The Bukowski Family

Coming Home.

In January, I attended at funeral at the church I grew up in.  I hadn’t stepped foot inside that place since I was 18 and I must tell you I was apprehensive about going back – even if it was only for a funeral. The church was exactly how I remembered on the outside – some things had changed of course, but for the most part it stood there unchanged, untouched by time.  As I sat at the funeral, listening to stories – I have to tell you my mind wandered to 7 years ago when that church was my home.

My father had just died then and it seemed as if I needed that place more than ever before. But things were changing all around me- there became a sudden division in the church. Old traditions were not wanting to give way to new ideals.  Everyone’s opinion about the direction of the church were the right opinion and any who disagreed were wrong. Until one day- t blew up. Friendships were ruined, feelings hurt, a church tarnished, a young girl lost her home.

I met my best friends at that place – and now I never see or talk to any of them. I met my first love there and let him go there. It was my place, my church, my whole life.  Everything about that rickety old building holds some memory for me. When I was young – I always thought it would be the church I got married in.  It was the church I said goodbye to my daddy in.

Being back – even for that brief hour – brought back the hurt and the longing. As hard as I have tried to ignore it, the truth is I do miss that place. I miss my friends, I miss the youth program, I miss VBS,  I miss the belief in innocence.

It was there in that pew at the funeral that I realized something – the church, as an entity, is an amazing thing. So many times we are told that a church is not in a building. We shouldn’t go to church FOR us we should go to church for God.  But that’s what was missing in at my old church. Everyone went there FOR themselves.

I haven’t really gone to church since I left “home”. No place seems to fit. Rather – I don’t fit. I am afraid to lose it again.  My church is my home – me and God get together there. Perhaps I’m lying to myself but every church I have tried since I left feels the same – and I am the one who has become tarnished.

I told my husband after the fact that going back, for me,  was something of “prodigal child” syndrome.  You go back and it fits….it makes sense to you……but it isn’t you anymore. You’ve seen the world now- you know that evil exists and just because you want it to be like it was – doesn’t mean it is.

Maybe a better way to say it is this - you love going back for Christmas but you certainly can’t and don’t want to stay until New Year’s.

I have to accept that times change, people change, and with that churches change. Although it felt good to come home – it is’t my home anymore.

I have the memories and the good times and the bad. Perhaps one day I’ll find another place to call home.