Home

This morning, multiple inputs have driven my thoughts, all unanticipated. 

First my annual read through scripture has me deep into John's Revelation. 

As a 4th generation Pentecostal, there's much that I must work through, as I untangle myself from the probable misinterpretations that guided our family’s escapist approach to Christianity.

Surely we are now witnessing where evangelical Christianity, in its often harsh declaration of the “Gospel”, often “denying the power there of” has gotten us.  Worse yet, many now coupled with the madness of American politics, hoping for some miraculous turn around.  That's a tempting rabbit hole I'll try to avoid this morning.

Back to my search for sanity, as I continue my read of “To Bless The Space Between Us”, a book of poems and prose by John O'Donohue.

Deeply moved this morning as I read his thoughts on “home”, or as O'Donohue entitled the section, Homecoming. See photo-clip above.

As a 77 year-old dad, I am becoming deeply aware of just how little I knew and even what my parents could have known about the impact that home has upon one's children. In reality, for generations after we leave home!

Growing up in a post-Depression, blue-collar environment has its hazards and its benefits.  

I have genuinely experienced 

much of the power of the Spirit, by way of miraculous interventions in the physical, emotional and even financial.  No regrets, but some balance is critical and at times we may have missed that.

Perhaps even my bent toward impatience came from a childhood home life that was at times quite hectic.  My parents, in all fairness, were attempting to make ends meet with little learning apart from the pulpits of those who themselves knew little academic preparation.

Were it not for God, who knows!

Somehow by God’s grace, I did find my way into an academic experience, in fact now three college degrees.  

Yet, my impatience (or God's providence) steered me toward the shortest line at registration that first day on campus.  I didn't even know what the term “college major” entailed; the short line was short for a reason!

Biology, Chemistry and Physics would from that day forward, forever influence my thoughts!  I am now grateful!

Imagine the volatile combination of old line Pentecostalism, brush arbors and all, stirred into a concoction that equally values the Laws of Creation. 

I now believe Creation first mirrored Christ, long before scripture text.  In fact, or at least as I now see it, the text, read apart from an openness to the Spirit, easily explains the political divisiveness and economic disparities that Institutional Christianity has afforded our nation of late!

My take away this morning is the need to both pray for and release my wonderful off-spring, of whom I am so proud, as they by God's grace frame their own home experience.  One more positive than provided by the generations before!