Finding Our Way Home

Christmas is a time of year that brings this longing in me which is usually neatly tucked away all year  long with the Christmas decorations. And then, there it is....Again and again.  Year after year.





The longing consistently echoes,  " I want to go home."





“For twenty years I have ached to go back home, when there was nobody there to whom I could return.” 
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith  

I used to have a recurring dream that I was in the town where I was born and raised.  I was a few miles from my childhood home walking down the dark, neighborhood streets.  In the dream it's always night time. Even though I was only a mile or so away, it seemed like worlds away...in my dream.  Only once did I make it back, and it was only to the front yard.  The yard wasn't recognizable.  It even had a gate around it. I didn't go in. 

I think of all my loved ones who have died. I think I feel them more  this time of year.  Is it because they're on my mind more? Or something else? Home is just one of those words...I think of love, I think of being known, I think of days gone by, I think of my own humanity.

But really, home is grace.  It's where we are fully accepted.

 God became flesh.  God became a child, a toddler, a teenager, a young man.  Jesus was fully human. 

 There were some who totally annoyed him. And there were some who encouraged him. Some turned out to be his friends. Some turned on him; betrayed him.  He had the same things in him that we have. 

The desire for sex, the temptation to get really angry and lash out, the temptation to defend himself, the temptation to defend what he believed. The temptation to eat too much, drink too much.  He didn't though. He didn't defend any of that.  Once, he got really angry...and it was over money. And it was in a house of worship.  It was over greed.  But he was always pretty quiet. I think he probably really was intense. People probably thought he was too sensitive.  And I believe he hung out with people like me.   I'm not so sure he'd be sitting in many of our churches...but hey..maybe?

"So the story goes, so I'm told
The people he knew were
Less than golden hearted
Gamblers and robbers
Drinkers and jokers, all soul searchers
Like you and me"

That is grace.  Jesus, not doctrine, not religion, but Jesus, his example, his words, have set an example for me that helps me know how to get back home; get back to that innocence that was lost so long ago. 

 

It's a long journey.  Lots of bumps in the road, lots of times feeling the need for a good shot of vodka, chocolate or too much food .  But in spite of the bumps, after the vodka, after too much eating,  there it is; home...grace. Like a beautiful shining castle in the midst of the ghetto. It's such a mystery, such a miracle.  It is the lighthouse of humanities sea that guides us home.

“I do believe that God is with us even in our craziest, most obsessive, most neurotic moments.  It's  this goodness that guides, provides, and protects.” 
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Emanuel...peace on earth and goodwill to men.

Love you and thanks for reading!!!