Father

Home.

I’ve been thinking a lot about home the last few days. Well—it is normal for that to happen this time of year. Christmas memories do intrude on normal life.

For most folks, they do.

I’ve mentioned before that I didn’t really experience Christmas as a child. We took a different path as a family and didn’t celebrate the holiday. Perhaps I’ll spend some time on that subject again—perhaps not. All it means to this discussion is that I have no childhood Christmas memories calling me back home.

Still, my mind drifts back again.

I can’t help it. Events and family decisions are conspiring to draw me back to the place I still call home, in spite of nearly forty years of being away. And, in the midst of planning for one last trip home—one last chance to say goodbye—my head is alive with memories.

They are memories of a home filled with love and music. They are also memories of the same home filled with sibling rivalry and loud arguments, lasting late into the night, about every subject you could imagine. A lifetime ago in that home, my brothers, sister, and I developed from awkward, dependent little brats into strong, responsible adults (for the most part).

Denim jeans worn through at the knees and patched by a red-headed lady—muttering and shaking her head all the while—play a part in the memories. So too, do wool sweaters crocheted by the same red-headed lady—this time, smiling and humming at her work.

The events that shaped the humans we are today are still in our heads, just waiting to be captured by the fickle net of memory and brought to the surface at any moment.

They’re not all happy memories. Then again, for me, they’re not mostly sad ones either.

I’ll take one last trip home.

Closure. The long chapter will be finished.

Somehow though, during this Christmas season, interlaced with the weaving of denim and wool memories of that long-ago home has been the sheer and silky fabric of a home I have not yet been to.

I’ve never been there, but lately it feels more like home than any place to which I’ve ever given that name. Perhaps, it’s because the red-headed lady who raised me has moved there within the last year.

I don’t think it’s only that. I don’t think it’s even mostly that.

The realization hit me just this week, as I joked with a customer in my business. I haven’t been feeling well for a day or two and my plaintive reply to his casual query about my general well-being led him to say the words.

“Well, it’s better than the alternative.”

I started to nod in agreement, but suddenly it occurred to me.

No. It’s not.

The realization was like an electric shock. I don’t want to stay here one second past time to go home. Not an instant.

Home is the place we are aiming for. It’s the ultimate goal of our labor and living here.

I told him so. He didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I wonder why?

My mind wanders a bit further afield. Suddenly, I’m thinking about Him. You know who I mean. The Baby—the One whose birth we’ll celebrate in a few days. He left home.

It was a big deal. Home was better. Really better.

Still, He left home. For us. To teach us. To touch us. To save us.

To take us home with Him—so we could be with His Father.

Funny. I suddenly remember why I mostly want to go home.

To be with my Father.

Yes, the red-headed lady who raised me will be there. She’ll be there, along with many others I want to see again. A lot.

But, I want to be with my Father.

In a week or so, I’ll turn my face toward my old home. Even then, My face will be toward my real home.

It’s out there still. Just up ahead.

I can almost see the lights from here.

Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.(Hebrews 11:16 ~ NIV)

Strengthen us to go on in loving service of all thy children. Thus shall we have communion with thee, and, in thee, with our beloved ones. Thus shall we come to know within ourselves that there is no death and that only a veil divides, thin as gossamer.
(from a prayer by George MacLeod ~ Scottish soldier/clergyman ~ 1895-1991)

I will arise and go.

The words came to me as I sat among the mud and scattered corn husks tonight.

You laugh. Perhaps with good reason.

And yet…

And yet, I find it easy to drift away into the dark places of my mind these days. People are gone from my life and from the lives of friends. Some have gone beyond recall, never to be reunited this side of eternity. At times, the pain is nearly palpable, the sadness overwhelming.

Others are separated by events no less catastrophic, but perhaps less permanent. Perhaps.

The sadness of broken relationships has become more personal and more crushing with every passing year—indeed it seems—with every passing day. The hopeless feeling bewilders me and doubts grow that broken marriages can be salvaged, or that adult children estranged from parents and siblings
can ever put aside their petty feuds and be reconciled. Somehow, that feeling is hardly less devastating than what I feel for those separated in that final, irrevocable farewell of death.

On the heels of the abrupt loss of an old friend last week have come numerous reminders of other recent losses by friends and in my own family. I listened to a beautiful song by a young friend this evening and wept anew for the cruel scars left by the theft of once-bright minds in aging parents and grandparents. The never-ending stories of broken friendships and rifts in family relationships only add to the sadness.

No. The mud and corn husks of a pig wallow seem to be an apt description.

I may have even heard the startled grunt of a pig a moment ago, as I shifted my position in my seat. It is dark in here.

But, the words come to mind again.

I will arise…

I will arise and go.

Although the path leading here didn’t jibe with the story those words belong to, I’m thinking the cure may be the same.

Funny, isn’t it? Some places, you just arrive at by chance. Without even trying, I find myself frequently at the doughnut shop miles away, and once in awhile, at the ice cream parlor just down the street.

I don’t have to decide to go there. Why is it the places that are not healthy for us just seem to appear before us?

When we want to do healthy things, we have to struggle. We must force ourselves out of our easy chairs, or push away from the dinner table. We dress for the specific activity and select the correct shoes. Protective gear is carefully adjusted and equipment is checked again.

I never, never, just find myself exercising. You?

Come to think of it, we have to make an effort to do most everything which is profitable for us. But the dark places, the damaging activities, almost seem to find us on their own.

I certainly didn’t go looking for this place. I just found myself in here.

I am going to have to take action if I want to leave it behind, though.

I will arise. My Father has things so much better for me.

There might even be a party going on there.

You’ll come too, won’t you?

It might take some effort on your part, as well.

I will arise. And, go to the Father.

He’s already waiting.

He always has been.

But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
(Luke 15:20 ~ KJV)

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
(C.S. Lewis ~ British novelist/Christian apologist ~ 1898-1963)

Flee as a bird to your mountain,
Thou who art weary of sin;
Go to the clear-flowing fountain,
Where you may wash and be clean;
Fly, for temptation is near thee,
Call, and the Savior will hear thee;
He on His bosom will bear thee,
O thou who art weary of sin,
O thou who art weary of sin.

He will protect thee forever,
Wipe ev’ry falling tear;
He will forsake thee O never,
Sheltered so tenderly there!
Haste then, the hours are flying,
Spend not the moments in sighing,
Cease from your sorrow and crying,
The Savior will wipe ev’ry tear,
The Savior will wipe ev’ry tear.
(Flee as a Bird ~ Mary Dana Schindler ~ American hymn writer ~ 1810-1883)

He's Taken Leave

Random wanderings with Paul Phillips

Face Toward Home

Arise and Go