It Is Always A Becoming

By Carreen Raynor

I am a pilgrim in search of Home. There is a bird in its nest and a fox in its den, and my feet are weary, weary in this wilderness. Always arriving; never arrived.

Home is the ground in which I grew and it is the gray haven calling to me from over the water. Home is the place that formed me and it is the place I am forging for myself from raw ore and calloused hands. Home is Eden; home is Bethlehem; home is a new heaven and earth.

But on my journey I have found, here and there, tucked behind curves in the road and under toadstools, types of home. These places are not home, but they image it; they embody it.

I call these places the pilgrim inns—houses of God who welcome wayfarers all, bringing in the wanderers to feed and bathe and clothe them before they set forth again. Here the feast is laid nightly for guests as yet unknown, and none are turned away. To those who are unable to pay, it is said: “Pilgrim, come near. Drink this wine; eat this bread; rest here on this chair. This ground upon which you stand is maison-dieu.”

There are other travelers who gather in these inns, of course. The pilgrims whose countenances are not yet weary tell about the road ahead.The pilgrims whose clothes are stained and faces lined from years of squinting against the weather ask one another, how long? How long? No one knows all, but each knows a little. We share what we have. We sing and feast and bathe and rest.

And after a time, when our hearts are not so footsore, we hoist our travelers’ burdens and set forth again. This place is not home, after all. “The road goes ever on and on,” and weary we will grow again before the journey’s end. But, sooner or later, we will find ourselves at the doorstep of another of God’s houses. Sooner or later another innkeeper always comes running, like a father, to welcome us. For always we are journeying, and always we are coming home, and beautiful are the feet of those who have never arrived, but are always arriving.

“It is always a becoming,” one of the travelers at the last inn said (she was one of those with lined faces and young eyes). I shift my pack on my shoulders. The sun is rising, and the road is calling, and Home is behind me and before me and beneath me and around me.

(Gratitude to Elizabeth Goudge, John Bunyan, J. R. R. Tolkein, Madeleine L’Engle, and ‘The Valley of Vision’ for forming my soul and my work, such as it is.)

Carreen Raynor

Carreen Raynor is a teacher on hiatus, a mother of wild things, and a writer in the cracks. She has lived in a legion of states, but the Pacific Ocean will always be home. She currently adventures and teaches and mothers and scribbles from the PNW.

You can connect with Carreen on Instagram at @erstwhilde.