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!

Back to School

No matter how long it’s been, I still think like a teacher. Labor Day marks the end of Summer and the beginning of Fall. Another year begins, and such an ingrained way of looking at things is not all bad.

A teacher (and student) gets to start over every September. Whiteboards are cleaned (literally and metephorically), fresh markers are ready to write the year’s lessons as if for the first time. For me, it’s all about new opportunities; it’s all about grace.

Although I no longer need school supplies, I always buy a new journal. Although I no longer have pre-season practices, I use the cooler temperatures to up my physical efforts. Although classes are a thing of the past, I reestablish my daily rituals, and even though there are no exams, I establish goals to work toward.

I write to invite you to join me returning to school. I promise, there are no grades, and, who knows, you might just grow in new ways.

Training Wheels

On what/whom do you depend? Posing the question to the assembled group created the kind of silence that made me wonder if I’d made a terrible mistake. People looked at their feet, cleared their throats, or reached for their coffee. In a world which encourages people to be masters of their destiny, to be invincible, or at least widely independent, I understood their hesitation to answer, but I also know that we all depend on something or someone. The question is, on what or whom?

Suddenly, an image came to mind, one that did not make any sense at the time. I thought about the days when I did not know how to ride my bike and my parents gave me a bike with training wheels. It stood erect in the driveway, no need for a kickstand, and I could sit on the seat and not worry about tipping over. Just to make sure, I leaned from one side to the other and was relieved to remain upright. I leaned more dramatically to each side eventually finding out there was a limit to the power of the training wheels.

Not knowing what that memory had to do with this morning’s topic, I listened as people spoke about their lives before entering the rooms of twelve-step recovery. One person shared his obsession with work and how he gave his all to being successful until he came home to an empty house. Another spoke of growing up in an uncertain, unpredictable house and how it caused her to demand absolute certainty from the people around her. Eventually, it led to her being completely alone. Another spoke of material success and how he used it to “buy” the respect of others and how it became a “hamster wheel of more” which led to his eventually defaulting on loans and declaring bankruptcy.

I eventually saw what my childhood memory had to do with what we were discussing. Like those in the rooms, I’ve often longed for something more than I’ve had. No job, relationship, or bank account was enough. There was always an emptiness, a longing, (or “hole in my soul” as someone wise once wrote) and no matter how hard I tried it always remained. I could lean in one direction or another and feel secure, but eventually the “training wheels” would give out and leave me lying face-down on the driveway.

It would be logical to take such a lesson and set out to never depend on anything or anyone, but the truth is we are not independent beings. Despite whatever evidence we have to suggest otherwise, we were born incomplete. The question then becomes, what are we going to do about that, or, as I posed that morning, on what or whom will we depend?

Reaching such a moment of clarity is humbling, and yet it is also life-giving. To realize we are perpetually in need allows us to release our white-knuckle grip on life (and those around us) and turn to something or someone greater than we. It might sound simple or, worse, simplistic, but surrendering to a power greater than ourselves can begin a sacred dance that will lead us in directions we never expected. Unlike the training wheels, we can lean in all we want or need and never topple to the ground.