Homecoming

Yesterday, I was participating in what was called a “Homecoming Service.” Like many churches, such services are designed to bring people back to church after the summer months in which pews are often sparsely filled, but it struck me that the title holds theological meaning as well: Despite our best efforts to look and feel otherwise, most of us long for home and it is as good a time as ever to admit it and do something about it.

As many know, I have a soft spot for The Wizard of Oz. Not only did I watch it whenever it came on TV, but I played the record most nights as I went to sleep as a child. Even then, I knew there was something about the show that spoke to my soul. Characters who felt incomplete and a girl longing for home spoke to me when I was a child. They still do. Looking back, I can see all the ways I’ve searched for completeness, for ways to feel good enough, just as I’ve searched for a “home” that would make me feel a sense of safety and belonging that has forever alluded me.

An alcoholic once described it as having a “hole in my soul through which the wind blows,” and a renowned theologian called it a “wound which we find at the heart of everything [that is] finally incurable, yet we are . . . driven to try.” Maybe you have words of your own to capture your deep longing, your incurable wound. Our reasons are unique, but the longing is not. The question is: what, then, can we do?

Although it might sound trite, the one thing we can do is turn and head home. Stop our endless searching and our futile attempts to fill the hole inside us and head home – back to our true selves, the children we once were, and to the one who created us in the first place.

“There’s no place like home,” said a wonderful girl with ruby slippers, and our hearts will be forever restless until we find our true home. If only it was as easy as clicking our heels three times, but I believe we can still get there. There are arms opened wide saying, “You’ve tried everything else. It’s time to come home.” Let’s all run together!