Still Puzzled...

I've been home now for about 24 hours from my 8 weeks of personal roller-coaster activity in Traverse City, Michigan. Ah, nothing can ever seem to just be with me ["Let it be?" Not so often a phrase in my vocab]. Excited highs and depressed lows seem to be the mainstays of this being. That said, driving around my hometown of Warsaw and generally sitting around at home has left me puzzled and a lil' perplexed; granted, these are both states of mind in which I'm prone to be. Home is -- argh, home. It's weird how detached I feel from what goes on [or doesn't go on] here, even though the members of my family are physically on top of one another in this small house. To shamelessly paraphrase one of many favorite Swingers lines out of context, "This place is dead." Feelings and other things left unsaid under this roof seem compartmentalized or else under rug swept, and that's just sad. "All things rearranged, but nothing's changed" -- this could be the motto of my house and home.

Something that became even more apparent to me while away, something that resonates inside me now as it did when the home front was tumultuous for a few weeks this summer, is this: no relationship and no family in which Jesus Christ has been displaced as the center can ultimately thrive. It will erode. It will eventually break down. This goes for all varieties of relationships -- those with fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, significant others, friends, yada. A verse I committed to memory over the summer sums it all up in 11 words:

"Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain." - Psalm 127:1a

This is sometimes sad, sometimes unforeseen or seemingly unstoppable, but always true.

Posted by: Jon / 2:13 AM