Editor's Note: Apart from another post on things seen in churches and possibly a couple of reflections, I'm done here. Kinda appropriate, since I've been a month behind on almost everything here. But if you enjoy ramblings, I think I'll continue over at Blackbirds and Berries. Best wishes, all!
I think I about cried when they told us that we were being diverted to Greensboro. After 2 months, nineteen days and eleven long hours away from home, all I wanted to do was land in Charlotte, see my parents and drive forty-five minutes back to Granite Falls, my house and my own bed. If storm clouds could be burned away by a glare from angry eyes, the storm over Charlotte would have evaporated on the spot.
But we landed in Greensboro and the people around me on the tiny plane that had left from Chicago a little over an hour before all pulled out their cell phones and started to call their families or friends. My own American cell phone was sitting at Christine's house, voicemail full and useless, and my European cell phone had stopped working a continent ago. I amused myself by listening to people describe where they were. "No, we aren't in Charlotte. We're in some place called Greensboro… no, b-o-r-o. No, I don't know where it is." "Yeah, I think it's kinda north of Charlotte? It's really small." "Well, I think we're in North Carolina. We're in some place called Greensville…" The more travel savvy passengers weathers the diversion well and pointed out Charlotte landmarks when we landed there an hour and a fifteen minute hop later. "There's the downtown area… there's the football stadium." So odd to me, who's been to Greensboro plenty and who has been on the field in the Panther's Stadium in Charlotte, to listen to these outsiders talk about my state. My beautiful, green, hill-covered, mountain and sea bounded state. So glad to be home.
I wasn't back for long before I packed up a small bag and drove to Chapel Hill to work for a week at the planetarium. I didn't even unpack my toiletries, carrying my life around again in a backpack. I stayed on friends' couches and road public transportation and felt like a nomad once again, awkwardly re-familiarizing myself with bus schedules and local customs. I jumped when the waitress came to refill my water at Pam's birthday dinner and almost balked in surprise when a campus ministry member asked if there was anything she could pray for me about as I sat in the Union on a break from shifts. I listened in closely, deciphering again the sweet melody of southern accents and soaking in the forgotten songs of crickets. I basked in the undeniable warmth of the end of a North Carolina summer and smiled as happily when I saw a firefly as I had seeing the lights dance up and down the Eiffel Tower. I ordered a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger and Cheerwine at Wendy's and thought about the potato casserole, ranch dressing and steak that my family had had for dinner and the grits that I would soon have for a breakfast. When I drove, I drove with my windows down, taking every opportunity to breathe in the North Carolina summer I had missed.
It's weird, isn't it, coming back? Quarters almost seem like foreign objects when you haven't seen that coinage denomination in months. I thanked the bus driver with no question about the appropriateness of my action. I became an expert again on the history and culture of an area, answering question after question about the campus, Franklin Street and the planetarium. I turned around in surprise when someone didn't speak English instead of when someone did. Everything savored of home and yet the places I slept I visited for less time than I had spent in any single city in Europe. So maybe I wasn't back yet.
Saturday, a week and two days after we had left Europe, after we had walked up to Pam's apartment door on a few hours before she turned twenty-one and gotten the most surprised hugs of our lives; after six days of traveling again, this time through a place I had been many, many times before; after half a day's worth of travel hours up and down the highways of North Carolina and after a couple of hours struggling with boxes and mattress, I was moved into my new apartment, finally in a place of residence that would last me for months instead of days.
And Sunday I went to church. I came in late and had to sit in the back, sheltered by the balcony that used to segregate the congregation. As I found my spot in a wooden pew on the left of the church, the two associate pastors played out a dialogue about small groups starting up in the school year. We had a call to worship and the choir processed in as we all, a congregation of hundreds of people, sang a hymn. We confessed our sins and passed the peace, listened to a couple of lessons, one read by a student lector up at the pulpit at the end of the long hall of the church, in front of the apse that help the choir and a set of stairs up from the altar centered in the chancel. The campus minister preached a beautiful sermon, an associate minister led the congregation in the prayers of the people, we took up an offering (because wherever two are gathered an offering will be taken) and the ushers brought it to the waiting pastors as we sang the Doxology. A closing hymn, a parting blessing and a postlude and suddenly I was standing in a line with one of my roommates from last year, waiting to shake hands with the pastors on the way out the door.
And it was like coming home
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