I relish these opportunities to speak at Chapel. I’m often caught up in a hectic schedule that mixes ambition with responsibility in a recipe for stress. Judging by the students I have met at Dartmouth, I don’t think I’m alone in this experience. Speaking here encourages me to reflect; to drag out my introspective ruminations from whatever dusty corner I have hid them in, and fashion them into some sort of coherent message. It’s in this process of meditation that I feel refreshed and rejuvenated in my relationship with God. It’s a sort of homecoming. A return to myself.
The inspiration for this sermon came while driving back to Hanover after Easter. I was listening to NPR’s “The Writer’s Almanac” and the host, Garrison Keillor, read this poem by Diane Lockward. It’s called, “After the Ice Storm My Son Does Not Come Home”
Hours after he stormed out, wind knocks
ice off the roof, startles me awake.
2 AM—light under the door. Not home,
and I'd said no later than midnight.
I practice deep breathing, natural tranquilizer,
five counts in, hold it in the diaphragm,
let it out slowly, repeat five times, relax, and go back
to a sleep without dreams.
It's been so long since I've dreamed,
I'd be grateful now for even that old one
where I show up someplace important, take off my coat,
and I'm in panties and bra, or worse, naked.
And I'm still wondering if he'll be okay,
if he'll ever find his way home,
if maybe I'll be happy when I'm old,
and if I can wait that long.
Hours later I wake and see the first crocus
pushing purple through the sheen of ice.
A day of lifting towards the light,
the delicate petals unfolding.
I want it to be like that for him—
sunlight, the wind will stop blowing,
and he'll find his way home.
The effect that this poem had on me was both profound and inexplicable. I don’t’ know whether I’m the type of person to cry easily, but after hearing that poem, I drew a few choked breaths, and shed some tears. They weren’t tears of sadness. They weren’t tears of joy either. They were the type of tears that come from the immense and overwhelming realization that there is someone, something, out there (or in here) waiting for me to come home. To be honest, I first thought of my mom, who is waiting for my brother, once the kindest, most loyal, most helpful son amongst us, to return to her love after years of rebellion and alienation. I cried for her, and for him. I know that she would run to meet him, if only he showed the slightest inclination to come home.
In The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen, recalls the wave of emotions that swept over him when he first saw a reproduction of Rembrandt’s, “The Prodigal Son.” He describes being moved by Rembrandt’s use of light, his portrayal of a tender embrace between a loving Father and a recalcitrant son, “But most of all” he writes, “…it was the hands—the old man’s hands—as they touched the boy’s shoulders that reached me in a place where I had never been reached before.” He told his companion, “It’s beautiful, more than beautiful… it makes me want to cry and laugh at the same time.” The poem I read to you is my Rembrandt, my reminder of a love that waits for me to return.
The poem only presents only a part of the parable. It presents the anguish of a lonely parent, whose waits anxiously with her love at the ready. However, it also implies the end of the story. The celebration, as the crocus breaks through the ice and reaches toward the Son. Towards God’s endless love.
I believe that at some point in our lives, we identify with each of the characters in the Parable. We are the mother or father, waiting for a daughter or son to return to our faithful love. I know I often think of myself as the loyal son, honoring my responsibilities as a sibling, a child, and a man of Faith. However, more often than not, I think I am a little more like the wayward son. I might not be fanning the flames of impropriety, but I certainly am not at home with the Father, exulting in His endless love. Nouwen describes how he also identified with the Prodigal Son, even if he may have been less than “prodigal.” He wrote, “For so long I had been going from place to place: confronting, beseeching, admonishing, and consoling. Now I desired only to rest safely in a place where I could feel a sense of belonging, a place where I could feel at home.”
Like Nouwen, who felt emotionally and spiritually drained by his months of travel and activism, I often feel distracted, distant, and preoccupied by my everyday concerns and pursuits. I long for a celebration that welcomes me home, back into the loving embrace of a parent who will run out in joy to meet me, but like the Prodigal son, I’d settle for some peace of mind, a bite to eat, or a place to rest my weary head.
In Kurt’s first sermon of the term, he spoke of feeling exhausted and depleted. He felt that love was lacking in a task that consisted of slopping food onto one plate after another, never even looking up to meet the eyes of those waiting in line. He also recalled feeling reinvigorated by the sense of joy he experienced when attending the church’s weekly “Celebration.” Perhaps that is what we all need, whether we’re the wayward son, the loyal sibling, or the loving parent. A celebration that welcomes us home to ourselves… and helps us to find God’s love present in the simple and mundane.
I wrestled briefly with the title of this sermon. I was torn between “Going Home” and my eventual choice, “Coming Home”. In a curious coincidence, Nouwen uses the same language to describe his own spiritual journey from teacher and lecturer at Harvard to a full-time resident and chaplain at Daybreak, in Toronto. Daybreak is one of many L’Arche communities for the mentally handicapped. He saw this move as part of a larger journey home to spiritual reconciliation. As he wrote, “‘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.”
I decided on my title, before reading those lines, and arrived at this particular choice based upon a conversation I had with my mother. We were discussing the spiritual journey toward and away from God. She spoke to those times in her life where her faith was tested. Times when she would ask herself why she mattered, or whether there was any point to her being here on earth. She said that each time she had one of these challenges to her faith, she asked for God to help her unbelief. Rather than reaching to some outside force, an inner strength gave her the conviction to return to Faith, and so, rather than going home, she turned inward and came back to that inner force guiding her way. Karl Rahner writes that, “One can love Jesus, love him in himself, in true, genuine immediate love.” He characterizes this love by a “tender interiority” something within us that is born out of patient love and prayer.
Now, it is worth pointing out the obvious. These journeys to and from God’s loving embrace happen over and over again over the course of our lives. In light of this, it is comforting to know that we don’t have very far to go to come home again. Rather, home is inside each of us, waiting for us to take a quiet moment of introspection to recognize that. But this idea, that a return to God, is a turn inward, rather than a journey to some faraway destination echoes what Nouwen wrote in The Return of the Prodigal Son, where he said, “This place has always been there. I had always been aware of it as the source of grace. But I had not been able to enter it and truly live there. Jesus says, ‘Anyone who loves me will keep my word and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home in him.’ I am God’s home!” In these brief moments I have to reflect, I can come home. Doubtless, the stress of the term, and my drive and ambition will take me away again. But for now, I can say, “Welcome, God, I am home, and so are you!”
