Little Fires Everywhere -- by Celeste Ng

   I recently finished Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, a book based in Shaker Heights, OH.  As a former Cleveland resident, I did enjoy recognizing some of the landmarks.

  It's a book about the Richardson family, who leads a very planned & wealthy existence in Shaker Heights, and what happens when their world collides with the Warren family, who lead a dramatically different life, consistent only in its geographic inconsistency, defined by the two people in it more than location.

  The story is one about what defines you, about what defines a family, about how the places we live define us.  It's a story about home, and what that means, and how we find our way there when we don't know where it is.  

  Home is a loaded concept.  For many, it brings a cherished sense of warmth and love -- it's a concept  to be treasured, an idea to keep in the depths of your hearts that offers warmth even in the coldest nights of life.  For others, it's a painful memory filled with conflict, one that forces an individual to adapt.  Home can be wonderful and complex and lovely.  

  The sense of home is, for Christians, something that we know in the depths of our hearts but also seek, because we know that the world is not as it should be.  We know that our true home is in the future, and it draws us forward.  That feeling we get when we understand that things aren't fundamentally quite right -- it's the knowledge we have within us of what home truly is, and stress that is caused by the discrepancy between the two.  It is God who, acting through Jesus Christ, has opened the way back home for us.  For that we hope, with great anticipation, knowing that we cannot grasp it on this side of the veil.

  Little Fires Everywhere is a quick read, but a thoughtful one, if you read it well, because it makes you think about how you interact as a family, about how your hopes and dreams have shaped your life, and it makes you think about home.  For me, this always tunes my heart to the Kingdom of God -- and the knowledge that our heart's true home belongs in God alone.