Home, Heart, and Here

Home is where the heart is. That is what they say, but what if your heart is in so many different places that you don't know which one to call home. This is the struggle that I have found in coming to Lupeni. I do believe this statement to be quite true but, for me, there are a lot of questions that go along with it.
First of all what do they mean by “heart”? I don't think that the original person who coined this phrase meant the actual, physical heart that we have in our bodies, although there is something special in knowing that your home is where your physical body is, I will touch on this a little later. But I think we can all agree that the person who first said this meant that your heart is what you love with. Which brings me to my next question.
What do they mean by “where the heart is”? Since we have come to the conclusion that your heart is what you love with the logical answer is “where” must be with what you love. You see love has the power to connect. Every person in the world loves, if a person doesn't then he/she is not human; every person has something they care for. But the problem is you can love many things. You can love certain people, certain animals, certain areas in the world, so people even say they love certain cars. So could your “home” be where a certain car is? Some may disagree with me, but I personally don't think that it can. Does your “home” move with where a certain person moves? If you take that question at the letter of the word, once again I don't think it does. No a home has to have many of the things that you love to be there in order for it to be home. But what happens if some things that you love are in one place and some more things that you love are in another place? Which one of those places are home? Both? Are you allowed to have two homes?
This is where I have found myself almost every day when walking down the streets of Lupeni. My heart has found many things to love in this place, some of them being the scenery, the simplicity, the shops, and most of all the people. But at the same time my heart has many things it loves about Orange City and the same goes for Minnesota (where I originate from). You want to know the tough part about it I love many of the same things in them all. So which one is my home?
Now I will give a shout-out to my brothers in Heemstra and say “Be here now!” What this means is that where-ever I am I should be fully there. Be fully engaged in what is happening in that place and be fully knowledgable in what is happening. So essentially it is saying where my physical heart is that is where my mind and love should be. This isn't that I can't love things from a different area but I should consider the area that I am in to be home.
So I am writing from my new-found home, Lupeni, Romania, to all of you in your prospective homes around the world. I hope that this makes sense and that you are able to get something out of it.


Bryent TAD Slagter



Home in Romania










Home in Orange City










Home in Minnesota