Several years ago when Wendell was doing his internship in a distant city, we made a lifetime decision from the opening tune of a television show. It was the eighties, and the show was about a bar. Not that spiritual. Yet, the catchy tune gripped our hearts with something eternal. We were tired and homesick and lonely. Flipping the channels one night, we heard the lyrics about going to a place where everybody knows your name. A place where folks are always glad you came.
And, suddenly, we knew we had to live that way. We had to rear our children in such a place. Not a bar (in case I’ve lost you already.) We wanted to live in a place where everybody is always glad we came AND where they are sober and in their right minds. A place where people have a common purpose bigger than our individual lives.
Within another year, we had managed to move “home.” We returned to the local church we had helped establish a few years before. Life was never perfect. Sometimes it was completely flawed — and sometimes we didn’t figure that out until decades later. But, it was a magnificent obsession, and we’ve never regretted the move.
Life changed, of course. Many of those original friends (including us) now live in different cities and even different nations. We don’t always do church exactly the same way anymore, and we probably differ on some points we once thought were absolute.
But, here is the thing. This week many of us will reconnect again at a church conference like we do almost every year. And I know when we walk in the door and see those faces, our hearts are going to leap. I’ll probably have a few happy-tears mixed up with a few sad ones for the faces that are missing or for the hard times we’ve all endured.
We will hug necks and slap backs and tease one another about the color of our hair or the lacking thereof. And, somewhere in the background, I’m sure I’ll hear the tinkle of a bar tune playing in my head.
“A Magnificant Obsession” Can’t say that I’ve ever heard that place and those times described quite like that, but I like it nevertheless. Sounds like a title of a new book or movie. (Or wait, it is already, isn’t it?) It’s funny,though, how time proves all things, colors all things, wraps all things in it’s mostly warm (but sometimes – not) embrace. And the people in those times and memories also get blanketed in that mostly (but not always) nostalgic hug.
I like, too, that you have a few sad tears “for the faces that are missing.” Though differences forced people apart, though some of gone beyond the veil, there was once our “once upon a time” and nothing, really, can ever change that.
Though thoughts and opinions and positions change, there WAS a time when the place where “everybody knows your name” was also what everybody also called “home.” And it’s that thought of “home”, with all its nuances, that mostly always brings smiles to faces and hearts. What cheers my heart is that most (but, sadly, not all) are following the faith as best they can. So at the conference hug a few for me. Give my greetings to old friends. Give encouragment to those who are struggling. Laugh with the joyful. Heal hurts, share burdens. Praise Him, and…
Be glad there’s one place in the world
Where Everybody Knows Your Name
And they’re always glad you came
You wanna go where people know
People are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows your name
Sound a bit like Heaven, doesn’t it.
See you there. 🙂
I love that song. And even though I’ve heard that story before, it gets me every time. I’m probably right about the age now that you were then, and it makes me understand your emotion more.
Mom – good perspective.
Dave – well said.
Seren – thanks for making me feel old.
Thanks Dave. I will be glad to express your greetings. I stole the magnificent obsession line from a message Ernest Gentile preached at the church several years ago. And it sounds like Heaven to me, too.
God bless.