I want it to be true.

She said she had learned recently that the name common for homeless wanderers in the last century meant something almost romantic.  We were talking about hobos, those bindle-toting fellows who rode the rails during the Great Depression, knocking on doors in small towns across the country as they looked for handouts—mostly food, sometimes money.

My guest told me the article she read suggested the word hobo was short for homeward bound.

I’ve done a bit of reading on the subject and find that explanation surfaced rather recently, extrapolated by a writer or two, coming from the soldiers who were traveling after the Civil War in the 19th century, saying they were homeward bound, only to realize when they got there that their homes had been destroyed in the conflict.

It seems more likely that the term came from the name given to the farmer boys who left their farms to look for a better life.  Hoe-boys, they were called.

There was a day when I answered my grandmother’s inevitable question of what I intended to do with my life with the suggestion that I wanted to be a hobo.  What I really meant was I wanted to live the life of a bum, but have the assurance of a home to return to and the promise of financial support, should I get hungry and cold.

I grew up and out of that mindset, thankfully.  I did leave home, striking out to new horizons, but I put down roots and got a job immediately.  The wandering life wasn’t for me, much to my grandmother’s relief.

Still, I like the idea of being homeward bound.  Even after all the years of living nearly a thousand miles away, the reminders of my hometown I see almost daily induce a sort of homesickness in me.

I wonder.  Why do we look for a place to call home?

Several years ago I wrote of my friend, Miss Peggy.  She, in her ninety-first year of life, fussed at me one day because her friend had died.  The friend was younger, probably in her late eighties.

“It wasn’t her turn!”  Miss Peggy was adamant—almost angry.

I held back the laugh that threatened to burst out.  I had never considered this concept of standing in line, waiting to get into Heaven.  In my mind’s eye, I could visualize her friend, an old spinster just like Miss Peggy, cutting the line up ahead of those waiting impatiently.

The impulse to laugh died suddenly as Peggy tilted her head wistfully, letting the words spill out.

“I want to go home.”

Surrounded by her belongings, in her own cozy house, she wanted to be home.  Really home.

I guess that’s what it’s like when you’ve been on the road so long. You just want to be home.

Not many of us are hobos, but all of us—if we’re God’s children—are homeward bound.

Just like Abraham and his offspring—like Moses and his wandering, grumbling tagalongs—we’re looking for the place of promised rest.

And, it’s not the place we came from.  No, we’re going home.

Homeward bound.

And, in the meantime, our Creator’s got some green pastures and quiet waters for us to travel past.  And, yeah.  A dark valley or two.

But, there’s goodness.  And mercy.  All the days of our lives.

Until we’re finally home.

Looks like we’re headed the same direction.  Maybe we could jump a freight train together sometime.

Homeward bound.

 

“They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth.  Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own. If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”
(Hebrews 11:13-16, NLT)

“Would you welcome going home
   If you’d never been away?
I don’t think so.
I don’t think so.
I really don’t think so.”
(from Would You by Evie Tornquist Karllson)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2024. All Rights Reserved.