Home, Mole, and a Warm Fire to Come Home To---

 

Home. It may mean something different to each person, but to me, home means feeling secure, knowing you are warm, loved, and wanted. My father read to me from The Wind in the Willows when I was quite small, and I have his copy today. The "Dulce Domum" chapter hits me hard, especially when things are pushing me farther and farther away from where my heart feels at ease. I feel like a re-reading is imminent.

We want so much to please others, to be brave and go beyond our comfort zone, to be a part of the Big Adventure. But yet, when the spirit calls us to our home, we need to heed that calling. When life is far too harsh, the expectations too demanding, we need a cozy fire, a comfy chair, and a warm drink to toast our frozen hands and feet. We need the cocoa and conversation, while the wild world rages outside our walls. 

I hope you have this in your life. 

Happy Christmas, and please, listen to the mouse-carolers, and feed the cold and hungry ones as well.

C

From "Dulce Domum," The Wind in the Willows:

The call was clear, the summons was plain. He must obey it instantly, and go. 'Ratty!' he called, full of joyful excitement, 'hold on! Come back! I want you, quick!'

'Oh, COME along, Mole, do!' replied the Rat cheerfully, still plodding along.

'PLEASE stop, Ratty!' pleaded the poor Mole, in anguish of heart. 'You don't understand! It's my home, my old home! I've just come across the smell of it, and it's close by here, really quite close. And I MUST go to it, I must, I must! Oh, come back, Ratty! Please, please come back!'

The Rat was by this time very far ahead, too far to hear clearly what the Mole was calling, too far to catch the sharp note of painful appeal in his voice. And he was much taken up with the weather, for he too could smell something—something suspiciously like approaching snow.

'Mole, we mustn't stop now, really!' he called back. 'We'll come for it to-morrow, whatever it is you've found. But I daren't stop now—it's late, and the snow's coming on again, and I'm not sure of the way! And I want your nose, Mole, so come on quick, there's a good fellow!' And the Rat pressed forward on his way without waiting for an answer.

Poor Mole stood alone in the road, his heart torn asunder, and a big sob gathering, gathering, somewhere low down inside him, to leap up to the surface presently, he knew, in passionate escape.