Kenneth Grahame’s children’s story The Wind in the Willows opens in Mole’s home deep beneath the earth. As he catches the first whiff of spring, he ‘scrapes and scratches and scrabbles and scrooges’ his way up and ‘out into the sunlight’ (clearly this was not Spring 2024). Rambling through the countryside, Mole comes across a river and there he encounters Water Rat. Ratty invites Mole to come to stay in his home on the riverbank. Mole stays with Ratty all through the spring, the summer, and the autumn. It’s only in the sharp, clear air of winter that a ‘delicate thrill’ ‘murmurs’ in his nose; it’s the smell of ‘home’ calling him.

The idea of ‘home’ is something which exerts a strong pull on many of us, evoking a place where we can feel safe, and relax, and simply be ourselves. Yet ‘home’ is not just about place; it’s also about the people who live there. For example, the Greek hero, Odysseus, longs to return home after 10 years of fighting and a further 10 years on a perilous return journey, but Odysseus’ ‘home’ is not merely a place but it’s those who dwell there and make it ‘home’ - his wife, his son, and his elderly father. In a similar way, when his disciples ask Jesus, ‘Where do you live?’, he replies, ‘Come and see’; yet he does not take them to a building, but instead to somewhere where they can delight in one another’s company and be ‘at home’ together.

As someone who has experienced the upheaval of moving house twice in the last year, the idea of ‘home’ is particularly appealing. Yet it also sharpens my awareness of how fortunate I am to have a home and my empathy for those who are homeless, especially for those who are driven from their homes with no prospect of return; those who are in places like Ukraine and Gaza, and in other countries too, like Sudan, which more rarely hit the headlines. It is truly humbling to hear through charities of many people who work so hard for the homeless or refugee, and especially of those who travel to very dangerous parts of the world to help those who have lost everything. All this acts as a wake-up call to do my part too, however small it may be, so that justice may always prevail.