June 14, 2004

• Coming Home Again

  
  

  You know the old cliche that you "can't go home again?"  I moved out of my parent's home when I left for college and I've never moved back.  Even now, I was very clear with myself, the parents, everyone involved that I haven't moved back, this is just a visit.  People grow and change so much that the home you remembered, doesn't exist anymore from the moment you leave it.  Maybe it's even the sound of the car trunk closing over the top of your luggage that bursts the bubble you've been encapsulated by.  Something happens in the moment of leaving that alters the reality of the relationships that have been "home."

  
  

  So yesterday, I attended worship with my parents.  It isn't the first time I've been back to the church I grew up in.  Over the years, I've visited often.  Almost everyone from my generation is gone now, that seems to be the way it goes in small southern towns.  We grow up here and then like the children in Charlotte's Web only a tiny remnant stay while the rest float away on the breeze.  But when I walk into that place it echoes with memories of Youth functions, the music we sang, and the laughter of people I haven't seen in twenty years. 

  
  

  Yesterday morning we arrived early enough for Bible study.  Let me clarify, Bible study begins at 9:45.  When my parents parked their van in the lot at 8:59, it was one of only three cars there.  They believe it's just wrong to wait until the last minute ...   We were there early enough to make the coffee for the people who came early for visitin' before "church" started. 

  
  

  I knew from the phone calls that I've answered over the past week, that my Mom had mentioned my circumstances to her Bible study class, to the pastor, to the music minister (she really wants me to sing one Sunday while I'm here), to the two people left in the church who were part of my youth group ... Mom is an effective communicator.  I learned a long time ago that anything I wanted to keep private had to first and foremost be private from Mom.  She never "gossips", she just asks everyone she knows to put me on their prayer list and gives them all the juiciest details.  So I anticipated that attending church would be walking into a group of people who knew far more about my life than I'm really comfortable having on public display.  Does that seem strange?  I mean I write about my life on the Internet where God and everybody could read it anytime they want.  I don't know why it's different having my Mom broadcast the story, but it is. 

  
  

  When I walked in, the first person I saw was a woman I didn't know.  She was beginning the standard greeting and offer to help the visitor find her way around when Alice came through the door.  Alice knows me.  The last official function I held in this church was to be a discipleship leader with the youth department and her daughter was in the class I taught.  With Alice in the age group that puts her squarely between me and Mom, at times in my life she has been motherly to me, and at other times, we've giggled together over silly things that the kids were doing, feeling all the amused indulgence adults can muster over the antics of those still trying their wings.  When I was going through the pain of loss during the time that I was trying to conceive and carry children, Alice faithfully wrote me cards and letters.  She sent me encouragement and held my hand long distance through both my miscarriages.  When I got so sick with eclampsia during my first pregnancy, there were weeks that I received four or five cards during those last months that I was on complete bedrest before Michael was born.  If Michael's health can be attributed to the prayers of anyone, it would have to be Alice's because she fervently prayed for us. 

  
  

  The morning was filled with moments of hugs and reconnecting with people I grew up with.  I'm not talking much here about the reason that you would go to church to start with.  To worship.  Can I make a confession?  I didn't really expect to feel at home in the service.  The theology of this church is one that I've explored and largely left behind.  I don't completely reject their position, I am a Christian after all.  But over time my understanding and relationship to God has become so different from what this church teaches that it's difficult for me to relate to the sermons, to the lessons.   It's easy for me to slip into judgmental mode if I'm not careful.  There's nothing like being the outsider to reveal all the discrepancies between what people say and what they do.  I have learned a grace that gives me an appreciation for my weaknesses and compassion for those of others.  But I no longer subscribe to much of their theology. 

  
  

  So that was my heart yesterday morning when I entered the sanctuary for worship. 

  
  

  Then a woman picked up the microphone and sang, "We are standing on holy ground ..."

  
  

  and without expecting it, without preparation for it, without any understanding of it, suddenly I was - standing on holy ground.  I had tears on my face.  I want you to understand something that has been seriously disturbing me.  I haven't cried since I left Indiana.  I've been dealing with pain from the injury I received in the accident, I've been busy with housework, I've been doing childcare, I've been talking with the insurance company, I've been going to work - until yesterday, I haven't cried for the pain in my heart.

  
  

  I've been spending time in prayer, I haven't left behind the spiritual disciplines that I've practiced for so long.  But I have been numb.  Yesterday, I found my way home.

  
  

   

  
  

   

  • 8:50 am
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