This poem by Tasha Jun was originally published on Shalomsick Notes.

For the one whose heart longs to settle in over a cup of tea

and the regular rhythms of familiarity where roots grow deep and strong

whose same heart hears the songs that distant mountains sing

and ever-yearns for the feeling of new streets and soil underneath their feet

the one who sips tea here and remembers the taste of that tea in another language there:

You are not wrong to feel both when home means to belong.

Home is here and it has been there.

Home can be there and settled into here.

Home is ever searched for and ever found.

May you stay and go with joy that abounds

Home is and isn’t yet.

Home is shalom at work

bringing little homecomings here and there

May you see and receive them all

Dear nomadic homebody

heading home and creating home

You were made to know, wherever you go,

that Love is here and there –

May you find God’s love growing

in the language of your living room

And flourishing among

the languages your ever-wandering feet bring you to.

Tasha Jun is a Korean American melancholy dreamer, wife, and mom, who grew up in a multicultural and biracial home. She writes with an ache in liminal space, and writing has always been what’s led her towards the hope of shalom. Check out her book, Tell Me the Dream Again. You can follow her at www. tashajun.com and her substack, Shalomsick Notes.