we got to get ourselves back to the garden
You’ll remember the classic line from The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy first steps out of her tornado-transported home into the Land of the Munchkins. Clutching Toto, she looks wide-eyed around and says, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”
Getting home to Kansas was the heart and soul of the story. As wonderful as it was to know the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, there was no question that Dorothy was going to abandon her comrades as soon as she learned how to go home. “There’s no place like home (tap, tap), there’s no place like home (tap, tap), there’s no place like home…”
That longing for home beats in all our hearts. The Odyssey, I’ll be Home for Christmas, Lassie Come Home, Norman Rockwell paintings, leaving the porch light burning… the stories, songs, and images of coming home are found everywhere in our culture, revealing our universal longing. People who find at last a worshipping community and religious tradition that they feel “really at home in” (there’s that word again!) have written a variety of articles and books often with similar titles reflecting the Coming Home theme. No matter how great the vacation has been, Jeanne’s first words when we step through our own doorway is, “Oh, it’s so good to come home!”
This theme in our hearts is not about staying home or being home — it’s about returning home. It’s not about a journey of discovery to someplace new and wonderful: Dorothy sought the Emerald City not to discover or experience the wonders of that place, but only as a means to returning home. Like Sinbad, many of us are addicted to travel, adventure, and discovery —we have wanderlust and traveling shoes. But in the end, homesickness overcomes us, and we must return home. As Crosby, Stills and Nash sang, “we got to get ourselves back to the garden.”
There are any number of ways to make sense of the quest that lies at the center of our religious life. But I wonder whether there is any better way to make sense of it than just this: we’re longing to come home. More than finding wisdom to govern our lives, more than finding inspiration for life, more than finding comrades to work for a better world, more than finding relief from guilt or fear, we’re longing to come around the bend to see the porch light burning. We’re longing to come home.
The Lord be with you,
posted by Rick+ @ 10:45 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Yes, I think you are very right about this—we really all just want to come home. I liked your analysis of the Wizard of Oz theme, and I agree wholeheartedly.
Home, of course, means something unique to each individual.
I was an Episcopalian from 1977 to 1989, and since then, my entire family and I (wife and four grown sons) have been Greek Orthodox. As Episcopalians we belonged to St Mark's in Portland, which was the highest of the high church, and yet, it was very down to earth and gutsy. When I was in my mid 30's I was the reader of the Friday night evening prayer service, and also did street ministry from the Lady Chapel. The parish was inner city and surrounded by the needy. I also had a penance group, called the Company of San Damiano (after the miraculous icon which spoke to St Francis of Assisi). We met together once a month to read writings on the idea of repentance, and then we all went to confession together (one at a time, of course, but on the same day). Afterwards, we would go out and have a supper together to celebrate our reconciliation. The sad thing was that the rector didn't really know what to do with us, and kept "missing" his appointed evening to hear our confessions, so we just gave up. The Sunday after we disbanded he said, "Oh, too bad, and I was just getting used to you!"
One Sunday back in the autumn of 1988, the Portland Marathon cut us off from being able to get to St Mark's for services (the police had cordoned off certain roads in the city, leaving the church in a zone where cars could not drive). So I said, "Hey. let's see what the Greeks do for church?" That's how we ended up moving to Holy Trinity GOC, Portland, OR, where we've been ever since.
Why do I recount this history?
I dunno. Maybe just to say, that I've always wanted to get home, and my various attempts, church membership, active lay ministry, etc., have not really brought me there… only very, very close. At 55 years of age, I am now certain that home exists, and I am indeed very close to it, but it is not to be found in any of the externals of religion, though that is no reason to abandon them.
Home is to be in the warm embrace of a dear friend, who loves me and knows me so well, that he can finish a sentence I begin, that he breaks bread with me whenever we are together at table, that he always makes time for me and welcomes me whenever I come to him.
Whether in happy circumstances or in challenging ones, when we are together, that's home, because we are of one mind, heart and spirit.
For me, home is living the life of perfect unity that is in the Holy Trinity, but living it with a dear friend. So even now, in this life, I have been home, at times.
Now that I am a Greek (by adoption), I know what this state of ‘being home’ is called. It is "kairós", that is, the time redeemed from the flow of "chrónos" or chronological time, it is the only possession we take with us at death, and which ushers us into the life of the world to come.
Anyway, Father, forgive me for going on about my personal thought at such length. Your idea on going home really touched me.
Go with God, and pray for…
Romanós the sinner
Thank you, my brother.
I like very much your connecting going home with kairos: it's not only the right place, but the right time, the moment we've all been waiting for. "At last!"
The next time I'm in Portland, perhaps I can worship at Holy Trinity. (That makes 3 congregations in Portland I'm eager to visit!) If you're ever visiting the DC - Baltimore area, come worship with us.
Many prayers,
Rick+
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home