I couldn't recommend this book more highly. It contains a critical message for the church today in how to engage with culture, and particularly those who are spiritually searching for 'home'. From the foreword by Pete Hughes From Jonny Baker Blog - jonnybaker.blogs.com We all need to come home. We have a place that we can call home and we need to belong to a society and culture. We need to be at home within our own hearts. We need to find a home in the hearts of others; and we need to be at home with our God... Our whole life is that journey home. (Sister Stan) Michael Mitton spoke at Greenbelt last year - I thought his talk was the best I have heard so far of those I have listened to from last year. he was speaking on the theme of homecoming as a model of renewal and mission. his latest book which formed the basis of that talk Dreaming of Home has just come out and is really good. he is a lovely man and we have become friends in the last couple of years - quiet, gentle, wise, a poet and writer and spiritual director. this gentle wisdom seeps through into the pages of the book. I don't think the book could have been written by someone young. One of the moving stories in the book is Michael's own where he describes an encounter with an old monk who expresses frustration with Michael saying to him something like - the trouble with you is that you have not yet become Michael Mitton! this sets him off on a journey which leads to him leaving his job and setting off in a new direction (having been spoken to in a dream) to seek to come home to himself. this challenge of being at home with ourselves sounds so simple and yet it is such a challenge. Michael explores the story of the two sons, and the father in Luke 15 and creatively weaves his own imaginative telling interspersed through the book. If you like to know the influences, Brueggemann, Buechner, O'Donahue, Sister Stan, Bailey, Nouwen, Rowland Evans are the kinds of tributaries feeding the flow. It's a reflective book, good for devotional use, for a retreat. at one level it's quite simple but at another it affords great depth as it opens up the possibility of soul work in our own homecoming and also in the creation of communities that can be places that carry this sense of home with acceptance and welcome, free from fear and shame. I found myself jotting down lots of quotes from the book to chew over. Here's a couple to give you the flavour... ... a longing for a place of utter safety where we can be ourselves without fear or shame... We all have bits of us that are too sheltered, that are afraid to come out for one reason or another. If bits of us are hiding away like this it is a clue that we are not yet entirely at home in ourselves. When you die and go to heaven and you meet God, God is not going to say to you 'Why didn't you become a saint? Why didn't you discover the cure for cancer? Why didn't you change the world?' No all God will ask you at that holy time is 'Why didn't you become you?' (Elie Wiesel) Home is where the heart is. It stands for the sure centre where individual life is shaped and from where it journeys forth. What it ultimately intends is that each of its individuals would develop the capacity to be at home in themselves. This is something that is usually overlooked but is a vital requirement in the creativity and integrity of individual personality... When one is at home in oneself, one is integrated and enjoys a sense of balance and poise. In a sense that is exactly what spirituality is - the art of homecoming. Michael beautifully opens our eyes to home. Home, the place where we know we are beloved on the earth, welcomed and loved; free now to enjoy the gift of life and to cherish the place where we live. And yet... our hearts are opened too to that deep longing within us all to be truly at home with God. Dreaming of Home is a book that reveals to us that Heaven and earth are so deeply entwined that there is no need for us to separate them or to fear. Reviewed by Penny Warren, Community of Aidan and Hilda Reviews From The Good Bookstall - September 2012 The sub-title of this book gives a clue to its content, but with such an experienced and good author and speaker as Michael Mitton, it is merely a clue because his exploration of the subject is focussed and detailed. Homecoming does not simply refer to that lovely feeling of getting back home after a hard day at work of after a holiday, but to the sense within oneself of ease, fulfilment, rightness and completion. As a Christian we are taught to try to achieve wholeness but this is never easy. The Church has its role too, of being a home, a family, a community. This discussion of homecoming operates on two levels - the personal and the church community, because in both areas starting from the best possible place enables the onward and outward looking journey to be accomplished with greater purpose and effect. There are questions and reflections for either personal use or for group discussion, and at a time when many churches are examining their mission, and individuals are looking at a post-modern society, this is a timely book to read and then act upon. Reviewed by Carole Burrows