Fourth Confession

I hate to travel alone.  Simply put, when it comes down to traveling for business, I see the hotel, the job site, and whatever restaurant in the area that accepts my company's American Express.  Sometimes, I catch up with family that is near the site; most of the time, though, I don't. 

Simple fact of the matter is, when I'm put alone in a hotel room, there's too much time for me to hear my own inner voices: the doubts and guilts of the past come whispering back, not mollified by the forgiveness promised me by my Father.  The room is never quite right: too cold, too hot, uncomfortable bed, weird smelling shower, slow internet connection, sandpaper on a roll (womenfolk, can I get an amen?), nothing ever on TV...

Some rooms and places are better than others.  For example, the North Kansas City Public Library is right down the road from my hotel room.  There's free breakfast every morning, which means I can use some company dollars to buy an energy drink in the morning and replenish my gum supply.  I'm in a room with a couch; how does THAT not rock?

So why is the only song running through my head Simon and Garfunkel?  Where each town looks the same to me, with its movies and its factories, and every stranger's face I see reminds me how I long to be...

Homeward Bound.  There's an interesting concept.  I've never really felt "at home" anywhere I've ever lived.  It's almost as though I've known that wherever I was wouldn't be where I'd end up.  It's a bit odd, feeling homesick when you've already accepted that the only home you'll ever feel at home in isn't of this earth.  And yet...

Home really isn't about a place, for me.  It's about my people, the ones I call family, the ones who accept me despite themselves (and myself).  When God talks about Abraham's death, I can only pray that someday, it will apply to me: he breathed his last, and died at a good old age, full of years, and was gathered to his people.  I suppose that, especially these days, being surrounded by so many "not my people", I long for the day when I am gathered to a people who think like me, can understand what I went through because they went through it, and don't mind my rough-hewn texture, as they are rough as well.

The unknown author of Hebrews talks about the great cloud of witnesses who surrounds us.  I know that my theology has no basis, but something in me really want to believe it's my people, my true brothers and sisters on the other side, calling out their encouragement across the ages, until one day, I see them face to face.