You know as I'm self but the reason we give in is that it's a right because we see in our experience with him that he's capable off at our level in some capacity to make a difference and that's a lot of Wales manager Chris Coleman B.B.C. News this is B.B.C. Radio four we'll explore our relationship with the notion of home in something understood in a moment and then we're making money from seaweed in Northern Ireland on your farm is in half an hour first though it's just worth checking you want me any double yellows this morning park yourself by the radio my husband to be said to me Can you give a rallying place because I don't mean easy downy and he wouldn't say that any of. The series which provides a vehicle for fame as women to talk about their lives using the cars they've now maybe I'm very annoying. I note you don't contradict me that. Steered by Victoria decorum it till you overtaken by the woman on the riverbank unconscious Yes. We need talking about cars this Thursday evening at half past six and then available on the B.B.C. Radio four website. Now it's time for something understood and this week Rabbi Shauna Boyd Gilfillan argues there's no place like home. Man I. Was. Going to get it all. Trying to get. The great blues musician Blind Willie McTell sings how he will climb mountains for the sake of home he'll also go down on his knees and bear hard burdens to get there the singer's devotion to home is unquestionable as is his longing for it but his song begs the question of exactly what and where is this place we call home and how is our notion of home tied up with our identity over two thousand years ago the Greek philosopher Socrates introduced the idea that home could be some place beyond our immediate surroundings he provocatively announced I'm not an Athenian or a Greek but a citizen of the world Socrates sentiment that one can feel at home anywhere is echoed today not only by philosophers and prime ministers but by cultural icons . When John Lennon asked us to imagine a world with no countries or borders he was making the claim that he could feel at home everywhere but listening to the words of his touching ode to shared humanity I find myself pondering a paradox. For Lennon's universal vision emerged from very particular childhood events Lennon was born in Liverpool during World War two moved out of his family home at the age of four and was raised by his aunt Mimi in her home. It's no surprise that a talented child born during an air raid and separated from his parents at an early age would compose a song about a peaceful world without borders. So often our childhood home for better and for worse shape who we are as children and influence the adults we ultimately become. There's no question that our homes provide us with fundamental values and Kori experiences that we either embrace or reject as we mature. But our childhood homes also orient us in the larger world because the objects and events that occur in our homes reflect what's happening out there. This point is made eloquently by author Bill Bryson. Most well known for his travel books Bryson also wrote a charming volume called at home A Short History of Private Life. Houses are amazingly complex repositories what I found to my great surprise is that whatever happens in the world whatever is discovered or created or bitterly fought over eventually ends up in one way or another in your house was famines the industrial revolution the Enlightenment they're all there in your sofas and chests of drawers tucked into the folds of your curtains in the downy softness of your pillows in the paint on your walls and the water in your pipes so the history of household life isn't just a history of beds and so furs and kitchen stove as I had vaguely suppose it would be but have scurvy and go on oh and the Eiffel Tower and bed bugs and body snatching and just about everything else that has ever happened. Houses aren't refuges from history they are way history ends up. Well our homes may feel like sanctuaries where we go for refuge they actually function as the world small they're the priests where we learn basic life skills such as personal hygiene and cooking meals. But they're also the place where deeper messages are transmitted Mal use such as sharing responsibility. Caring for others and faith. If we're lucky whom is where we learn about unconditional love and basic trust. It's where we absorb the unwritten rules of how to navigate the larger landscape we will encounter outside. If a solid foundation is laid in the family home it stands us in good stead to function later in general society. Unitarian minister Robert folk I'm captures this notion in his classic poem All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten other he wrote it about an American school setting it could just as well be about any childhood. Other things I learned share everything. Play fat don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess don't take things that aren't yours say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Washoe Herman's before you eat flush. One cookies of cold milk a good for you. Live a balanced life learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world watch out for traffic. Hold hands and stick together be aware of one that. I recall in my own primary school an assignment to draw a map of my neighborhood it was meant to introduce a geography lesson about cartography but it did so much more than now. A map orients you in the world not just physically but emotionally