Dear Resurrection House Family

If you are reading this, you most likely have what the United States Postal Service calls a “permanent address” where this very newsletter was mailed or forwarded, and you probably enjoy daily at least a modicum of what are commonly call creature comforts – a nice television, Wi-Fi, plenty of food in the refrigerator, and air-conditioning, for example. (This is all probably still true, even if you had some storm damage and were recently forced into a temporary setting.)

I have been recently reflecting on what we really mean when we use the word “home.” Home is way more than just where we lay our heads at night; home is a powerful metaphor indicative of deeper things. When someone says, “I can’t wait to get home,” he or she is talking about way more than just slipping into comfy clothes and watching Netflix. She means that home is defined by calm, comfort, and peace. “A home is a man’s castle” is an old English idiom that means we expect to feel most ourselves and most secure within the four walls of our own house. Winston Churchill went further, saying, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” (I am convinced Churchill must also have been thinking about how discombobulated I feel the first night on a trip staying in a hotel while trying to find
the bathroom in the dark!)

Imagine, however, you had no home whatsoever. Where would you find security, comfort, and peace if you
were homeless?

For many in our own beloved community, Resurrection House is, quite literally, their only construct of home, literal and metaphorical. The persons whom we serve, by the way, aren’t dropouts from Mars or Venus; they are fellow human beings just like you and me. They were created in, and still bear, the image of Almighty God. And Resurrection House is where they get a home-cooked meal, see the only friendly faces of the day, take a shower, do laundry and more.

As you look after and care about your own home after the storms, will you please, please consider looking after Resurrection House, too? It is not a cliché to say we cannot do this holy work without you. Would you consider digging deep this year-end, if you can, and make a first-time or another gift to Resurrection House?

Let me put all this on exceedingly personal terms. Where would you turn if you suddenly found yourself homeless? Resurrection House, of course.

Your servant,
(The Reverend) Charleston D. Wilson
Board President, Resurrection House