I guess that's my fault. Since I was saying goodbye to a building. I know, it sounds ridiculous. We're getting a new church building. THe pastor's been saying all along, "it isn't that we're getting a new church. The church is the people. We're just moving to a new building." And it's an amazingly huge, brand new facility that was paid for by our congregation, and it will serve so many people and I'm excited for what will happen.
But. Goodbye is still goodbye.
Because, when I was fifteen years old, I found this sort of home at our church. We'd visited so many other places, and it was the first one I went to where I felt like I could belong. I was impressed by so many things. Mostly, the welcoming faces and the warmth. I was a visitor, but they never assumed I would stop coming. They just kept inviting me along for whatever they were doing.
I grew there, spiritually and physically, and romantically.
I fell in love there. I mean, literally. My first glimpse of Daniel in person was there. After we'd emailed for six months, he showed up, fresh off the plane from Russia. This smiling face with a bounce in his step, and I think it was maybe love at first sight. There in the church's front lawn, under the oak tree that still stands there.
We said "I love you" to each other outside of the youth room.
We danced and sang in the church musicals together.
He proposed to me the night he was baptized, there in the church gym.
And of course we were married there.
But it wasn't just him. It's a hundred other friends and family members, people who have watched me grow and who love me and care about me. And they'll all be there when we go to the new building.
But those old tile floors and the lockers on the wall have seen so much of me. And I'll miss the comfort of a place like that, where I know all of the nooks and crannies. Where I taught kids classes and sang in choir. Is it stupid to miss a church building? It might be. Because really, it's just a shell of a place. a kind of backdrop for what really matters. And the same things will keep happening as we move on. The same people will smile and open doors and greet and take offering and teach my kids. But I'll miss that place all the same. Not because I love it, but I love the memories and the people who are part of it.
And I think everyone has a place or two like that, filled with memories that only you really appreciate. Maybe high school or a best friend's house or your grandparent's house. Or your own house. I think about places like that, and wonder why people say home is a feeling. Because it is, but it's also a place. Or two or three.
I have this song on CD by Sara Groves. I always wish I could write like her when I hear her music. And this song, The House, sort of says what I'm thinking today about that church building. Like the hull of a seed, that old church cracked wide open...
The House
it took me by surprise
this old house and these old feelings
walked round and looked inside
familiar walls and halls and ceilings
where I'd dream and plan
every moment of sunshine
this was my whole world
it was all I knew
like the hull of a seed
this old house cracked wide open
as I grew
hadn't given it much thought
hadn't been back here for a while
everything looks so small
seen through the memories of a child
who would dream and stare
from that second story window
that was my whole world
it was all I knew
like the hull the of a seed
this old house cracked wide open
and I flew
sad fruitful broken true
sad fruitful broken true
memories for miles and miles
summers falls winters and springs
Ruby you take it in
see he's withheld no good thing
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