Young adults seek 'home in a disconnected world'

Kitchener, Ont.

Young adults from Mennonite Church Eastern Canada gathered at Crieff Hills Camp September 17-19 on the theme "Finding home in a disconnected world." They literally brought home with them, as they decorated the dining room with posters, knickknacks, stuffed animals and other reminders of home.

The questions of the weekend were: What is home? Where do you find home in the midst of transition? What factors of young adult life make finding home difficult?

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MaryBeth and Jeff Druery from Open Circle Chaplaincy at McMaster University led the Saturday morning session. They asked us in small groups to list all the things that have changed in our world in the last 20 years. The list was huge, including technology (e-mail, cell phones), political (fall of the Berlin Wall, 9-11), family and marriage, environmental shifts, growing gap between rich and poor.

What do all these changes mean for us?

Several young adults shared their experience of trying to find home in their lives. Where is home if you grow up in several different countries? Is church still home when you question its theology and practice? What are we doing to our physical, global home?

We ended the weekend reflecting on finding home in God. Jeremiah told those in exile to seek the welfare of the city, for in its welfare they will find their welfare. The prodigal son finds home again despite all his disconnected wandering. Maybe it is God who finds us, and offers us home, despite our disconnectedness.

The band U2 sings "I still haven't found what I'm looking for." Perhaps it is the journey itself that is important. You can carry a sense of being at home with yourself even as you continue the search.