Where is my home(?)
Just about 2km down the road from our house is a massive warehouse and logistics hub serving major retailers based in Prague. As they were building this distribution center, what is predicted to have been perhaps the largest Celtic settlement in Europe was unearthed. Realizing the negative financial implications of this find, the developers ignored all directives to allow for further archeological exploration and hastily redoubled their efforts to both bury the site and finish construction of the warehouses. Lots of undisclosed money changed hands, some slap on the wrist was issued, and today the mysterious and unknown treasures of the Celts rest deep below the rumblings of semi-trailers and loading docks.
While the Czechs are considered a Slavic people with Slavic language, genetic studies have uncovered the fact that 35% of Czech DNA is traced to Celtic ancestry, roughly the equal portion to Slavic roots. The name of this land, Bohemia, derives its title from the Celtic Boii clans who densely populated this region from approximately the 8th century B.C. until their subjugation by the Romans. It was actually the Roman conquests that drove the Celts out of Bohemia(lit. Land of the Boii) to the isles that we tend to associate them with. While Celtic culture is well-known in some sense, like other ancient cultures there is much we don’t understand about their religious practices and observances.
This somewhat mysterious past is not lost to Czechs who hold a deep affinity for the ancient druidic customs and rituals. Many of whom find meaning in their connection to land and forest and environment, an eco-religion of sorts. Declarations of oneness with earth combined with divination, and in modern times, some rustic leather jewelry, geometric tattoos, and a bit of eastern spirituality with the rough edges knocked off to keep it current, encompass the understanding of how to claim one’s Celtic heritage here.
The Czech Republic lies at the crossroads of Europe. Neither fully eastern nor fully western in their ideas, they have been cursed with an almost schizophrenic cultural identity that is embodied in these more recent DNA discoveries. A snapshot of the quintessential Czech today would demonstrate a heritage that is about 35% Celtic, 35% Slavic, 20% Germanic, and 10% Nordic. It truly is where eastern and western Europe meet and create a brew of people and culture that is both familiar and denies categorization. These are a people who are still discovering what it means to be Czech, as their independence from foreign ruling powers has only come in spurts and starts over the past century. Perhaps no more telling is the name of their own national anthem, “Kde Domov Muj” meaning “Where is my home?” or rather “Where My Home Is.” The name itself is unsure whether it implies a question or a statement, perfectly embodying the spirit of this people. The anthem does confirm one thing: it is a beautiful land, paradise on earth, it is home.
If you hadn’t gathered already, though I certainly see things through an outsider’s eyes, I adore discovering Czech culture and uncovering what makes these marvelous and complex people tick. In truth, I find some near affinity to them, despite coming to very different conclusions on most matters. Perhaps most, I relate to the feeling of being at home yet lost, having knowledge of my ancestry yet digging to find my roots, yearning for purchase but constantly settling for some half-manifested version of a thing I know must exist in fullness…somewhere. Of course, I then conclude that this is precisely how I ought to feel. Is this not evidence of our hiraeth for Eden? I likewise love the beauty of the earth God created, and rightly so, we were created in such a way to be tuned to appreciate it. We are a people of this earth, fallen as it may be. We are also a people of another earth; this one, yet…another. It might all seem some cruel joke, this unfulfilled yearning, if it weren’t for the fact that our maker entered in with us. He condescended to join us in our brokenness and searching, in order that he might point the way to our forever home, both here and not yet. When we speak of advent, this coming of Christ, might we be encouraged, that our king is coming, and with him our homeland. Kde Domov Můj(?)
