Though there is certainly grace in the way Jack is welcomed
home, there is also a good deal of graceless human
imperfection. Reverend Boughton’s fumbling attempts to
connect with his son frequently fall short. Jack, despite his
deep longing to belong, continues to feel out of place and
sometimes relapses into destructive habits. Struggling with
his seeming inability to believe in God, he grapples with the
state of his soul and the disapproval of his father’s closest
friend, the minister John Ames. It is in Jack that Robinson
shows the painful reality of sin and the way it stains our lives.
And yet, amidst this brokenness, Robinson illuminates
something beautiful and holy in the ordinary day-to-day. Very
little happens in Home by way of plot. No wildly dramatic
events unsettle Gilead; no one moment serves
as a startling climax. Instead, the rhythms and
chores of ordinary life form the backdrop of
the slowly unspooling story of family and
grace—and these rhythms and chores are
what slowly bring Jack and Glory together.
At first, Glory finds that the intervening
years since she last saw Jack have made her
brother a stranger to her. But household
activities provide a means through which
Jack is somehow enfolded back into the family. Watching Jack
at work, Glory realizes “[h]e used to live here, and he knew
how things were done,” despite the fact that “it had somehow
never seemed to her that the place had his attention.” He
tends “with particular care” the overgrown garden where the
Boughton children once played. He helps Glory care for their
father, whose age and illness have left him dependent on others.
In Home, the ordinary is
intimately holy, infused
with a grace that draws
two grieving, lonely
people into empathy
and love. Jack and
Glory overcome their
initial wariness and
awkwardness as they
meet one another in
the midst of chores.
It is while Glory gives
Jack a haircut that
Illustrated by Claire Lin '23
In Home, the
ordinary is intimately
holy, infused with
a grace that draws
two grieving, lonely
people into empathy
and love.
he confesses, “I’m so tired of myself,” and she pauses to
wipe away her battered brother’s tears. It is as Glory irons
a shirt of his that she finally learns of the woman he loves.
Everyday drudgery and housekeeping become moments to
be fully known—and moments to fully trust—
in brokenness, in sadness, in desperation.
This sense of togetherness and trust emerges
throughout Home via another ordinary activity
grounded in the domestic: the cooking and
sharing of food. There is, of course, a dinner to
welcome the prodigal son home, complete with
roast, biscuits, and potatoes. But it is in meals far
simpler, far more ordinary, that Robinson really
illuminates family intimacy. Meals are a grace extended to the
wayward and the wounded, telling them that they are not
alone and that they are loved. “After every calamity of any
significance,” Glory recalls, her mother would bake or cook
to say, “This house has a soul that loves us all,” and to offer
“peace…and amnesty.” And Glory herself ministers to both
her brother and father through meals. She prepares chicken
and dumplings when a particularly rough night for the family
leaves Jack and their father “laid low by grief, as if it were a
sickness.” There is no better way, Glory decides, “to announce
the return of comfort and well-being except by cooking
something fragrant.” Gathering at the table, despite everything,
is a balm in Gilead for the wounded, for the sin-sick soul. 1
What does it mean to come home, then? For Glory and for Jack,
coming home involves acknowledging grief and brokenness. It
involves trusting and loving through the ins and outs of daily
life. It is the truth that there is nothing too big and nothing too
small for grace. And in this truth, Robinson gives us a glimpse
1 This line refers to the refrain from the traditional African
American spiritual, “There is a Balm in Gilead.”
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