Why is it so hard to find our way home?

That last post about "church" surprised me.  It was the most often viewed post on this blog.  Why is that?  There must be a lot of pain related to church and religion.  I suppose that is why so many "imagine" a better world like John Lennon did.

But why all the pain? Why is it so hard to so hard to make it work?  Why is it so hard to love and be loved? 

I wonder if the pain involved with church has something to do with the inner call home and the simultaneous inner pull away from home?

Once I heard of a church that after the altar call was done, they told new converts to turn around and the whole church said, "Welcome Home!"  I thought that sounded pretty cool and strikes at something real.

Antoine Fisher is a deep movie about a young man who has a recurring dream/nightmare in which he is a little boy.  He runs through a field of flowers until he comes to a house and a dinning room lined with smiling guests.  He slides through the crowd until he finds his place at the table.  In front of his spot is a giant plate loaded with a stack of pancakes with butter and syrup cascading down all sides.  This is the "home" that calls us all in our dreams, but is so absent from our daily lives.

Why is it so hard to find your way home?  My Canadian friends would say it is easy.  Just buy a ticket from Air Canada.  We'll pick you up. Thanks, guys, but the urge I am feeling runs even deeper than the call of the moose or the laugh of the loon. And frankly, these days, I feel like my home has died.

I am reading a book by Henri Nouwan on the prodigal son.  He writes, "coming home meant, for me, walking step by step toward the One who awaits me with open arms and wants to hold me in an eternal embrace." It is so right but so hard all at the same time.  Like the prodigal, coming home is an acknowledgement of childlikeness, inability to earn your way back into favor.  Its a pretty helpless feeling that actually kept both the younger and the older son away in their own way for many years.  It took the hunger pangs and the feel of pig slop on his lips to finally force one of the sons to come home.  The other son ironically never really made it home.

The same consternation is in the voice of the servant who had only one talent.  "I knew that you were a very hard man. You harvest things you did not plant. You gather crops where you did not put any seed. So I was afraid."  Aren't we all a little afraid of coming home to the father?

At our wedding, 13 years ago, dad told a story of a professor/mentor who he admired greatly.  After some absence, he went back to visit.  He wasn't sure how he should greet this honored man.  Should he shake hands? Perhaps embrace shoulders a bit?  As it turned out, the man met him with arms wide open, there was not much else he could do but just let himself be hugged.  For a moment, he was afraid, then he was "home."

Here's a song for you that says it well.  May we all find our way home, even if it hurts.

"Lowell's favorite song about home"