Homecoming

I've served seven churches over the years. I just went back to one I left thirty-one years ago. Where did the time go?

I helped baptize the child of a child I baptized when I was there. How many children have I baptized? I should have kept a record but somehow when it all started I thought it would not matter.

One reason I did not keep "records" is that I thought I would not be doing this ministry thing for this long. I looked for a way out early on. I had too many strange thoughts and my understanding of God was too big and the church was too small...for me. At my "little country church" one of the Furr boy's pegged me when he was overheard to say, " This new preacher will never make it. He's too short, he's too young, and he's read too many books."

Well I'm "old" now and if I carry on in my father's tradition I'll soon start to shrink so I'm destined to even get shorter. I've read even more books and even written a few. I suppose most days I'm glad that brother Furr was wrong.

What a joy it is to hold a child and drip water over his or her head. As I looked around during "Homecoming" I remembered being at this church of my past. The sanctuary seemed smaller than when I was there. The people all looked older of course and when some of them said to me, "Why you haven't changed a bit" I remembered why I loved them so much when I was with them.

"You can't go home again," it is said. I suppose that is true. It felt strange and memories came up like those sayings that popped up in that novelty item called "an eight ball." Do you remember those?...You held the eight ball, turned it slightly and a sayings would pop up in the tiny window in the ball. The sayings that seemed to come from nowhere were supposedly an indication of what your future might hold.

Well these memories that popped up were full of the past not the future. I did not find a way out of the ministry. It seems I found a way "through" it and now it's been 38 years. I can count the years even though I've lost track of the babies.

You can't go home again...but it was good to drop by and remember. Life needs some "homecomings." We travel so fast theses days. It is good to at least "visit" home again. For so many of us "home" is constantly being made as we go.

It was T.S Elliot who said, "We shall not cease from exploring and in our exploring we shall come to the place from which we started and know it for the first time." As I looked around the old place that I used to call home I pondered that I am coming to know that life is daily and home is where you show up...really show up.

As I got in the car to leave "homecoming," I remembered what the choir sang to me as I walked down the aisle my last Sunday with them: "Happy trails to you until we meet again...Happy trails to you keep smiling until then.." I smiled...I remembered....and I said, "thank you" to that amazing presence who would not let me out of this wonderful, crazy, thing called ministry.


Bless you
jody