checklist I had for the structure itself rather than what I did inside of it. I also have my own struggles with geographical place, and how my physical location impacts my sense of home. Recognizing my own restlessness, I’m finding myself wondering what Christian theology, and our beliefs about what it means to dwell with the eternal in mind, has to say about how we order and live in our homes now.
Once we committed to a house, there were glimpses of hope for what that set of walls, floors, and doors will become for us. We moved beyond checklists and began to talk about extending hospitality to neighbors and friends for meals and movie nights. We imagined being able to host family holiday gatherings, something previously out of reach when we lived abroad. We noticed our home would give us physical capacity for our kids’ playdates, and maybe one day foster care or adoption. We thought about its proximity to our godchildren, and how that would hopefully lend itself to more time with them. Ultimately, we want our home to facilitate being more than doing.
It’s my hope for eternity which helps me envision what my dwelling can be for me and all who enter its doors.
Eugene Peterson captures something of this in his translation of 2 Corinthians 5: “Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.”
If I seek to make my dwelling solely out of my humanity, I do sometimes feel like I’m in that unfurnished shack. I want more, I want different, I want temporary things to satisfy my longing. And it’s very true that for many, the unfinished shack, as it were, is their only experience of home. My story is one of privilege. I have never known homelessness or the pain of an abusive partner. I’ve not gone more than a month at a time struggling to pay my bills, nor did I have significant adverse childhood experiences that tainted my hope of what a home can be.
But if I think of my home as a place where I can live out the hope of heaven which exists in my heart, I notice countless little ways my home is already a place where eternity is practiced and anticipated.
I see how having a theology of home can speak into the way I live, not only within my walls but as a Christian in a broken world. I can imagine there are answers to the questions about how we extend home to those who do not have a healthy, safe experience of one. I believe the doctrines of creation and fall, sin and salvation, the church and the resurrection are not separate from my day to day life. Instead, they have the potential to enliven the spaces where I dwell, and in so doing, continue to enliven me.
Put another way, recognizing how we live out our theology in our homes is one way we can work out our salvation, as St. Paul encourages us to do, bearing witness to how God is at work in us and enabling us to will and work for God’s good pleasure.
The last time I was in Fouke was for my grandmother’s funeral a number of years ago. After the graveside service we stopped at the Monster Mart, and my parents showed me the road where their home was when I was born. I’m sure I had seen it before, but I didn’t recall it. I think about the miles I’ve tread in the days since I was a toddler in that house, feeding my dog powdered donuts on a Saturday morning while sat in the living room watching tv with my dad. I’ve had many homes since then, but that was my first.
I regret not buying a t-shirt at the Monster Mart. After all, as they say, “I’ve been there, done that.” Next time.
Questions & Ideas for Reflection
Reflection/journal prompt: Where was your first home and what do you know about it? Is there anyone you can ask to share more? In future newsletters we’ll dive into the significance of these places, so for now, simply gather the information. What can you learn about the history of that place?
Action: Considering where you live now, identify things you already do that practice and anticipate eternity. Look to the end: What do you believe eternity will be like? Can you model that in your home somehow? Maybe you do already. Heaven is both now and not-yet. Rather than waiting to experience it only in eternity, how can you “put a little heaven” in your home now? ie: If you believe that in the resurrection life we will feast together, what would it look like to have mini-feasts now?
A Blessing
If your home is stable: May your home be a place of safety and grace, a sanctuary for all who need it and a space in which you have what you need to flourish. May you work out your salvation with creativity and curiosity looking for ways the Spirit of God is already at work within and around you. If your home is complicated: May you know the peace of Christ who loves you and abides with you wherever you are. May you find blessing and hope in the care of others who extend a sense of home to you. Most of all, may God's presence be your home where you feel safe and beloved. Amen.
This is such a rich and meaningful reflection. It’s especially timely as we wait for, anticipate, and create a new home.