home changes

I never expect home to be any different when I go back. I want to roads in my corner of Ohio to be the same, I want the restaurants to be the same, I I even want the people to be the same. Needless to say, this means that I am often disappointed (or pleasantly surprised... depending on my frame of mind, attitude, and perspective). This is the paradox of nostalgia.

I went back to my home church the weekend before Christmas and for the late night Christmas Eve service. Of course, there were changes that made me grumble--like the absence of individual candles at what used to be a candlelight service. But, I must say, overall I was pleasantly surprised. I live in the seminary bubble, where we can get it in our heads that everything about the church that is the best is in the books we read, the people who teach is (and sometimes even in our own heads). This can be a little dangerous, but mostly just arrogant and annoying. So , when I went to the service and saw my pastor practicing (in real life, in a real congregation) some of the things that we discuss in class I was floored.

My jaw first dropped when, out of the ceiling, in front of the cross, in our big white, formal and traditional Presbyterian sanctuary... a media screen dropped. What? They use media here? And computers? Where have I been?

As my football loving, Midwestern pastor started his sermon, I was even more pleasantly surprised. Most of his message was centered around art, and use depictions of the nativity to inform his interpretation of the scripture. I sit in art and religion classrooms, and preaching discussions, and we talk about this stuff like it never happens in "real life". And here I was, in my home church, seeing my way of understanding my faith incorporated in worship as I never had experienced in that congregation before. It was a Christmas miracle (and I say that will a little humor, but mostly honesty).

So, I am reminded to be gracious and open in my heart to the changes that are placed before me. Home will always be home, even if it doesn't look or sound the same as it did when I was a child.