Home

As always, it was hard to leave my parents; life is just too uncertain not to feel a twinge of mortality at every good-bye. It feels like I just got back to Washington, but nearly a week has passed in cleaning, laundry, and moving (from one office to another at work).

The first night I spent back here, I had a nightmare I've had before, where people were crawling into the downstairs windows of my house. I don't generally feel afraid living alone, but I did realize when I moved in that this house is more vulnerable than my condo, which was on the second floor and afforded little opportunity for a break-in--at least, I figured all my first-floor neighbors would be easier targets. This house felt somehow more porous to me--lots of doors and windows. I had gotten used to it, I thought, until I came back here from the safety and warmth of my childhood home. But what can you do?

Apart from that, returning was nice--I bought a ton of fruits and vegetables at the farmers' market and resolved to eat better, which is so delightfully easy in the summer. I had some friends over for dinner last night: the everpresent Andrew, whose lovely wife Noel is finally arriving in Washington this week (welcome, Noel!), and a new family who just moved to town because the wife is beginning a job in our department.

But the best part of being back in town was these two moments on Sunday morning. Before the service, I ended up helping my friend Kim get ready for our monthly after-church potluck. As the worship team practiced the music for the morning and Kim set out dishes and I sliced watermelons brought by one of the men from the Mission (a local shelter), we chatted and people arrived and she told me that they'd had the first open meeting of a new ministry for people in recovery from various addictions (it's like a 12-step program, with worship and prayer). She and a bunch of others from the church had been meeting all last spring to work through the program materials themselves in preparation for leading these groups, and they had their first meeting welcoming anyone who had this kind of need. They had 61 people!

It made me feel so happy, and so confirmed in the mission I believe our church has in our community. When the music started, I went into the service and as we were singing, it was the usual scene--probably the same atmosphere that, the first time I attended, made me cry as I felt the weight of all the sadness and pain in the room and realized how how much of a struggle it would be to walk with this church. But this time, I also felt a deep familiarity--like being in your own bed, or wearing your oldest shoes or your softest jeans, where something that once felt lumpy or tight or stiff now feels like the most comfortable way of being to you, and I thought, there's no other place on earth I'd rather be worshipping, right at this moment. And I realized: I was home.