Over the past year, I’ve written about a longing in my bone marrow to go “home”. Home is Carbondale, Illinois for me. It hosts the SIU Salukis, the Carbondale Terriers (yes, Terriers…but we’re fierce little dogs) and The Big Chill ice cream shop where they serve the best dilly bars in the world. It’s not that the town is much to look at. It’s that it holds the tender parts of my soul that grew there. My friend told me the door was wide open and so I packed up and went.
My friend has known me since my little scrawny legs almost came to a point at the ankles, when I wore cats’ eye glasses and I was still growing into my teeth. We came in and out of each other’s school lives as segregation rearranged the map and then brought us all back together again in high school. She is the stuff that good soil is made from. Strong, solid and a beacon that her family has arranged themselves around. She has become my home welcoming me back to the fold whenever I want to land.
This past weekend I set sail for the prairie land to be in town for the launching of a brand new church plant entrusted with the building that I went to countless Sunday School classes in, where we packed up missionary boxes to send the lands I only dreamed about. I had connected with the new pastor on my last trip, my first in ten years, and walked through the building and my memories. “I am pleased,” I heard in my chest where my heart beat a little faster. “You still belong here.” I came back to Kentucky with the promise to come back and help spit shine the building the weekend of the launch.
Saturday dawned hot and sunny and my friend and I got up and put the coffee on, ready to greet a fellow classmate we hadn’t seen in a lifetime of years piled up after high school. She happened to be visiting Carbondale and was on her way home to Michigan. She pulled into the driveway and we went out to meet her. I couldn’t see for a minute. The tears lined my eyes and threatened to fall. I’d have known her anywhere. Her smile still shined and brought deep dimples to her cheeks, just like I remembered. We wasted no time, as time was short and sat cradling coffee cups, connecting dots and filling in spaces. It was sweet to the soul to be together again, all of us in the same space like all the years in high school that seemed endless at the time.
She got back on the road and I headed to Exodus Church, formerly known as University Baptist. Just as I was about to turn onto Freeman Street I “heard” it. “Get some flowers and take them to your old house.” I pulled in sharply to the parking lot of Schnucks Grocery Store, almost missing the turn, the interruption to my thoughts having come so quickly. Bouquets of sunflowers waved at me, I grabbed them, paid for them and headed to my car and to my childhood home, just 3 blocks away. Last time I had been in town I had stopped to see it and took pictures out of my car window. “Why are you taking pictures of my house??” I heard, the voice sharp and suspicious, and a woman stepped out of the shadows of the carport. I apologized and explained who I was and her expression softened. We talked briefly and I noticed her face was worn and tired, looking much older than she was. I know this because she told me how old she was, that her name was Emily and that she was having a hard time lately. There was a small weathered cross near the planter where my mother used to have pink and white impatiens flowers flowing bright and welcoming. “Jesus is Lord”, it said. Ah, I see your sign, I told her. You are a believer. “Yes mam,” she said.
So this time, I pulled into her driveway, the one I used to produce “roller skating shows” on with my friend, where my blue bike was parked. I knocked on the door and two little girls came peering out at me and calling back to their mom. Emily appeared in the door, only half opening it. She remembered me. I handed her the flowers. “These are for you. I appreciated your kindness last time and wanted to thank you.” I asked her how she was doing and if there was anything I could pray about for her. “Finances. I’m having a really hard time.” I will do that, I promised. I looked down at her girls, standing and taking it all in. “I used to live here when I was about your age,” I told the oldest and surprised registered on her face. I asked her which bedroom was hers. “It’s upstairs and it’s all the way at the end of the hall in the back. “Guess what?” I told her. “That was *my* bedroom too!” I told Emily about the church I was there for just up the road, that I’d love to see her there and thanked her again for her kindness. As I drove away I knew I’d be back. They need to be loved, I thought, and they are walking in my own footsteps. I somehow felt like our histories were already intertwined.
As I walked back through the door of the church where I’d been just a few weeks ago, I was swept up in anticipatory joy. Everyone cared about this building, about what was on the verge of happening here. I introduced myself to whoever I encountered, grabbed rags, cleaning spray and garbage bags and started scrubbing as I talked and listened and learned about who I was working alongside. I felt like I was in a dream where the surroundings were so familiar but no one in the dream was anyone I knew. As I walked the halls, it occurred to me the familiar feeling was back again. “Home.” I sat in front of the bathroom toilet by myself scrubbing the floor and suddenly realized I was singing out loud….”Labor of Love.” I let the tears fall. Deep, grateful tears. God has wrapped this up and laid it at me feet. I had walked a wide path away and had made the circle back to where it all began. And I was still standing. As I sat on the floor at the altar of that toilet, I gave thanks. “Thank you, God. Thank you for this,” I whispered.
We gathered together for a break from work. “There’s sandwiches and drinks in this room,” someone said and pointed to a doorway. I made myself a bologna and mayonnaise on Wonder Bread and took a bite. No one else knew that it was my Sunday School room when I was five. I could envision where the piano sat, my mom the pianist for our class. “Jesus Loves Me,” filled my head like ghosts singing it from the past. I stopped eating and just sat and smiled. The laughter and life in the room felt like joy I could hear and feel and touch.
Before the day was done, I stepped into the sanctuary and walked silently to the front and sat on the red carpet at the altar and looked up at the baptistry. I had wanted to walk that aisle so many times as a child but was paralyzed by my shyness. I wanted everyone to know that I believed. That I wanted to go to heaven. That I loved this God I’d been taught about. Finally, at the age of 12, I mustered up the courage to pull my little white nervous knuckles off the pew in front of me and walk down to where I now sat. That aisle felt a whole lot longer than it looked to me now.
I gathered my things and headed to meet my friend for pizza at Quatros, an old high school haunt, eager for Sunday morning.
Sunday dawned beautiful. I packed up my car and gave my friend a hug. “I love you,” I told her. “I’ll see you in 3 weeks.” She told me again, as she’s told me many times before, you are always welcome. That lands soft on the soul. I walked back into the church and watched as young families with children brought the oxygen into the building and I could see everything begin to color and inflate and bulge with heartbeats. I made friends and it felt like we’d just been waiting on each other to catch up. I found my seat and sang and prayed and listened and looked around and remembered. I’m quite sure those around me wondered why I kept smiling. It’s hard to suppress capital JOY! They took a picture of us before the pastor spoke. Look for me. I’m the little girl wrapped in a much older self sitting in the same pews I warmed up so many lives ago. I could not have been happier to be there!
The pastor lit up with passion, humor and a deep sense of caring exuded from him. That’s when I “heard” it again. I am well pleased, whispered the voice in the hallways of my heart. A legacy was born here. A legacy will breathe again. We gathered afterwards and talked about the future. I will be back. On that, we all agreed. I walked back to my car to begin the trip back to Kentucky. I looked at myself in the mirror and snapped a quick picture. I wanted to remember this moment. I wanted to capture the moment when I knew a new chapter was being born.
