The first time I left home I was bound for Saudi Arabia. I didn't get there, primarily because I was only 4 and a kindly neighbor returned me to my mother before I reached the end of our block. Don't ask how I'd even heard of Saudi Arabia.
I left home again 13 years later to go to college. Four years later it wasn't a neighbor but the job market that brought me home again. I lived with my parents for three years before heading off to graduate school. The rent was free, the food was good and I saved enough to buy a car so I could make another escape. I have no regrets about this interlude; I was a late bloomer and needed more time in the greenhouse.
I believe that most of you have been happy to call Muhlenberg College "home" for the last few years, even though you knew you'd move on eventually. I know that, while you are eager to get going, you are also sad to leave.
Many of you have been wondering, worrying perhaps, about the next place you'll call home. I can almost hear some of you — theater majors no doubt — channeling Scarlett O'Hara: "Oh Rhett, Rhett. Where shall I go? What shall I do?" Frankly my dears, I have given this some serious thought.
About 45 percent of you will live with your parents for a year or two. The rest will soon search for an apartment with friends or strangers. These places may be "homes" but then again they may not. That depends on you, but not on you alone.
This semester I enjoyed re-reading Homer's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" with a class of brilliant students. "The Iliad" focuses on the arrogant, short-tempered Achaean warrior Achilles, who consciously, deliberately sacrificed home and family to achieve glory. Achilles is not happy nor does he bring happiness to others — a perfect example of work-life imbalance.
Odysseus, on the other hand, is determined to return to his home and family after the fall of Troy. He is neither a perfect hero nor a perfect husband. He sleeps with any attractive female he encounters, gets all of his men killed and loses all of his ships. Nor is Ithaka, his home, any great prize. It's a small, rocky, not particularly important island. Its economy and government have fallen apart because of his protracted absence.
Odysseus bypasses much nicer places and much more tempting options as he struggles to regain his home. Beautiful women, gorgeous palaces, fantastic wealth, easy living, even immortality are offered as temptations on his journey. And his arrival requires him to do the bloody work of setting his house in order to regain his home and family. But this is the work he chooses. If we wonder why, the only answer that makes sense is because this is where he belongs — and is smart enough to know it.
Let's think about what makes a place "home." It's not just where you sleep at night, but where you feel safe and challenged. A place where you know and are known by others who are close to you — both physically and emotionally. Where a web of mutual obligations and needs binds you and them together. Where you are challenged and supported. It is a place where you can discover who you are and who you are meant to be — a task that can be difficult and uncomfortable and that will continue for your entire life. Home is the only place where you can do this important work.
