- Sep 13, 2023
I’m recalling moments and days now long ago when I was lucky enough to go home. College years specifically bring lingering memories.
It was a rare occurrence, because The University of North Dakota in Grand Forks from 5258 Spaulding Avenue is 715 miles northwest. And winter comes early. And stays late. And when spring came and school was over, it was time to race to Covenant Point, where I was on summer staff every summer. So as good as I can remember, I went home for Christmas, and for a few days in May. That’s it! Twice a year through those five years — I’m a bit of a slow learner!
What I remember about going home is a weariness that I only realized when getting there. I realized how hungry I was when I encountered a full refrigerator, and how tired I was when I laid myself down on a real mattress. Lots of eating and even more sleeping for those few days, much to the chagrin of my folks and little brother Paul who surely wanted some quality time with me. On the rare occasions I could go home, the plan was to let go and just rest in the safety and comfort of my home and family.
Now, forty years later, I still find myself longing for home. I love to be at home, and to go home whenever I can. But I’m more tuned into the metaphor as it relates to my spirit — it’s weariness, and longing to rest and let go, especially this time of the year as the calendar and it’s treadmill are ramping up.
This is where I’m thankful for Bill Joel, and what might be my favorite song of his, “You’re My Home”, which says in part:
“When you touch my weary head and you tell me everything will be alright you say, “Use my body for your bed” and “My love will keep you warm throughout the night” Well I never had a place that I could call my very own But that’s alright, my love, ’cause you’re my home.”
His song invites me to “go home”, to locate “home” in a person, in a relationship even more than in a place. He goes on:
“Home can be the Pennsylvania Turnpike Indiana’s early morning dew High up in the hills of California Home is just another word for you…”
This must be why I treasure the little ascent Psalm 131 more all the time as life races along:
O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; My soul is like the weaned child that is with me. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time on and forevermore.
I myself would call it a “going home” Psalm, not to any physical place, but to rest in the arms of God. That’s the image, of a child, fast asleep in a mother’s arms — a particularly beautiful and comforting image of God for me. And with that going is a letting go of “Things too wonderful for me” — all the unsolved and undone realities of life — resting from life’s stresses and the great mysteries and questions of life, letting go of all the “to do” lists always around — Going home to God, and resting in our weariness.
I happen to believe that the psalm was short so that it could be easily memorized, and therefore spoken with meaning anytime, anyplace. So I’m crowding the words onto a mid-size post-it note that I’ll see all day on the edge of my computer, until It’s engrained in my soul like the Lord’s Prayer. And it will invite me to stop and center myself, take an “adult time out” you might say all through the busy day. What a gift, to rest in what I know most of all, which is the love of God now and forever.
I can sing with Billy, the way the song ends, but to my God, “You’re my home, you’re my home!” And my soul will find rest and hope not because everything’s all buttoned up, but because, as is said so often in the African American Church, “God is good, all the time! All the time, God is good.”
Love From Here!
Peter Hawkinson