Close to Home
Friends,
It was a pretty long bus trip, but I didn’t mind it much. Finals were over and what awaited me at the end was home; Mom’s Christmas cookies and home cooking, the traditional Christmas decorations adorning the house, time with my brothers and their growing families, and best of all, Kathy and I had a whole month to be together.
By my senior year I knew the route pretty well. Each town the bus passed along Route 17 brought me that much closer to home. But also, with each town passed I began to feel sicker and sicker. You see I was conscientious student who liked to finish each semester strong, so I studied hard those last couple of weeks of the term, yet I also liked to make the most my off time and partied late into the night. Basically, I was burning the candle at both ends, and when I felt any sickness coming on, I simply squelched it, because one can’t get sick during finals week.
So as my body relaxed on the bus ride, the germs began to arise from their slumber. By the time, I got off the bus I was usually sniffling, coughing, and feverish. After my first year, my mom, who always picked me up at the bus stop, simply greeted me with, “You did it again, didn’t you?! Why do you always come home sick?”
I felt a little bad about coming home like that, but I knew that after I slept in a day, I would be feeling better. What mattered most was that I was home for Christmas break with not a care in the world.
Now forty years past I realize just how blessed I was, particularly since my horizons have expanded and I also am aware of way too many young people that do not and will not have that experience. I’m not referring so much about Christmas as I am about having a safe and welcoming home awaiting them.
Our world is teeming with refugees of one sort or another. Globally, whole families have been displaced and live in camps or are simply wandering in search of a place of welcome. The amount of homeless in this country continues to increase with people finding shelters either full or simply too dangerous or difficult in which to stay. Of course, there are many lonely people, who though they may have a place to live, never feel like they have a “home.”
This Advent season or worship theme will be “Close to Home.” We will symbolically travel with Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem following the edict of the foreign ruler of their occupied country. This was not a journey they would ever choose to make with Mary pregnant and Joseph most likely struggling to make ends meet. Along the road they probably mused about their ancestors who also were forced from their home to travel to a foreign land.
Our weekly themes will be : Homesick (Hope) Laying the Foundation (Peace) A Home for All (Joy) Seeking Sanctuary (Love) Invited Home (Christmas Eve)
May we join them on the journey and come to not only give thanks for what we have, but more motivation to assist those who long for a home of their own.