TO THE PLACE WHERE WE BELONG
Photo by Igor Batista on Unsplash
I am not a soccer fan but certainly a fan of human behavior. The FIFA World Cup has given me ample opportunity to observe. While others are watching the ball and the goalposts, I am watching the people.
Of course, I am as amused by the team from Norway and their Viking antics as the rest of the world is. However, they are not the only team back in the World Cup after 28 years. The Scottish team too are celebrating this achievement, and while I have thoroughly enjoyed the rowing chant of the Vikings, I stumbled upon a video of some Scottish supporters that intrigued me. They were in a bar, beers in hand, and, at the top of their voices, they were singing “country roads, take me home, to the place I belong.” The rolling r’s and Scottish brogue of one of my favorite songs warmed my heart.
As expected, the algorithms of the online world then fed me many groups of people all over the world belting out John Denver’s classic words, “take me home, to the place I belong.”
Why do the words of this song, and others about home resonate so with us? What is it that makes us humans long for a place where we belong?
I often feel that longing. Sometimes it is for a specific place, but most times it is elusive, a longing for some place I know in my soul but cannot explain. When I see the stunning beauty of the sunrise, or the way the clouds swirl around the Western Cape mountains, or when I walk alone on a stretch of beach with the ocean roaring beside me, I long for a home that I know in my soul but where I have not yet been.
It is a place I sometimes touch in my prayers, or glimpse when I sing a favorite hymn. It is there, just beyond the veil and I see it dimly but have not yet seen it face to face.[1]
The Psalmist speaks of this place, and scripture is full of this invitation. It calls us to the place of our birth, to the maker of our very being. “Come! Come home”, it says. And, whether we acknowledge it or not, we all deeply long to dwell in the house of the Lord, all the days of our life. [2]
It is, after all, the place where we belong.
May we think on these things!
[1] 1 Corinthians 13:12
[2] Psalm 27:4
An interesting coincidence: In Scotland’s final match at the 1998 World Cup, they drew 1–1 with Norway. That was the last World Cup match for both nations before their long wait ended in 2026.