Homecoming

Most of the time, I don't know how I feel about religion or deity.


This weekend I visited my grandparents in southwestern Iowa to 'celebrate' my grandma's 91st Birthday! "How different my life could have been!" I marveled as we toured the countryside, seeing the homesteads of my grandparents now-passed peers.  My cousins still live in the same county where both grandparents have lived their entire lives, excepting a brief stint to serve in World War II.  My immediate family passed a couple chapters of our collective life there, too.  But we settled here, not there.


Yet on Sunday morning as we sidled into the "back pew of the front section" of my grandparents' church, I knew I wasn't too far off the mark.  Despite my frequent agnostic tendencies (or maybe I'm just a skeptic?), I was glad to see some familiar hymns listed in the bulletin and surprisingly glad to sing them.  I cherish the opportunity to sit next to my Buddy (grandpa) and Grandma and sing the songs we've all known since childhood, reassuring us of Divine Presence.


When I biked to Nashville this summer, I stayed one night with an amazingly hospitable woman named Ruth in Nauvoo, IL.  The morning after my arrival, she took me to see the sights of Historic Nauvoo, commemorating the original Mormon settlement.  In the Visitor's Center, we sat on a bench facing a very large Jesus sculpture who, at the poke of a button, spoke to us.  "What did you hear?" asked the young missionary staffing the site.  "Love," I said, "Over and over, he urged us to love.  Love is the Way, the only Way."  I felt very vulnerable and simultaneously very guarded.  Suddenly, despite frequent doubt, I wanted to cling to my "home religion."  Yet Love is something I felt we could hold in common, despite religious - or irreligious - tendencies.


I still have more questions than answers and I honestly prefer to live in the grey.  I don't ask my questions loudly.  But I do find great comfort in singing the hymns of my youth and of my grandparents' youth.  I like Jesus.  When I read the Bible erratically I often think "Yeah! I should read this more!"  But I don't.  I live like a pugnacious preteen.  Instead of channelling my Buddy's quiet religiosity, I cling to his orneriness.  I don't know where I am, but I do know I like the feeling of "coming home."


**Caution: this post was written in a state of great fatigue, and is completely unedited.  I can't remember where I began or whence I travelled in the meantime.  But if I don't publish now, I never will.  So here goes...**