Return

            Funny how words take on different meaning in different contexts and other words maintain their meaning but exist in a variety of contexts.  To return almost always has to include leaving.  If you are returning something to its rightful place, well you are going to leave it there.  In our court systems when something is returned, an indictment, a verdict, someone will be leaving something behind, maybe their freedom.  And when we travel, whether returning to someplace familiar or returning to someplace for the first time, we had to leave something behind.  Sometimes we look forward to returning, like I look forward to returning to Scotland someday.  Sometimes we hold the return in dread, like often I resent having to return to work.  The word of the day is return.

            My image is a familiar sight if you have ever left the Isle of Iona.  The staff aligns the jetty and bid you farewell.  They do it in creative ways, which I will not share with you in case you have not yet had that privilege.  Now on this particular day it was lovely weather, but they bid adieu regardless of the conditions.  Perhaps the most touching part is the next part of your journey will be on a bus, for an hour on single track roads, returning you to the “real world.”  It is little wonder the Scots say goodbye with a simple “haste ye back.” 

            But by far, my favorite return can’t be captured in an image; returning to the sanctuary of my home church.  I was there when the first spades of dirt were turned. I wrote the number of trips left to seminary on its concrete slab.  I have led worship, read scripture, served communion and “done church” in that place.  However, when I return to its structure, alone, in the peace and stillness of early morning or late evening, I have no doubt that I have returned to God.  In the steamy, sticky, dirtiness of each day, when it is easy to forget what I should be about, I can return to this place and know.  Just know… God is there and goes with me as I return to the world outside.

This is a thin place.