Homeward Bound

The summer I was ten I went to a Bible camp at Boiling Springs State Park near Freedom, Oklahoma. Boiling Springs is a green oasis of grass and shade in the red dust of a western Oklahoma July. The next-to-last night of camp, before all the partying and campfires and wondering what the Jr. High kids were doing out late, I sat on the steps of my cabin. Looking up at the security of cottonwoods rustling in the sky I thought morosely that it was all well and good feeling close to God now, but the excitement would fade when I went home and God would return to His distant official status…in fact I could feel it fading already, I thought, poking at my feelings like I did bruised spots to see if they were still tender.

One of the counselors came out of the cabin. “Hey Hannah, whatcha doin’?” she asked. “Oh, just thinking,” I replied. She sat down beside me. “So how are things between you and God these days?” (I found out later that counselors were supposed to discuss “spiritual state” with at least two children during the week. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know at the time, or my oldest-daughter-of-a-preacher-never-had-a-cavity soul would have been crushed at the thought that anyone might imply that things between God and me were less than perfect.) I explained my musings. And then something that was really bothering me: I was afraid I didn’t love God enough.

“Why do you say that?” she asked. “Well, because,” I said, “I’m not very excited about Jesus coming back. I want to grow up and get married and have a family and do things first. It’s not that I don’t want to go to heaven, just not yet.”

“Well,” she said. “I think that’s normal. Just because those are the nicest things we can imagine on earth; and we can’t understand how wonderful heaven will be.” If she did laugh, at least she waited until later to do it.

My Grandaddy died recently. He wasn’t in pain, nothing traumatic; just tired. The last week they told me he wasn’t waking up to eat. “You know how it is when you fall asleep watching a movie?” my mom said. “And you don’t want people waking you up to see the end of it; you know sleep is more important. I think that’s how it is for him right now. There’s just nothing here worth waking up for anymore.”

I haven’t fulfilled all the plans I had that summer when I was ten. My romantic history could be compared unfavorably with Susan Boyle’s. I haven’t written any bestsellers or chart-toppers: I’m doing well to write grocery lists these days. There are many great works of literature of which I am ignorant; many times unaware even of my ignorance. I haven’t read the book I saw the other day titled “1000 foods to taste before you die” but I’m sure if I did I would be disappointed to find out how many I haven’t tried (at least 999).

My calendar’s filling up for the next couple of weeks. I’m living in Italy, but there are still many beautiful places here and in the rest of Europe I’ve heard of and never seen; fourteen days from now I’m going home to the U.S. (I’ve never seen NYC either, which I’ve learned here is synonymous with The Promised Land); next year I’m coming back to Italy for a five-year stint with a church planting team. Well, unless Jesus comes back or I die before then, of course. But there are so many things I want to do with my life first.

And so I go on making mud pies in the slum because I don’t know the meaning of a holiday at the beach.

“I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly,” I always hear with a little bit of a black-man accent, “abundantly” swelling and drawing itself out. “And this is eternal life: that they know you the only God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

“You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God,” wrote Paul. “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.”

“What we will be has not yet appeared,” said John, “but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.”

I know something about symbols in the Bible. The lamb that the Israelites sacrificed every year was a symbol of the Perfect One, Jesus, who was to come as a once-and-for all sacrifice. This didn’t mean the lamb was unimportant; but it was important in relation to what was real. The lamb was a symbol to help us recognize the real when it came—it wasn’t the thing itself.

I know marriage is a symbol of the relationship between Christ and the church. But if it’s a symbol, it too is not the real thing, only a picture. It’s the marriage supper of the lamb that’s the thing itself. My home—my life, my dreams—me myself—the things I love here are only preparation for the thing itself.

The Unicorn in The Last Battle sums up what everyone feels when they make it into the new Narnia: “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this.”

If one of you comes to me 13 days from now and says, “Hannah, stay a little bit longer. Don’t you love your old bike and your apartment? Why would you want to trade that for your car and your house? And you’re getting so good with the language here, even though you still make plenty of mistakes and don’t know words and have an accent and will always be a straniera. Don’t you want to keep on studying it?” I’ll tell you, look, folks, those things are all good and I do love them while I am here. But there’s a plane leaving for America in the morning, and if you want some free advice, don’t get between me and the door.

Because I’m goin’ home.