Home Again

It's crazy. Insane. Unreal. I don't understand it, but it is true. I can't deny it.

Something less than 24 hours ago, my parents dropped me off at Terminal 1 of Dulles International Airport. As I stood in the unmoving line waiting to check my bags at the "Fast Bag Drop," I heard a voice. One of the employees of British Airways was speaking - and she was British. I smiled. It was good to hear that accent again.

The security line also seemed not to move, but I still made it to my gate in time to sit for an hour or more before boarding. The flight was perfect - utterly routine and uneventful. I even slept for most of it. I woke this morning to the rising sun, in time to collect the "breakfast" they were serving on the plane. The cloud cover was too thick to see the ground as we cross above Ireland, but then I looked out my window and saw it - Wales - most of the western coastline was visible from Pembrokeshire up past Borth almost to Snowdon. My heart ached with the beauty of it, with the desire to be home.

As we taxied over the masses of tarmac surrounding Heathrow Terminal 5, I noted the different appearance of the British streets and vehicles. Again my heart constricted with something like joy - the knowledge, beyond doubt, I am back where I belong.

But there was still one hurdle to clear - the immigration desk. The line was not long, and soon I was explaining myself to a female immigration officer. She looked at my passports, visa and papers, said she needed to do some checking and told me to wait. I sat and prayed until she returned, handed me back my documents and said I could proceed. I walked past her, hardly seeing where I was going through the tears.

Some hours later I was back in Cardiff, walking through my familiar city, up the stairs to my own room, sitting down at my own desk, taking a bath in my own bathtub. Sending and answering text messages from several friends, chatting online with the family I had left only 14 hours before. The world had righted itself, and I was incontrovertibly back in my right place.

Even the time of day feels right to me. The traffic outside my window is comfortable. The feel of my desk. The accents of the people I pass on the streets. Train stations, pavements, traffic on the left side of the road. It didn't even feel strange until I got used to it again. It was right. I didn't have to think. I didn't have to adjust. Finally I am home, and I can be comfortable again.

As I walked through Cardiff, carrying and dragging my bags, one refrain echoed in my mind - I am free. Finally I am free again. Irony of ironies. The child of the "land of the free" has come back to the old world - the mother country - to find freedom. Add to that the very precarious nature of my continued residence here, and yet, I can't consider it to be precarious even though I know it is. I can't seriously consider being anywhere else. I am not "free." I am not a citizen. I don't even have the right to be here.

But it's a different kind of freedom - freedom of soul - freedom of being - freedom to be in community - to live life to the fullest - to give without fear - to love in the midst of pain - to pursue my heart's desire with reckless abandon and unshakable faith.

There is only one single thing that is more important to me than being here - being where God wants me, and for now, they seem to be the same. There is no explanation, but I cannot deny that today I have returned to my much loved and sorely missed home.

And I am so glad!