Well, I’m all alone again. And as much as I enjoy the solitude ... (Solitude relatively speaking, since I’m not really alone, I've got the crazy dogs (who don’t understand why I’m not worried about whoever it was that stole “mom” away this morning, since they are frantic, barking at the closed garage door which swallowed her up not all that long ago. They bark and run into the office to get me out of my chair to come and worry with them, because they are sure some evil has befallen her. That’s why they are so excited when she comes home (not so excited when I come home, but that’s another story) It is like Easter Sunday every time mom comes back from the dead)
As much as I enjoy the solitude ... (not really solitude, since I've got the upstairs cats too. Who every now and then stage a vocal protest about the apartheid situation in our house, or not getting enough food, or someone closed the door to the bathroom, or the fact that there isn't enough sunlight streaming through the windows, or something, who knows what goes through cats’ minds? Except some strange migratory behavior that causes them to gallop from one end of the upstairs to the other, sounding like a herd of wildebeests thundering across the Serengeti plain. How two cats can sound like the armies of the Apocalypse, I’ll never understand.)
Besides, it is the week before Thanksgiving. So, you can’t be alone, there is an air of anticipation, of imminent arrival. La Donna is away because she has gone to retrieve Maddie from college. She comes in like a force of nature ready to disturb whatever sense of equilibrium this empty-ish nest has come to settle upon. A few days later Rhys will be gathered up from his college experience and brought into the mix to tell us what horizons he has explored and mountains he has climbed. In the middle of that my sister from California flies in to join the festivities and spend time with mom and dad in their new setting in Warren. So, she will be in and out for a time, hardly know she is there some of the time, at least until the dogs greet her not knowing is she is a stranger or a familiar one when she returns from a day with the folks. I mean, come on, California!
And then on the day itself, we’ll gather up mom and dad from Warren. And then my brother and his wife with their two grown daughters will drive from South Bend and the house will be filled to bursting (We are giving the dogs the day off with a couple of nights in the kennels, in case you are wondering). We've already designated corners for folks to retreat to should the need arise. We've been there before, you see. For the most part, we enjoy one another’s company. For the most part we get along like a house on fire - lots of heat, and yelling and running here and there. How’s your holiday shaping up?
Lots of food, lots of family fellowship, but space as well. Lots of voices, stories told and retold, laughter and understanding and, let’s be frank, misunderstanding, and nerves and guilt and hurt feelings and words used to lash out, to protect, to wound even because pride gets in the way when we least expect it. And the voices are less a comfort and sense of home and hope and joy and more like sandpaper on our soul. The voices are less a welcome and more a burden, like they are pulling you in too many directions, like they are each wanting a piece of you until there is nothing left and you have lost yourself in the very place where you should be found. You are uncertain in the very place where you should be sure. You are nobody in the very place you should be somebody.
Well, you are saying, that escalated quickly! OK, maybe I exaggerated. But maybe not. Family squabbles can be some of the worst. No one gets on our nerves like family. Still, it is not like they drive us completely around the bend. I mean we don’t end up in a cemetery, howling at the moon and chasing away the folks who try to bind us in chains or anything. Right?
Mark 5:1-20 They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. 2 And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. 3 He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; 4 for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. 6 When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; 7 and he shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me." 8 For he had said to him, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!" 9 Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" He replied, "My name is Legion; for we are many." 10 He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; 12 and the unclean spirits begged him, "Send us into the swine; let us enter them." 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea. 14 The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. 16 Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. 17 Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood. 18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 But Jesus refused, and said to him, "Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you." 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.
There’s a whole lot in here that would take weeks to unpack. A whole lot of questions raised that I’m not going to even attempt to answer.. And yet, despite all that, there is a haunting familiarity to this story. Maybe we are not out of our minds, but we know what it is to be pulled in so many directions we don’t even know our name anymore. Jesus asks the man, what is your name, and the demons - the addictions, the responsibilities, the distractions, the brokenness answers. We are Legion, we are many, so many, too many to count, overwhelming. He was drowning in them, whatever they were. Couldn't keep his head above water. Maybe he thought he could, maybe he had been swimming along, treading water, but then he lost it. Caught in a lie, dropped something important, couldn't cover for himself anymore, and he went under.
Who knows, he was lost, drowning, and still he preferred the whirlpool he knew to the shoreline he didn't. “What do you have to do with me, Jesus?” You aren't going to take away my demons are you? I've gotten used to them, they are comfortable. Sure, I’m in pain, cast out, chained by family and friends, but still, I've managed to make a life, such as it is. You aren't going to ask me to swim for shore, are you? You aren't going to ask me to grab the lifeline that you throw to me? Are you, Jesus?
Oh, that all the things that pull us in so many directions would go diving off a cliff and drown in the sea. Oh, for those moments when we are clothed and in our right minds. Praise be to God, when those moments do come, they aren't an end but a new beginning. “Go home and tell your friends.” Jesus makes a big assumption here. That he still has a home and that he still has friends. Maybe he means the friends that tried to chain him when he was at his worst. Maybe he means the friends that were so startled by his transformation that they asked Jesus to leave town. Maybe he means those friends.
Or maybe Jesus just redefined friends and home both. You notice it says he goes to the Decapolis. That’s ten towns. That’s a region not a home town. He doesn't just go to where he used to live, he goes wherever he can reach. He goes wherever they will listen. Maybe he goes back to the source of the voices that once drove him crazy. But now they are home, now they are family. Part of the gift of new life is that home is redefined, even as you are redefined. And then it isn't about proving yourself, or holding your own, or getting even. It’s about loving, as he loved. Happy Thanksgiving.
Shalom,
Derek
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