and spiritually the map I drew from my primary school assignment communicated far more than physical streets and how to reach my house. The landmarks I identified told my teacher what was most important to me the playground the sweet shop my best friend's house my nap looked completely different to anything you could buy in a shop not only because it was done in crayon but because it communicated which people and routines I trusted on the surface there was nothing extraordinary about it but for me it was my entire world that meaning that map is what I think of when I hear the similarly banal yet precious seen conjured by crowds be Stills and Nash in their nine hundred seventy hit song our house. So. Sam. Katz. A G.P.S. Location doesn't fully capture the internal map that our childhood whom instills in our psyche even a simple compass reading can be filled with personal meaning for example in a Jewish home there will often be a piece of art called a Misra hanging on the wall. And this rock is an unusual genre of art because it consists simply of the four Hebrew letters spelling out the word Misra which literally means East the purpose is to indicate to traditional Jews how to orient themselves in relation to Jerusalem the spiritual direction to which Jews turn during prayer this orientation to a spiritual home is a kind of internal map a way of positioning ourselves so that we feel rooted wherever we may be. My personal internal map reinforced by my childhood home and my connection to my global faith community is what gave me the confidence to venture out and explore the world as a young adult it was the snap they grounded me so I could spread my wings in experience described in this poem by Amnon Chamish I want to be a person with both roots and with wings why should one give up the roots of his heart desires wings the roots are missing so much when they are stuck deep in the ground and cannot fly and see the tremendous top of the tree that they are part of and the great forest that the whole tree is part of and the birds on the tree who are lucky to have wings are missing the quip on the ground of their nests are dependent on the mass of the storm and the strength of the tree under whose wings they take shelter therefore I concluded when I grow up I want to be a man with Roots and Wings. While the poet is of course speaking about metaphorically. There is an artistic genre we route do genuinely lead one home. As a young student of classical piano I recall analyzing with my teacher the chord structure of a particularly complex pony's by shall pass. The chord progression was modulating from key to key each transposition more exquisite and the last at one point my teacher said it's hard to even know what key were in anymore but watch how Chopin will now take us home. What she meant of course is that Chopin would eloquently modulator us back to our original key what my teacher fondly called home no matter how far she opens wings had allowed him to stray away from his home. He remained firmly rooted so that the tonic could orient him like a mistress on the wall or my primary school map. For those of us fortunate to have been given strong roots in our childhood leaving home can be a wonderful next step in lights great adventure. Literature both classical and modern is filled with stories of leaving home in search of something noble and good . Abraham's call from God to leave his father's house. Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece Rama's rescue of Sita King Arthur's quest for the Holy Grail or even Dorothy's adventures in Aust. Typically the story's hero travels to exotic locations and overcomes tremendous challenges in the end he you are occasionally she is changed profoundly by the experience and we turned wiser and with new insight about the who left behind. Sometimes the whole purpose of the journey is to learn there's no place like home as captured Simon and Garfunkel song homeward bound. To get. In classical literature our hero usually makes it back home a bit battered perhaps but wiser for the journey in real life however there often isn't a home to to return. My paternal grandfather was a refugee fleeing the persecution that was the lot of Jews in Czarist Russia he arrived in America at the age of six and never again spoke of the trauma of his early childhood so it was only after my grandfather died and I was going through his papers that I discovered he arrived in America via Liverpool thirty four years before John Lennon was born there with a bit of research I was able to find the manifest of the ship that brought him to Ellis Island where his first sight of America was the Statue of Liberty to this day whenever I fly into New York City I look down at the harbor and think of my grandfather's first vision of his new home it brings to mind the words of poet Emma Lazarus and her description of Lady Liberty in The New Colossus not like the brazen giant of Greek fame with conquering limbs a stride from land to land here at our sea washed sunset Gates she'll stand a mighty woman with a torch whose flame is the imprisoned lightning and her name mother of exiles from her beacon hand glows worldwide welcome her mild eyes command the air bridge harbor the Twin Cities frame keep ancient lands your storage pomp cry she was silent lips give me your tired your poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe free the wretched refuse of your teeming shore send these the homeless tempest tossed to me I lived my lamp beside the