You Can't Go Home Again

     You can't go home again. Thomas Wolfe's character said that in the novel by the same name seventy plus years ago. George Webber, the character in the novel laments that "you can't go back to your family, back home to your childhood...back home to a young man's dreams of fame and of glory...back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time--back home to the escapes of time and memory."
     Maybe he was right, but sometimes we try. I went home again last Friday.
     The occasion was a homecoming football game. I'd seen the mighty Bulldogs play a few times in the playoffs in the 39 years since I'd graduated. But I had not been to a football game in Milford since the fall of 1973. Otis Carter, my friend and classmate now coaches the Bulldogs and sent me an invite. Ann, our associate pastor, also from Milford sent me a schedule.
     So I went home, again, for the first time.
     In many ways Wolfe was right. It was the same Horton Field, named after the first coach Milford had after it decided football was back to stay. He died from a rattlesnake bite the spring after his first year at Milford. He didn't let the Bulldogs compete for the district crown that year as he thought they wouldn't be ready. They won every game. I wonder if many know that story? The streets were the same but the businesses were different. No bank, no grocery store, feed store, two pharmacies, two cafes and five gas stations. No, I can't go home to that hometown again. It was the same streets, and even if the businesses hadn't changed, I had. I see them through eyes that have traveled many years, and that in itself changes how I look at things.
     But I didn't go home to see streets, businesses, and football fields, I went to see people. I found some. They were the same people, with the same names I knew back when, but all had new faces. Oh, the old faces were still there, but they were new faces nonetheless. The stylus of time etches into all our faces the lines of joy and sadness; dreams faded and dreams realized; companionship enjoyed and lonliness endured. Grief and tragedy had painted some faces with their harsh hues. Grace and peace had brightened others. Most of the faces, by this age, had been etched and painted by all of these at one time or another and in varying degrees. So the faces were new, but not completely...........
      I recognized them, mostly. They recognized me, mostly. We helped each other when the name didn't come. We talked of families and grandkids (Janie and Karen have ten grandkids each). I saw the first woman I married. She still had long black hair and I mistook her daughter for her at first. Her husband, the first man I married, hadn't changed much. David and Penny have been married nearly 40 years now. I chuckled that my first wedding, when I knew nothing about what I was doing has lasted the longest. Larry was still funny. Otis is the coach he always was, pouring his life into kids. Karen is still kind. Ken is still a  lanky cowboy. Pinky still has faith and hope. I reminisced with black friends and white friends. We laughed a bit. Then it got quiet. Not much to talk about except the past and that past that was a long time ago.
     In many ways Wolfe was wrong. You can go home again, especially if you are at home with change. Who changed more? Me or Otis? Me or Janie? Me or David or Larry or Karen? How do you measure a life of changes? You can't, you just live them and accept them as a price of living. For the Christian being at home is about change. Christ has changed our destinies. Christ has changed guilt to freedom. Jesus changes fear to hope. He will one day change the pain to joy and in His grace...oh His grace, we can even get a taste of it now and can only imagine what our homecoming will be one day.
      In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye...we shall be changed. (I Cor. 15:51-52 kjv)
     And then, we shall all go home, again.

Cos