Exile

After the fire, our congregation went into exile. We were in every respect, homeless. There are many churches in our situation. Our insurance company says that there are as many as 2,400 churches each year which have been the victim of a fire (just insured by them!) and have had to find temporary quarters for some period of time. I call it "living out of a suitcase" if a church could have something like a suitcase. Some of us rent space in a school, others camp out in other churches, some in convents or hospitals. The creative possibilities are almost endless. But none of them are home.

We are homeless. In exile. Living out of a suitcase.

You've traveled. You know what it's like. Your soap, toothbrush and pillows are not where they should be. Your underwear no longer have their own drawer. Socks keep moving to another part of the case. Sorting out dirty laundry from clean becomes a major complication. People who are professional travelers may have a sophisticated regimen of identifying their belongings in strange situations, but for those of us who like the settled life, this is not much fun.

I've had some horrible dreams about getting ready to move to the next phase of whatever dreamy journey I'm on and the bus is leaving in 5 minutes and everything I have is scattered all over the room I'm in and I don't have time to get it all together. I wake up in a sweat.