golden door. When I first visited the U.K. I immediately and inexplicably felt at home here even though I had never lived in Britain I like to think that's because in some way I've returned to my family's European roots but unlike Socrates who felt he had to transcend his roots in order to claim a universal identity I see my roots as what keep me grounded as I venture out and explore the world for me home is not a place I can return to it is what I bring with me wherever I go it's the writer Ursula look when who are to kill H. This experience most powerfully for me. Through story every culture defined self and teaches its children how to be people and members of their people a child who doesn't know where the center is where home is what home is that child is in a very bad way. Home isn't mom and dad and says And but home isn't where they have to let you win it's not a place at all. Home is imaginary. Home imagined comes to be. It is real realer than any other place but you can't get to it unless your people show you how to imagine it who ever your people are. They may not be relatives. They may never have spoken your language. They may have been dead for a thousand years. They may be nothing but words printed on paper ghosts of voices shadows of minds. They can guide you home. When I listen to these powerful words by like when the image that jumps to mind is the hope of the Jewish wedding canopy which represents the home that a bride and groom would build together following their wedding. The two crucial requirements of the huppah are that it's open on all sides and that it's portable I remember standing under the hood at my own wedding here I was an American woman with European roots marrying a British man yet we had chosen to marry neither in America or Europe but in Jerusalem in recognition of our shared spiritual home we didn't want to just face Jerusalem spiritually we wanted to physically be there together at the moment when our lives became intertwined. Standing next to my husband in Jerusalem under our Hubba I felt like I was suspended in an exquisite oasis of time and space rooted in our spiritual home. The highlight for me was at the end of the ceremony right before breaking the glass where we sang the traditional words of Psalm one hundred thirty seven if I forget the Jerusalem let my right hand forget coming by my tongue clinging to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy the melody is wistful and longing as these words commemorate the destruction of the temple built to be God's home on earth. Because the hope is by definition portable my husband and I have carried that excludes it feeling with us wherever we go wherever we've made our home in various countries in places around the world perhaps the whole notion of the wondering Jew has worked because Jews have had to make the home our locus of not only family but faith while the synagogue is an important institution for Jews it's the home where most rituals are performed. That's because when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed most rituals passed to the home not the synagogue examples are too numerous to count. The Passover sacrifice in the temple became the Passover Seder in the home. The showbread in the temple became the how the bride eaten at home. And the High Priest blessing the people became the weekly blessing of the children in the home may the old bless you and keep you may the Lord look upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord to bestow favor upon you and grant you peace. This precious tradition of blessing one's children each week in the home was immortalized by the Broadway musical Fiddler On The Roof which used to enchant priestly blessing as inspiration for the song Sabbath prayer. Worked their. Way. Out. If it was ready for I've. One of the highlights of my week is lighting my shot candles and then placing my hands on my children's heads and offering them their blessing. Even when my children aren't with me for. My husband and I still say the words of this ancient prayer to ask that they people last and protected wherever they may be and since we know they are rooted in their values their tradition and their family we're delighted to see them venturing out of our home and into the world so I suppose I fundamentally disagree with Socrates when he claims to be a citizen of the world while I certainly feel at home in different places I can only do that because I bring my roots with me wherever I go they are what orient me and guide me home from wherever I may be my values my tradition and the man who stood beside me under that hope all those years ago they are my home when. The crazy Gypsy. Comes as a surprise. When it begin. Something understood was presented by Boyd Gelfand the producer was Brian and it was a T.V. On a media production for B.B.C. Radio four a tempo state this morning Sunday worship comes from the God of lumber palace the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury and journeys from the Garden of Eden to the garden of get seventy that's at ten past eight but now let's go back stage. This month B.B.C. Radio four was this a programme visits Leicester featuring a glimpse of rehearsals for some set Boulevard with one look I can break your heart we had to read through of the play yesterday oversee a sensory system through a musical so to be sitting around a table reading I think took a few people by surprise and a vibrant arts center creating experimental new work I can't tell you how many times.