Formative Dialectic

There’s a universal cultural norm. It’s seen in folk tales and mythology in unrelated social settings around the world. All people live with a basic tension—a formative dialectic. There’s a dual desire to both leave home and return to it, to go away and come back. To different degrees, and in different ways, we all have a longing for likeness, for sameness. We find comfort in the familiar. Yet, at the same time, we’re drawn by the challenge of the unknown, excited by what is strange and foreign to us. Jesus’ invitation to follow Him is not a call to leave home and familiarity but rather a bidding to share what is home to us with others and also for others to share what is home with us. When this happens, our home expands and changes as it does for the others with whom we have sojourned. Our differences are God’s gifts we are to share with each other.