Home is Where the Heart is…
Low Wye Mun
This is an old saying which brings about feelings of warmth, nostalgia, and perhaps, a sense of longing. As you recall thoughts of home, surely warm fuzzy feelings of family - and loved ones - come to mind. And thereupon, settle in your heart.
Home is also about where we live, our place on this planet called Earth. Our little place which we call Singapore. Whether you like the music of this National Day song or not, this song of our nation, focuses on the words that resonated at our nation’s celebration in 1998:
“This is home truly
Where I know I must be
Where my dreams wait for me
Where that river always flows.
This is home surely
As my senses tell me
This is where I won’t be alone
For this is where I know it’s home”(Words & music by Dick Lee)
And now, let your heart and mind ponder something else. Those without homes.
We may call them Home Less, but in Singapore it is not just about the few who sleep rough. It is about those who have Less Home. Like those in tiny one-room HDB flats which are stretched to house families and to make ends meet.
Some of these flats are literally at the doorstep of the school canteen where we gather for our monthly church communion service lunch. Just outside Gates B and C, (which have become familiar to us all recently) are the homes in which live people who struggle, and for whom dollar costs rise up to meet them every day.
Getting to know them better, you may not agree with the way in which they live their lives. You may not like their religious beliefs, or their approach to family planning and management. And you may feel strongly against the decisions some of them have made with regards to their lifestyle and attitude to work. But, they are our neighbours, and with real needs that many of us may never know or fathom.
So, what should, or can we do? Well, here is what the Bible, reminds us about His love for all of us: “To the thirsty, I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life” (Revelations 21:6).
In our own small way then, can we offer water without cost, to slake the thirst of those we know who are in need? So, it may be said that “out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38).
As Bishop Dr Gordon Wong wrote in the Methodist Message (June 2024), it is about “turning away from a life centred on caring for ourselves, and turning more toward a life centred on caring for others, or as Jesus puts it, a way of life centred on loving our neighbours as ourselves”.
He further reminds us of Jesus “who shows us the way of life – a life of loving God by loving our neighbours, and especially our neighbours whose needs are greater than ours”.
We can do it individually. And we can do this as the group of people whom we call our Church. The Church whose 2007 beginnings as a Preaching Point proclaimed to be a place “where loving God and loving others matter”.
So, as we celebrate our National Day this year, let’s do it: let’s wade into the gently flowing waters of that river, reach out, and show that there is a home for all. In so doing, we need not worry about being blessed with gifts of speech, music, and all that we think about when asked to “serve in church”.
No. Just with the gift of feeling here in our hearts, we can show love – that same love which God has showed us unconditionally and truly in abundance – to people around us. That in this way, they may know…
.. that home is where the heart is.
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