homesickness

Samuel continued as judge over Israel all the days of his life. From year to year he went on a circuit from Bethel to Gilgal to Mizpah, judging Israel in all those places. But he always went back to Ramah, where his home was, and there he also judged Israel. And he built an altar there to the LORD. (I Samuel 7:15-17)

Like a bird that strays from its nest is a man who strays from his home. (Proverbs 27:8)

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. (Mark 6:1-3) 

Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”  (Matthew 8:19-20) 

I have been feeling a strong sense of homesickness lately. And the bad part of it is, I am not sure where I am homesick for.

The old song says:

I've been so many places in my life and time
I've sung a lot of songs and I've made some bad climbs
I've acted out my life in stages with ten thousand people watching
Oh, but we're alone now and I'm singing this song for you.

That song resonates strongly inside me. We have lived so many places. As a minister in denomination that did not prize longevity, I have gone from one end of the United States to the other. And while I was doing that, it never occurred to me that one day I would wish I hadn’t.

I am a Texas City boy. I really only lived in TC for maybe three years before I was drafted, but it was there that so many of my memories are centered. My parents moved there in 1966 and I went to tenth and eleventh grades there, fell in love with 2 or 300 girls while there, kissed a girl, had the comic star in a play (South Pacific), worked at my first radio station, learned to play the guitar – all kinds of things.

I know that TC is not the same. I have seen modern pictures of it. And I have no one there to whom I am related and probably any old friends are gone. But still, I feel such a pull there.

We lived in Spokane, WA, in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. We loved the city, we loved the church, we loved so many things about it. The leaders in the church there hurt us, and we ended up leaving. But we loved the city and if we could, I would go back. Again, I know it is nothing like the city we left, but still, I feel the pull.

We lived in Germany for six months after we were married while I was in the army. We loved Germany and even made tentative – very tentative – plans to go back to do mission work. But we didn’t. I would love to go back to Darmstadt to visit old roots. Many of those are no longer there as I have found out recently, but it was a beginning of a life long love affair with my wife.

I would imagine Jesus felt that same pull. Even though he knew he might not be accepted, he went back anyway. And they hated him. I wonder if he ever went back.

Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again. And it is true. Home always eludes you when you try to find it. And as the old saying goes, home is where the heart it. Where Ella is, there is home.

Wherever we move, when we unpack, we are at home. And even if we are staying in a motel room it is still home, because she is there.

I felt that feeling the first time in 1979 when we were living in Spokane and we saw a TV special with Kenny Rogers. He went to Crockett, TX, to do a TV show. Listening to all of the people with such broad Texas accents (something I have never had but Ella does in spades) made us homesick for the first time in our lives.

And I feel that so strongly. Nebraska is an odd place and one I never wanted to live in. I suppose if I stay here long enough, I will grow accustomed to it and consider it my home.

But I, right now this minute, am so homesick and so far away from home that it hurts. If I could just figure out where home is. I feel so strongly like an expatriate that has forgotten where his country is.