Homecoming: A Meditation

I just went home. I am not talking about the home which my husband and I have created with our kids over the past 20 something years in Georgia, but the home I was born into to. The family, friends, neighborhood and church where I grew up. 

My best friends’ daughter was getting married and so we traveled back to my old neighborhood. Best friend really does not quite capture the essence of our friendship. You see our mothers were friends and I have this image in my head of my mother rocking my friend to sleep while she was pregnant with me. Before I even entered into the world I knew and loved this person and in almost 60 years we have remained bonded by what God put together before I was born. Going home means seeing my friend. Seeing my friend brings me such joy.

I am one of the few people I knew growing up that left the neighborhood. Many of my friends bought their parents houses. There is a neighborhood bar that holds a charity event every Friday night and most Fridays that is where you will find all the neighbors. The Friday we were there was no different. There were faces I had not seen in years, but as soon as I did it was as if those years disappeared. My family heard stories of what I was like growing up, stories that only these people could share. The wedding brought even more people I knew from my past together. People I have loved my whole life. People I forgot I needed in my life. It was an amazing time. I was home.

The plane ride home gave me so much time to reflect. Part of me was sad. Why did I leave the place I loved so much? Why did I leave my best friend? What would life look like if I had stayed? I have a wonderful life, but there is a hole that exists, and that hole can only be filled by returning home.

This time of reflection gave me the chance to dig a little deeper. My experience returning home personally made me think about returning home spiritually. For me it all connects. I formed a deep and lasting relationship with someone before I was even born. That relationship is like breath for me. My neighborhood and the friends who still live there and show me love and such a sense of community. I left this place. My life took a different path, but I can always go home. No fear, no judgment, no hate, just love.

Isn’t that what our faith life is all about? We develop a relationship with God before we are even born that is never ending and life giving. We can wander away from and come back only to wander away again, but every time we do, we feel that hole fill up, empty only to be filled again. We could leave the church, but the church never leaves us. When we decide to return the community of God accepts you, no judgment, no fear, no hate just love. Returning home gives me such a sense of belonging, such a sense of peace. Returning to Jesus, to the church to the community of God brings me that same sense of belonging and that same sense of peace. This wonderful wedding weekend reminded me that personally and spiritually I can always go home and there the hole of longing will always be filled.

Jackie Sullivan

The Grace of One Who Hears Our Voice

A couple of weeks ago I welcomed my first and only assistant dog. Since an accident two years ago, where I more or less lost my eyesight, I have been waiting for the dog.

Last Sunday we heard the words where Jesus talks about himself as a good shepherd who takes care of his sheep. In the Gospel of John chapter 10, Jesus tells us how he calls out for his sheep and leads them to good pastures. The sheep follow him because they recognize His voice.

It is pretty amazing how I can see this happen in the relationship between me and my dog. When I call out for her, she instantly comes. As with the sheep she recognizes my voice.

For the sake of the dog my husband and I have built a fence around our garden where the dog freely can play. It reminds me of the image of the green pasture.

All of this makes me think of how Jesus takes care of us. He calls out for us, to lead us into freedom and play.

So in my own prayer, I feel an invitation to reflect on:

· what is it that makes us recognize the voice of Jesus.

· in what circumstances becomes his voice clearer to us?

· In the Gospel Jesus says that he leads the sheep to freedom. This makes me wonder how this freedom looks like in our own lives?

When I am with my assistant dog and feel her willingness to be close, it helps me to feel gratitude to God who uses the image of the nearness between the sheep and the shepherd to try to tell us about the love for us, which is Gods own. — Hillevi Bergvall

God sends help in many forms.

Of Dust and Stardust

Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return. (Gen 3:19)  

Many of us heard these words on Wednesday as our foreheads were smudged with ashes. It is meant to remind us that we humans are made from humus, dirt.  It points to our mortality as well as the mortality of every living thing. It also points toward our interconnection with all matter. The atoms that make up my body will someday be part of the soil, clouds, plants, and animals. It is a fitting way to focus our attention at the outset of this time we dedicate to moving closer to God through prayer, fasting and almsgiving: remember our fragile humanity. It is no coincidence that humus is also the root word of humility. 

And yet, although formed from the dust of the earth, we are also made in the image and likeness of God. What if we said, “Remember you are stardust and to stardust you shall return”? For me it changes everything. We are humus, dirt, but inspirited dirt – stardust. We are the result of God pouring God’s self into the cosmos.  We came from God’s outpouring of love and will go back into God’s great love. Maybe, rather than remembering how sinful we are, we are called to remember our true nature – made in the image and likeness of God.  Perhaps the sinfulness we are called to remember is that we don’t recognize our image and likeness, how beloved we are. We focus on our sinfulness, the ways we have failed. “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”  The question we might ask is: Does this bring us closer to God?  I don’t think so. Perhaps the invitation is to savor that, though I am a sinner, I am beloved just as I am. Maybe I need to recall that I am made of dust and stardust. 

-Suanne Reed