Last week was long and hard, and the time driving to and from work provided brief moments of respite. Sometimes, I would leave the radio off and enjoy the silence, other than the rattles of the aging car. Other times, I'd turn on the radio for a little distraction.

Friday morning, I turned on the radio fairly early during my commute. NPR was playing the story, Anthony Shadid, Finding Peace In A 'House Of Stone'. What particularly jumped out at me was the end of the story where they talked about Bayt, the Arabic word for house, family and home.

This is bayt. This is what we imagine.

It made me think, what is 'bayt' for me. At one point, it was the house that this blog is named after, but that was years ago and lots of water over the water fall behind that house. We ended up in a small rental house in Woodbridge. I did some consulting jobs, and ended up working for a Federally Qualified Health Center. Was 'bayt' somehow tied up in work? We drifted between a few different churches, and have now settled into a new church. Was 'bayt' somehow tied up were I worshiped? And what about this blog, itself? Is writing part of 'bayt'?

Then, on Saturday, the article came out about the radio show that Fiona does with me every Sunday evening. Sunday, we did the radio show, and this morning, we skyped into a local television station where Fiona was interviewed about her show. Perhaps this is part of 'bayt'.

As I think of this, I think of Scarlett O'Hara talking about going back to Tara and talking about never going hungry again. My mind then wanders to Lenten disciplines, but nothing clear comes to mind.

So what is 'bayt'? What is home? Is it true that you can't go home again? Does it have something to do with being cast out of Eden, with the wandering of Cain?

"And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden"