A few days ago, I talked about the idea of home and what it might say about our ultimate underpinnings.  A story that has been filling the Western news lately made me think about it again.  You may know that a couple of weeks ago two prisoners serving life sentences broke out of a maximum security prison in update New York.  From everything I can read, these are dark men, people who are ready and willing to inflict a great deal of pain on their fellow human beings.  Nonetheless, they apparently befriended a prison employee who, it turns out, provided them material aid for their escape.
     Though we do not yet know all the details, news reports indicate that at one point in her police interrogation this employee remarked that one of the prisoners made her "feel special."  If I may connect this statement--and what it might suggest about this person's state of mind--I venture to say that it is yet another demonstration of how much every person longs to be recognized and cared for, how much every human being looks for some sort of connection, some sort of, broadly speaking, home.  To be human is to want home.
     Many years ago, the night before he was scheduled to die on Texas's Death Row, a now forgotten prisoner remarked that, "I always wanted a home; now I'm going to get one." This man found Jesus on Death Row.  Under sentence of death, he came to believe that Jesus was his savior, God, and eternal friend.  His outlook on his mortality had completely changed.  As human as you and I, this man had always wanted home.  Now, he believed, he would get one, a permanent home, a place in heaven with God.  Forever, he believed, he will be regarded as special.
     The homes and attention of this life, as wonderful as they are, end when life ends. The homes and attentions of an eternal God will endure forever.  If, as Pliny the Elder once said, "home is where the heart is," ask yourself:  where do you want your heart to be?