The Dream of Home for All: A Christmas Meditation

Luminarias in Snow

Ryōkan* writes,

On a journey,
each night I stay
in a different place
but my dream is the same,
a dream of home.

Mary and Joseph journeyed.  They had no choice but to do so.  

And Jesus was born away from home as a result.

And perhaps the circumstances of his birth account, in part, for his longing for a home.  For everyone.

We all journey.  Each night, we all stay in a different place.

But no matter where we find ourselves each night, we always dream the same dream: the dream of home.

Of a home for ourselves.

And of a home for everyone.

May this Christmas season sustain our dreams of a home and a table in which everyone has a place, and our determination to keep the dream alive and make it more real in the year to come.

A merry Christmas to all!

*Between the Floating Mist: Poems of Ryōkan, trans. Dennis Maloney and Hide Oshiro (Buffalo: White Pine Press, 1992), p. 51.