"The time has come for you to go..."

Today: visiting more houses, then heading north for Indiana, with a stop in Mississippi along the way. Today: travelling with courage thanks to these sweet words:

Child the time has come for you to go
You will never be alone
Every dream that you have been shown
Will be like living stone
Building you into a home
A shelter from the storm

The Call

I'm hardly headed off to war, but this song is in my ears and heart nevertheless. Tomorrow I leave one beloved home in search of a new one. This is my song for that day.

Fare Thee Well

When I calculate the number of boxes I will need for my books, my eyes are dry. My hands are quick as I type emails about housing options, or scribble lists of pre-moving tasks. But these songs still my hands, calling me to listen, remember, and give thanks. I have tried to assemble songs fit for this season: hopeful in their sadness, timely in their joy: beautiful music to enrich the process of bidding fare-thee-well and God-be-with-you.  I began compiling this list months ago, but only in the last week or two have I begun to listen.  Now I want you to listen with me.






What songs help you say farewell? Do you have any suggestions for songs as I prepare this soundtrack for departure?

You did not have a home

What does Christ's homelessness teach us about how we establish our own homes?

Like Noah's Weary Dove

An Address for All/ Like Noah's Weary Dove

Like Noah's weary dove
That soared the earth around,
But not a resting place above
The cheerless waters found,
 
Oh, cease, my wandering soul,
On restless wing to roam;
All the wide world, to either pole,
Has not for thee a home.
 
Behold the ark of God,
Behold the open door;
Hasten to gain that dear abode,
And rove, my soul, no more.
 
There safe thou shalt abide,
There sweet shall be thy rest,
And every longing satisfied,
With full salvation blessed.
 
And, when the waves of ire
Again the earth shall fill,
The ark shall ride the sea of fire
Then rest on Zion's hill. 
                 (William Augustus Muhlenberg)

I discovered this nineteenth-century hymn during my first months in  Texas.  I would listen to it as I walked my mile to church each Sunday, wandering somewhere between homelessness and hope.  Some years later, the words became doubly precious to me as I struggled through a season of brutal anxiety and depression.  During that darkness, Psalm 84, with its image of a sparrow finding a home on God's altars, became my psalm of hope--I memorized it, reciting the words when panic threatened to overwhelm me. This song, so similar in its picture of God providing a home for the smallest of things in the holiest of places, speaks the same message of hope. Now, with so many external joys and triumphs and plans on my mind, this song reminds me that this earth and this life can only ever be the hope and beginning of my true home. 

I'll carry on

According to my new plan, Tuesdays are now a day for me to share a song from a playlist on "home" I've been building for years. Today's offering is "I'll Carry On" from Rich Mullins's album A Liturgy, A Legacy, and a Ragamuffin Band.  I have known this song since I was a child (my parents really liked Mullins's music), but it became particularly important to me when I left college to begin my PhD adventure.  This stanza, in particular, often ran through my head during my first year in Texas:

I kissed the earth on my daddy's grave
Said goodbye to my brave young companions
But when they hoist that sail I know my heart will break
As bright and as fine as the morning
I don't know where this road will take me
But they say there's a place there for a man
And I'm only afraid that my dreams may betray me
And I'll never get home again 

 Complete lyrics can be found here.