Leaving Home - 2

This is a story about a reconciliation - not a leave taking. It happened 10 years after the last story. After a lot of road trips (and of other kinds). In the mean time God was doing a work of grace in both my Dad and in me. Both of us needed a lot of grace in those years. Dad's relationship with God was deepening in that period and, for me, well....it was as if I had suddenly become aware that God was really there. But that's another story.

A Cold Winter's Night

I was living alone in a little cabin on a farm east of Sebeka, MN in the early winter of 1974 and my father came for a visit. We hadn't spent time together alone for 15 years. I was 27 and he was 67.

There was only one twin bed so I rolled out of my sleeping bag on the floor next to him and we talked and laughed and even prayed together into the wee hours. I had only a little wood stove to heat that poorly insulated shack and only some kiln-dried rafter remnants from the saw mill where I worked to stuff it with. So I crawled out of the sack every couple of hours and stoked the fire to keep from freezing to death.

That night the temperature dropped well below zero. But it was a good night. That old stove hissed, crackled and roared through the night. We soaked in the warmth of the fire and our hearts were made warm by knowing and loving each other again - father and son. We laid there with only the sound of the fire and the howling winter wind, eyes wide open and smiles on our faces. In that cold dark January night we met together like the prodigal son and his running father and God was there and He smiled too.

In the morning - I had to get to work and dad had to get back to the Cities. We stopped at a gas station along the highway and said good bye. When he drove away to the south I actually wept. My heart, which had been hard toward him for all those years had melted and I was sad to see him go.

I guess I had to come home again for leaving home to matter.

More to follow...

Leaving Home

Then Peter said in reply, "See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.
(Matthew 19:27-29)

My daughter was married on October 14th and on the 28th our granddaughter (who had lived with us for several years) was reunited with her mom in her new family. So I'm thinking about leaving home. We all leave home don't we? Some of us early, some of us late, some of us gladly, some sadly, some because we have to, some because we want to, some in hope, some with fear, some in anger, some in tender love, some for self, some for Jesus, but we all leave home.

I left home many times in my own "broken road" (this, I believe, was the title of the song that proceeded the bridal procession at my daughter's wedding) to adulthood, and for many reasons. Here are a few selected tales of my many leave-takings. This is too long for a blog post. I'll have to break this one up. We'll do this on the installment plan. Just three of these I think will do in all.

Road Trip 1965

I found a 1953 Ford for sale in Edina. My first car. $50! Within a few days a plan was hatched with Dogga. I dropped out of the U (2nd false start after graduating high school in '64) and we headed out of town. We drove East out of the cities (I think 94 was already built) in a blizzard. My always perceptive mom had said, "You idiot!, you can't leave in a snowstorm!" but there was no turning back. Before we got 10 miles out of town I did a 360 on the icy road. It gave me momentary pause, but we turned up the radio and soldiered on. Speaking of soldiering, Don "Dogga" aka Mad Dog Cook, my traveling partner, later went on to do two tours in Viet Nam as a Marine Sergeant and now is winding down (I believe) a long partnership with his brothers in a multinational sports clothing empire. (I can get his stuff locally at Mills Fleet Farm)

Where were we going?, you may wonder. It mattered little to me. I had it in mind to stop in to visit my high school girlfriend who was a student in Bozeman, Montana at some point on the journey but it was all about the wild road, the freedom, some space to think in, to breathe deep, experience life...and so a rented room in an Atlanta boarding house, some work rebuilding Cook's brother's driveway...stopped by cops in Mississippi in the middle of the night, briefly mistaken for freedom riders (we listened to the news from the famous Selma, Alabama civil rights march on the radio in the car but we were "just passin' through") and I suppose we were lucky to make it out alive. We were freedom riders of a different sort, I suppose. Politically naive. But its hard to explain what you're up to in rural Mississippi in the middle of the night when all you want to do is keep ridin'.

So we kept ridin' through Texas (gas at 17.9 cents per gallon near Fort Worth) and on to LA where we stayed at Don's sister's place in the valley (Woodland Hills, if memory serves) where we were kindly given lots of LA tours etc. and my car caught fire on the Hollywood Freeway. There was a leak in the exhaust pipe that directed heat to the floor of the back seat which finally lit right up. I don't remember fixing it. We just put out the fire and kept going I believe.

And then through Montana and a brief stop in Bozeman where I got the news that my HS sweetheart had "moved on" and did not wish to see me. This changed the character of what remained of this rapidly deteriorating adventure. Cook had to take over logistics at this point. I was too bummed out to deal...and we rode on accross Dakota and into an even worse Minnesota blizzard where we actually had to temporarily abandon the Ford in a snowbank just north of St. Cloud and hoof it into town.

The story ends with a call to my Father who coughed up $50 via Western Union to see us back home. This call to my Father becomes a bit of a repetitive motif as this story of leavings continues...and the verses on the top of this post start to come into focus ( hopefully).