Come Home to Dinner 8-2-9

Road’s End, North Carolina

For much of my life I have made frantic journeys to foreign lands, both literal and figurative, searching for that place where I could actually pull up to the table and feel welcome, like I had some sort of right or dispensation to be there, a place I did not have to buy, like something bubble wrapped off the shelf in a big box retailer. Last month I returned from yet another one of these epic wanderings, this one taking me to seven countries, what could be well described as the trip of a lifetime. I never once found that sense of belonging with others. Only once did I get a sense of profound contentment while sitting at a meal, and that one was alone. I spent a lot of money, energy, and, time to end up only with a hard drive full of images. I never once had a numinous moment with God or with another person.

Suddenly the parable of the prodigal son makes a whole lot more sense. Even though the younger son had the love of a father, a lot of money, his youthful vitality, and a place to call home, his wanderings in distant foreign lands ultimately got him nothing but marginal amounts of pig slop and a lot of self-deprecation. We hear nothing about him finding meaningful community or purpose in life. He crawled home intent on hiring on as a field hand with his father. Why should I think that I could keep wandering off to distant foreign lands and find home; having even fewer resources than the prodigal?

During the evening of my sixth day on retreat I had a real taste of what home might actually be like and I did not have to get on a jet for twelve hours to find it. It found me. I was minding my own business in my room when I was summoned to present for dinner in half an hour. I appeared at the appointed time and was told we were going to make a short journey first. “We” consisted of Greg and his wife Jane, another woman, Ruth, who takes personal retreat here regularly, Sadie who was one of the original founders of this oasis, and me.

We took a ride by golf cart down to the oldest river in the world, paradoxically named the New River. During this journey I had a most pleasing sense of being invited to participate in the profoundly ordinary business of just hanging out with people who wanted to hang out together. This was utterly different than anything I experienced in the gilded palaces of Russia or onboard 5 star cruise ships with their glitz. This felt authentic and no one was swiping cards at the door. I was allowed to be a little boy collecting photographs of the river and wild flowers growing in the area. The richest aspect of the experience was being with people who were not in a hurry to be anywhere else; they were totally present to each other. We had a rocky fun time hauling up the mountain on a golf cart through fields of Christmas trees.

Dinner on top of the mountain was a grand feast shared on an ordinary table on a deck exactly like a dozen I have built, yet it was transforming. Nothing in the Tsar’s Palace could touch it and the Tsar’s Palace was really really good. In the company of four fine people, and five excellent dogs of assorted sizes and dispositions, I had only what could be described as a family meal. An inquiry about a magnificent squash casserole revealed it had been prepared because I had made a favorable comment about squash casseroles in something I had written days earlier. I don’t remember saying anything about them, but Jane made it a point to remember it. I have a curious sense that these folks have a nearly photographic ability to remember comments that are made regarding personal likes and preferences and causing them to emerge in reality at an unexpected time. Having that large squash casserole to dig into felt a bit like it must have felt to the prodigal son to have been given the fatted calf to eat when he came back home, really good but not quite deserved. Fortunately, I did not go far with the analysis and simply moved on to enjoy three bowls of homemade peach ice cream and two chunks of pound cake.

It is time to come home, in more ways than one. When we let God do the choosing, we get His best. I nearly missed this grand experience because the little temperamental boy in me almost choose to not come here, to not come home. I could have stayed in the far land dissipating myself and ended up by eating pig slop alone, but God thought I might enjoy eating squash casserole and peace ice cream with good company a bit better.

“I know the thought I have about you, thought for good and not evil, plans that will give you hope and a future.”