What We Do When We Know Where Home Is
Jordan told me this some years ago:
Each storm rolls down, washing away what holds us, what protects us. It takes away the walls and rooms of a world we counted on. As clouds obscure the sky, storms of the spirit obscure the truth, hiding the knowledge that nothing is lost — that the self is constant and never broken.
Souls suffer no lasting damage, so the idea of safety or protection is an illusion. There is nothing to be safe from; there is nothing we need to protect. It is all safe — everything we love. The storm is mere forgetting. A momentary blindness. The truth waits, eternal and untouched, until we remember it again.
Knowing the Truth
I ask Jordan, What if we knew where home was? What if we knew we were here to learn, that this isn’t where we come from?
Our lives change when we know there is no end to things: no end to our consciousness, no end to our relationships, no end to living with purpose. If we, and our individual experience, are eternal, then all the following are true.
• Our greatest mistake is a minor event; it’s simply a chance to learn.
• Pain is real, but it is not catastrophic. Pain steers us toward our purpose here. Pain cannot — in the life of an immortal soul — do lasting damage.
• There is no running out of time. Lessons not learned or missions unaccomplished in one life will be completed in another or in the life between lives.
• Since there is no loss, there is no tragedy. There is nothing we lose, do, or fail to do that can’t be “reset” in another life for another chance to learn the lesson.
• Being “good” by following spiritual or religious rules isn’t important. Moving through life in alignment with our purpose is important — taking the path toward what we came here to learn and do. It’s important to try and okay to fail.
• Neither seeking nor denying ourselves material things is important. Having or not having a family isn’t important. Achieving or not achieving a career goal doesn’t matter. These are significant only insofar as ownership, children, or a particular kind of work might be integral to our purpose.
• Death, no matter how painful the process, no matter how untimely, isn’t tragic. It isn’t even significant. It’s just the only passage available to leave the physical plane. We only make a big deal of it because we forget we’re eternal and that we’ll be back with our friends.
• This is not our home. A physical environment isn’t natural to us, and this planet is definitely an acquired taste. There are countless planets — most “easier” than this one — where souls learn. None of them is home, even though they become familiar and we often love them. Our home is a nonphysical place where we live together, connected by one gravitational force — love.
As we see more clearly where home is, our fear subsides. We enjoy pleasure but do not pursue it; we allow our time to be taken up with purpose and with remembering purpose as we decode the unconscious images and instructions we came here with.
When we learn what home is, the sense of tragedy and loss begins to disappear. There is nothing under the sun that can’t happen again — if we need it to. Knowing what home is changes our focus. We wake up in the morning, and the day looks different. It’s less about schedules and getting things done than a deep sense of what matters. As we look forward to the day, we see critical moments — from the point of view of soul purpose — that take our attention. It isn’t the dentist at eleven o’clock or the four o’clock planning meeting that feels crucial. It’s the first moment we’ll see our daughter — or a friend in pain — and how we plan to respond.
Do you see, Dad? Everything is different, from the perspective of spirit. Problems are less important, unless they are problems between souls. Accomplishing a goal is less important, unless the goal connects to our soul work.
The day is no longer composed of peaks and valleys of anxiety based on our evaluation of what was done well or poorly. Instead, the day is about “warm spots” between souls. It’s about awareness of love — wherever and however it shows up. “Did I say the right thing at the meeting?” doesn’t matter. “Did I listen to another soul’s pain?” Crucial.
When we know where home is, every day is built on a simple choice: to honor where love leads us or to choose the desires of the moment. The tasks of an eternal soul are values-based and purpose-based. The tasks of Earth dwellers who don’t recognize their “home” in spirit are survival-based: merely getting from one day to the next, surviving threats, keeping safe, providing for every form of hunger. When we know where home is, there is no deep sadness from loss — everyone is right here. They are all watching over us. They are whispering to us our next best choice. They are holding us, witnessing, yet allowing each fall so we can learn.
We experience pain differently when we know where home is. It’s just disappointment, a hope not realized. We are still aware of the gap between what is and how we want it to be. But in that gap is acceptance, a sense that such disappointment is inevitable. We will never escape the separation between hope and actual experience. What we say and do, how events turn out, are usually far short of what we thought possible.
The core experience, when we know where we come from, is interest, a watchful waiting for the moments when we can express purpose or show love. The core emotion is calm, a sense that we are not new and have faced this moment — or one like it — before. Things will work out, even if events and results are completely different from what we had hoped or imagined. The inevitable pain is but a psychological scratch, one moment in the context of countless similar moments. It’s an experience we will learn from.
As we learn, a sense of contentment steals over us. It is the contentment of doing our work; it is the profit a soul reaps from every experience — no matter how overwhelming or painful in the moment. The contentment comes from our core, our breath, the in and out of our life. The contentment comes from the experience of yes: yes, I can feel this; yes, I can choose to love — no matter how much I’ve lost, no matter how different things are than I’d hoped.
At my old desk, I take a deep breath. I can feel everyone I love around me — living and dead. I can feel how we remain joined. And I know that my purpose is to hold them, to give them my heart. I came here to find out how to send love across the chasm of loss, across the dark silence where no answer comes. Each time I do that, even a little bit, the contentment shows up.
Jordan continues:
When we know where home is, we see the moment of choice because we are paying attention. Our highest spiritual purpose is not to gain insight; nor is it to let go of the body or things of this world. Rather, it’s to develop the awareness of the spiritual choices built into each moment: the choice to listen, to have compassion, to attend, to be open, to know and feel the pain, to do what connects, to say the deepest truth, to do good.
We know our desires, even when we see where home is. But now they don’t stab us with hunger. We seek to avoid pain, but not at the expense of love. So we choose the good — not disguised by “moral” good, but the good we came here to do. We are souls in the midst of a life, of a particular lesson. And we are part of the whole — billions of souls doing the same thing. Learning.
Desire may come and go — beautiful in each sweet hope. Whether we find what we desire or it remains out of reach, knowing what home is quiets us, heals us, lets us live.
The pain of living comes and goes. It can’t truly hurt us when we know our purpose. All we do is reach for a spiritual anchor, as I have reached for Jordan and he has reached back to me. We reach for a love that won’t leave. A direction.