What is it about being away from home that has you reflecting more on the nature of home than you ever have before?

It was a late and cozy Sunday night in Abbeyknockmoy, Ireland, and our retellings of the unexpected twists of cancelled bookings, old country roads, and bartender friends had us doubled over laughing to tears as we recalled how we ended up in a town with less than 300 people. Mingled amidst fond reminiscing and heads shaking in disbelief, our thoughts wandered back to that place of safety and warmth. How ironic that in a foreign country, we found ourselves familiar with the roads of home.

Our second day in town, we booked a guided bus tour that intertwined Irish history and music with an exploration of castle ruins and a visit to a holy Celtic cemetery and sanctuary. We were newcomers, tourists. But for Bella, vibrant instigator of our week-long excursion throughout Ireland before our semester abroad, Ireland held roots of home. Coming from Irish descent, Bella saw more than her cultural appearance reflected in the faces of the Irish, but saw how warm hospitality, a knack for storytelling, and a love of music colored her person and family with the same Celtic, Gaelic, and Irish spirit.

So home extends beyond cultural connection and heritage, beyond our family lineage but into our very soul. For in Glendalough, holy permeated the ground, the air, the hills. Was it the cemetery? Was it the prayers uttered, past, present, future? Was it the tale of the angsty and tormented saint whose legacy proclaims an abiding peace discovered? Why did something inside me whisper of a dream that seemed somehow familiar? The promises of my Father, the movements of the Spirit, the safety of the holy ones who bear me on my shoulders as I lock arms with my friends who also search for answers in the tangle of experience that is a run alongside a lake, a moment to pray, photos snapped, stories swapped…slowly, a sketch of home emerges.

But this is not a sketch of philosophy, abstract ideas, and thoughts about God’s way being better than our way (because it is). But it revealed itself to me in the microcosm of life that our week in Ireland was, where we rode on the highs of watching cow pastures zip by and feeling salt wind against our face and stumbled along the lows of stressed pilgrims and delayed buses, of stress and disappointment welling up into tears. The contrast of experiences one after another, flying by in smelly streets, shoving, soaking rain, soft grass.

There was one day- what a contrast of holding lambs on a traditional Irishman’s sheepfarm to finding a tiny church tucked into a building on a crowded street in Dublin. What a beautiful contrast- the farmer whose favorite part of his livelihood being its consistency, the priest whose dearest wish is the consistency of a strength and inner receptivity like Mary.

And the contrast of the bustling Galway to small towns with obscure names. The contrast of boys and girls alight with the hope of the nightlife in their chatter; the whistling wind in the walls of a crumbling 12th century friary in a tiny village. The contrast of a woman honest and strict in her way; a certain blond-haired Jane who left her good-natured “regulars” to their ruddy faces and warm laughter in order to help a couple homeless American college students find their way to a local’s home loft masquerading as a hostel (and campground) for a random assortment of wandering travelers. Oh we laughed afterwards, laughed at being kicked out of our Airbnb, at my frantic waving to catch a night bus in between nowhere and nothing, at Jane piling out suitcases into our little car after I begged for a ride in the single pub of our newfound town; we came back for a second round. We laughed once we could accept the contrast for what it was- life.

And the acceptance led to home. After a few frustrating attempts to catch the right buses to get ourselves on track to the Knock shrine, we found ourselves in a chapel, able to boast at being a 15 minutes car ride of the holy site with no vehicle, bus, nor taxi to our name. But what if it took resting in the peace of an inhabited cathedral to recognize the holy beckoning to us, reclaiming us? For what if all the roads do lead home?

Instead of forcing our Sunday into our mold, we walked into the mold Sunday prepared for us…walked to the single church our newfound town had to offer, a 20 minute stroll down a wildflower-covered dirt road with wild blackberries to satisfy us on the way back to the little marketplace (“The Spar”) for our Sunday charcuterie brunch. Our stories and minds were filled with the sounds of the harpist playing for Mass,

And so in this acceptance, we find the simplicity of home, revealing itself in a new land, a new person, a new moment. Revealing itself as a soul lets the light of life in. And we find this as we sit here in the airport, wondering if our Czech friend who joined us for Monopoly Deal made it the Cliffs of Mohr as we had made it to the Aran Islands. Wondering if our hostel neighbor Charlie, an elderly European shaking his head cynically at our all-too-American game, successfully booked his new home in Morocco and found what he was looking for, truly looking for. We find traces of home in it all… not really a destination, but something much more human.

And now, we sleep in the Vienna airport as we wait for our shuttle to take us… well, I wonder. To a place affectionately dubbed as “a home away from home.” To a place of self-discovery, of holiness, of anointed workings- of adventure, struggle, disappointment, and battle. To a threshold through doors of experience and relationship that lead down roads…

To home.