Pilgrims, Strangers, and Wanderers

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than any magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration. -Charles Dickens

When I was younger, before the days of CDs and MP3s, my brother and I listened to dramatized stories on old records or cassette tapes, stories we would play and replay until we knew them by heart and could repeat the lines along with the characters. Fortunately, as we exhausted listening material, they continued to make more, and at some point we acquired the audio version of the abridged Pilgrim’s Progress, part two (we read the book version for part one). The allegory was so lengthy we eventually just replayed our favorite parts, usually the tapes from about the middle of the story; the most exciting parts, we felt, were the parts when the pilgrims were fighting giants, though other parts of their travels and travails merited occasional listening.

 Oddly, it is one of those “other parts” that is one of my favorites now. In the series, on the last cassette, Jim Pappas adapts Bunyan’s ending by quoting Ellen White in words that have always been etched onto a little plaque on a shelf somewhere in my mind. After the narrator paints a word picture of the peaceful land the travel-weary band finally arrives at near the legendary river, he proceeds in his scholarly voice to intone: “On those peaceful plains, beside those living streams, God’s people, so long pilgrims and wanderers, shall find a home.”

Home. By my estimate and memory, the number of residences and moves I’ve experienced totals up to somewhere around 23—the same number as years I’ve been alive. I don’t even know what to call home anymore, so anywhere I stay at for any length of time starts to get referenced as “home.”

What does home mean? It’s one of the first things we ask complete strangers when we meet: “So where are you from?” or “Where’s home for you?” Home. We all know it’s important. It’s part of our identity, the place we claim as ours.

Despite its importance, “home” is difficult to define. I not always sure if it’s quite the place or the people there or maybe it’s a combination of the two, but I feel like it must be related to happiness, security, and stability—anything less just wouldn’t be “home.” And so we long for it, whatever it is, and everything it embodies.

“So where are you from?” asked a gentleman I met at a hostel while backpacking through Europe with my husband, more or less homeless. At a loss, I explained with a smile that I don’t really know—mid-west U.S.A. is the closest I can get. “It’s not where you’re from that matters…It’s where you’re going,” he penned on my crumpled manuscript of signatures I collected as a souvenir of my travels.

Maybe it wasn’t exactly an epiphany, but I found a moment of clarity in his words. It’s okay if I don’t know precisely what to call home, if I’m not sure where to say I’m from, because I do know the part that matters—it’s where I’m going. I'm a pilgrim, not a homeless drifter. I have a home. It’s the place I heard described eloquently by the narrator in his scholarly voice while I lay on the floor of half a dozen different houses, listening to the cassette player, while my brother and were growing up. “On those peaceful plains, beside those living streams, God’s people, so long pilgrims and wanderers, shall find a home.”

Remember Me

I pulled into a parking space at Springfield's botanical gardens Sabbath afternoon, and Daniel roared his motorcycle into a spot a couple spaces over. Since we had both driven into church that morning and were planning to attend the evening program, we decided to save the gas expense of a trip home and back again. The somewhat less gas efficient alternative to simply waiting at the church was my idea--spending the afternoon at an awesome park.

We wandered down the paths toward the lake which separated us from a couple in wedding attire being posed and photographed by two zealous photographers. The paths divided trees and carefully chosen plant life until they led into a clearing centered with a figure on a bench. At first glance I thought it was a woman watching the geese at the edge of the lake, but the plaque on the back of her bench revealed that it was a statue, a memorial to a lady I had never heard of before.

Photo Credit to M. Daniel W. Wilson

For a while we sat on the bench with her, took a few pictures, and moved on. Down the path was a spread of plants and flowers framing another bench with the inscription, "Sit Awhile With John and Mary." I was beginning to understand why the botanical gardens were also collectively referred to as the Memorial Park. It was an odd sight, all the life humming and growing around silent memorials to individuals who had passed away, all of them complete strangers to me.

The lesson I have been discussing for the last couple weeks with the youth class that I lead at church has been about the Lord's Supper, and somehow I found Christ's choice of words oddly striking--"This do in remembrance of Me." (Luke 22:19) Never was there a life of more significance than Jesus' life, and the same is true of His death, so it makes perfect sense that there should be a memorial to Him of equivalent significance. So I wondered how it was that He chose the memorial that He did...the observance of His final supper, from the foot washing before to the exact meal that followed.

It's not the typical memorial, to be sure. Lincoln has his memorial, Washington his monument, and Sojourner Truth has a statue to commemorate her as well. I've seen them all. Historically, even the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, chose a massive golden statue as a tribute to his achievements. When Jesus chose a memorial He might have had any kind of monument He wished; if He wanted a statue of Himself calming the waves, or a crucifix, a nativity scene--perhaps made of gold or marble or pearls--He could have commanded it to be. But instead He gave us something alive: an experience. It's an experience involving emblems of sacrifice, a living testimony to His undying love. Every time we observe the Lord's Supper we can experience His love and forgiveness in a new way, which is infinitely more moving than a statue and far more meaningful than a plaque, picture, or commemorative phrase.

"This do in remembrance of Me," Jesus said. And then He led His disciples from the upper room to a garden...If it had been the botanical gardens instead of Gethsemane perhaps there would be a bench under some trees inscribed with the Savior's plea, "Tarry ye here, and watch with me." (Matthew 26:38)