10 Years ago, 1968 – From Wandering & Lost to Lost in Wonder:

My dad went home 10 years ago today. Between mid-August & mid-September 1968 my parents moved to town, met & got invited to church by neighbors. On their visit, my father ran into a school friend, hit it off with the pastor & announced our family had found a church home. A lot of home has changed in 55 years, new buildings & land, new faces, new staff, multimedia slayed hymnals, sermons from KJV through ESV. Doors have changed save one & like Monty Hall’s 70s game show, the prize lies behind. That door, then dressed in cinder block accents, I used as a boy to race up the steps & turn left to Sunday School & slowly back down for a restless hour of worship. I’m sure Dad never thought by “home” we’d be rivaling the Plantagenets for longevity. I’m sure he’d be pleased that we’ve found a home for our faith. It’s nice that every Sunday I can see the baptistry where a group of our family rose from a cleansing dip or that we can take a 4 generation photo. Nice, but not the point.

The point is that the door led to a place, a home to guide & recharge, whether the calendar reads 1968 or 2023. A home I tried to ignore while wandering, lost in a self-made, manna free wilderness. A faith & a home I returned to when daybreaks led to heartbreaks & nights were bathed in failure & moonlight. Returned from wandering, no longer lost, returned in wonder, found. That door opened for fellowship. Those neighbors that invited my folks to church, they moved 500 miles away but 10 years ago they were back, grieving, laughing & reminiscing. In August 2022, my dad & Pete reunited & Heaven got a little rowdier. When I was 12, I viewed a new glove & seeing Ted Simmons play baseball as my Dad’s greatest gift. Fifty-five years ago, he gave me, our family, the greatest, a door to a pole to fly our flag of faith. A faith that may not be the best or right way to conduct a life, but it is, simply, our way. A faith that says love God first & your neighbor as yourself. A faith that’s easy in theory but harder in practice because other folk may not look or vote or worship or do any other thing like you do & it gets even harder when you realize that the ground of forgiveness at the foot of the cross is as level for the other guy as it is for you.

That door’s a gift that’s given for 55 years & continues to. Each Sunday, I bring my mom to church. We park within eyesight of that door, that now, because of security concerns, serves only for egress. We make our way through the nursery to say good morning to the two members of Gen 4, to get a smile & a hug, & hear the oldest proclaim as we depart, “That’s MY Papa”! My mom & I make our way to & then up the ancient, once only, set of stairs in the church. Roles reverse from ’68 when we get to the top. She now makes the left turn for Sunday School, to the room that used to house me & the other 1st-3rd graders. I make sure she finds her seat or a friend like she used to do for me. On our way up those stairs each Sunday, in the shadow of that door, I bang the metal grate that served as the 1960s version of stair safety like I did as a boy. The ching & its echo are not as pronounced because I don’t hit it with a 6-year-olds enthusiasm but with an attitude of reset. Reset from the wandering of the last week of dementia care & the needs of my own house to what I hope is a week of wonder in my blessings ahead. Today unofficially starts year number 56, if you hear a ringing by the door this morning, you don’t have to wonder who it is wandering the stairs…