CYBERCOLUMN:
Lessons learned from a trip home
___By Brett Younger
___When I attended my grandmother's funeral, I discovered again that the past is never done with us.
___Mississippi is a good place to call home because when the prodigals return, we hope that folks will recognize that we don't quite fit in, while at the same time we want to feel like we never left. Much of what's Mississippi encourages mixed emotions--red clay,

BRETT YOUNGER

kudzu, Southern belles, steel magnolias, sweet potatoes, Ole Miss, William Faulkner, Brett Favre, 'Don't Blame Me I Voted for Goldwater' bumper stickers, gas stations where people ask, "Where you headed?" and Elvis (who went to high school with my ninth grade biology teacher, who never forgave herself for thinking Elvis was goofy. More than once Mrs. Stowers wondered aloud if she could have been the Queen of Graceland).
___I was welcomed home by an incredible assortment of saints and sinners who hugged me, hugged my wife, Carol, and hugged, kissed and pinched the cheeks of my poor unprepared sons. A few hugged before they asked who I was. When I answered, "I'm Clarice's oldest boy," they hugged me again.
___I was surprised to find that my relatives have aged as much as I have.
___My cousin Barry, who used to torment me, broke out in a grin. One Christmas he hid all of the gifts with my name on them behind the couch. Barry, who used to be skinny as a rail, frequently astounded us with the huge amount of food he could eat. He is now more like a boxcar than a rail. I don't know why that amuses me so.
___My uncle now looks more like my grandfather than my uncle. My cousin's daughter looks more like the cousin I remember than my cousin does. At the last really big family gathering I attended, I was a member of the youngest generation. With my grandmother's death, I am smack dab in the middle ages.
___More than any of us she left behind, my grandmother took her faith seriously. She was certain of more things than I'm certain of. I remember being terrified when Grandma found three of us playing cards--Old Maid-- in the back bedroom, though that was nothing compared to the time she caught Barry playing the record "My Baby Does the Hanky Panky." I honestly believe that Barry didn't know what hanky panky is or why Grandma would consider it wrong for him to buy a 45 record praising hanky panky and playing it on grandmother's phonograph. Some of my grandmother's certainties seem peculiar now, but the depth of her convictions cannot be questioned any more than the love that made her try to pass on those convictions.
___ The service itself was wonderful. (One of the granddaughters-in-law did made the shocking mistake of wearing checked pants to the funeral. She was defended by those who pointed out that she is from the North.) My mother read a sentimental piece about motherhood. A choir sang from "The Country and Western Gospel Hymnal." One preacher talked about my grandmother baking pies for people in better shape than she was in. The other minister, who knew Grandma before she was old, talked about how completely she gave her life to her church, children, neighbors and strangers.
___ The service closed with a hymn sung by a granddaughter and two great-granddaughters. As the hymn began, the three of them started crying. It looked like they weren't going to get through the song. I was sitting on the front row as one of the pallbearers--grandsons, great-grandsons and those with the good sense to marry their way in. Without saying a word, we began to sing quietly to help them along. It took a minute for the ones of us who had moved away to remember the words, but they came back: "Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing power? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Are you fully trusting in his grace this hour? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?" I don't like "blood" hymns, but I had a tear in my eye.
___ Grandma was born in Itawamba County, Miss., in 1901. She lived in the house in which she was born until she married Grandpa in 1928, moved three houses down the dirt road and stayed there. She sunk her life deep into the red clay. She was a member of the same church, Tombigbee Baptist (Landmark), all of her life. Now she's buried a quarter of a mile away.
___ I've been trying to figure out what I'm supposed to learn from my grandmother and the home she built. It sounds simple, but I think it's this: Holiness takes time.
___ I've lived in a dozen places—enough to recognize that something is lost when we move and some of the real heroes are the ones who stay--teachers who give themselves to one school; pastors who spend their ministries with one people; matriarchs who build homes for every prodigal who knocks on the door.
___ The places in which we live and work and have our being are too filled with God's holiness for us not to notice. The people with whom we laugh and cry and pass the time are too filled with God's holiness for us not to see.
___ We need to learn what we can from home, give thanks for the blessings and ask God's grace for the heartaches. Hug everyone who wants to be hugged. Forgive the cousins who hide our Christmas gifts. Take pies, even ones we buy at the grocery store, to people in better shape than we're in. Take our faith more seriously than we take ourselves. Be true to what we believe and to the people in whom we believe--saints and sinners, God's church. Sing the hymns, occasionally with tears in our eyes. Let our roots grow deep into the God who calls us home, the God who is our home.

___Brett Younger is pastor of Lake Shore Baptist Church in Waco.






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