Omne solum forti patria est.
(Ovid, Fasti I.493)

Every land is a homeland for the courageous.

(pron = OHM-neh SOH-loom FOR-tee PAH-tree-ah ehst)

Comment: When I was in seminary at Emory University, we were all required to
participate in a hospital chaplaincy program. Each week, we would go to our
assigned hospitals and spend at least two hours visiting with patients as
student chaplains. My intitial and abiding struggle as I went each week was
feeling like I was bothering people who were already uncomfortable and
suffering, and yet, so I was told, I was there to be of some help and comfort
to them.

The late Henri Nouwen wrote in his book The Wounded Healer that the minister
must be so at home with him/herself that the minister becomes the host
welcoming guests into their place of healing. In other words, the minister has
to be so at home within him/herself that he/she can put others at ease where
they are.

This is the kind of courage that I hear Ovid describing. It is a courage within
the self that makes any place one is home.

Nouwen's advice has never left me. I try to transfer it from the hospital room
to the classroom. There is a certain courage required for showing up in the
classroom each day so that the teacher can make the students--all
students--feel welcome, especially those who do not want to be there in the
first place. It's a courage that begins by looking in the mirror. If I cannot
choose to be at home in this ground called my body, then no ground will feel
like home.