Minnesota.
This is my home. This is where my memories are. This place, I treasure so deeply. I've been away...Away from this place...this place I hold so dear and love so richly. Yet, I have also had a distance from the many, many reminders and sources of great heartache...
And with this distance, perspective...
In this process, I have sensed the parallels of this life and eternity. The great longing for home.
It is hard to stand, and truly, fully fathom all that has unfolded in this life, thus far. I could attempt to pen it, but to ponder the great feat that this alone would be, in fully articulating all of its intricacies...indeed, it is a divine and loving Artist and Creator who is truly writing this story. I state this, at first, reflecting upon the sorrows and the losses and the deep pain...but sensing how, it is yet so echoed by a depth of sweetness, life, defiant joy, and unspeakable beauty. There is love. Great, insurmountable love, in the wake of sorrow. And that is Eternal.
Today, I walked a road I have walked so many, many times before...but this walk was unlike any other...
I walked around my yard, that yard I've wandered 'round and explored with such great joy, since the age of 6... I gazed at the trees and their leaves, turning to gold, as the summer fades to autumn...three years, it's been, since I've witnessed such a glorious turning in my dear Minnesota.
I saw the home...the garage, ajar, like so many, many days before. And I found my feet, as they had in those days of old, those childhood days, make their way toward it as if it were a beacon. But he wasn't there, though I wished he was...and it suddenly, washed over me, and the tears, then came. For it is hard for me to fathom, that those days are gone. And I'm not ready. I am not ready yet...perhaps, one day I will be. But not today.
And so, as I wept for which I have not yet had the opportunity to comprehend in such a way, I walked onward, to that dirt road. A whitetail deer, the only witness, as its tail flared and it fled to the sanctuary of the forested hill, where he and I and my sister had once walked together. I gazed at the tiny ditch, tears falling in memory and longing, and I smiled warmly, remembering the time he had pulled out my car when it had slid to an immovable halt in the deep Minnesota winter's ice and snow so many years ago.
All the times I had walked that path, he in his garage or in his yard. And we would speak, and we would laugh. And as I gaze through the lens of my memories, I realize and I bask in the sacredness of those moments we shared.
I walked further down that lovely road called Forest Drive, absorbing the blueness of the sky, the tallness of the trees, and the hues of green and gold, red and orange which melted into a symphony of grand beauty. My feet were bare, but the gravel was soft and still warm from the last day of summer's sun. I treaded onward, and came to the home of dear neighbors, whom I had not seen for many years.
And it was wonderful. And there was such love there, such understanding...support and kindness. Fullness. They've known me since I was that newly-turned-six-year-old all those years ago.
I wish to live here again. "Where my beginnings are." There is yet, so much to sort through, much more than I can comprehend in a moment.
Years must unfold before I comprehend much of it...but I still sense this resonance...this great beauty, this great and imperceptible beauty that is present.
I do not think I will fully comprehend until that day which is Promised, the Day in which He wipes away every tear and makes all things new. All things new. The Day in which we are truly, Home.
It's strange to comprehend, that today I saw their old home, as well. It has been over two years, and that next day, I departed for Washington. In a sense, I would like to chronicle my thoughts and heart-impressions at this very moment. So many moments are so very simple as they unfold, yet, indeed, have a vast depth and sanctity to them, when our perspective is different...
It is like Home...and I'm still trying to comprehend it and articulate it.
