Theologically Homeless

Track seven opens Movement II, and the movement is its cost. The first six songs established the campless man and the camps that cast him out. Now the album sits inside what that costs, starting with the loneliest piece of it. Every man I ever knew has got a house that he can name - a roof with a word above the door, a confession and a creed. And when the cold comes down, every one of them goes inside. Every one of them but me.

The phrase theologically homeless is my own, and I do not use it lightly. It does not mean I believe nothing. It means no house holds all of me. No confession ever wrote my name. And the song is honest that this was not always how I expected it to go. There was a time I thought that I would find the door that fit, and a time I thought that I would build a house that men would share. But every camp that holds a piece of the truth fences the rest away, and a house with a fence around the truth was never going to be a home.

The hardest verse is the one that admits this is not a season. I used to think this was just a season I was in. It is not. I have searched my whole life back as far as I can see, and the man out in the yard was always me. This is Movement II, the cost, so the song does not resolve - it just holds the ache with dignity. A warm house built on half the truth is a house I cannot live in. I would rather take the cold and keep the whole of what is true.