This week we head to Kansas.
I’ve been doing research on what to expect, carefully re-watching “The Wizard of Oz” with notebook in hand.
I am prepared for twisters, dog-hating cyclists, and the limiting of color perception to gradations of gray.
Seriously – thinking about what this trip to Kansas means to me and what Kansas meant to ruby-slippered Dorothy has me ruminating on “home,” and why we’ll do just about anything to get there.
Dorothy couldn’t wait to get back to Kansas not because she pined for twisters, dog-hating cyclists, and black-and-white vision. Dorothy couldn’t wait to get back to Kansas because she missed her Aunt Mae and Uncle Henry and the farmhands who completed their rag-tag family.
The technicolor splendors and musical magic of Oz could not compete for Dorothy’s affection with the flat, ugly landscape and shabby farm from whence she came. Why? Because Kansas was where her people were.
Home = people you love. Home = people who love you.
“There’s no place like home.”
Too true.
GOING HOME IS NOT ABOUT PLACES
For me, this trip to Kansas is all about an elderly lady, gray-haired and sparkly-eyed, who has been my mother figure for the last decade +. Pat’s love for me and mine makes any place where she lives “home” for us. Her way of welcoming, listening, laughing, and loyally supporting us shelters us as surely as a roof over our heads. Since Pat moved away a few years ago, there has been an ache in my heart with her name on it. I am going to Kansas for some heart therapy.
We will also get to spend time with Pat’s daughter, Maureen (we call each other “Sis”, and Maureen’s sons are my girls’ “Kansas Cousins”). Maureen and her family are people with whom we have celebrated multiple Thanksgivings and Labor days and birthdays. They are also the people with whom we have mourned the loss of Pat’s Beloved, Mike, who died in 2017. Shared celebrations and shared grief are the surest hallmarks of “family.” And the truth of the matter is that family is the only distinguishing quality of “home.”
“The Wizard of Oz” contains a lot of truth about home and family and the heart-longing that can only be assuaged by home and family. But that movie contains some deep deceptions, too… deceptions that can cheat us of peace and satisfaction no matter where we are or with whom we are. Deceptions that abound as assumptions in our culture.
LIES IN OZ… AND IN US
Let’s take ‘em one at a time:
- LIE: Our perceived deficiencies – and overcoming them – are what define us. The Scarecrow’s brainlessness, the Tin Man’s heartlessness, and the Lion’s cowardice motivated everything they did. Their support of Dorothy, their journey to Oz, their invasion of the Wicked Witch’s haven – all their actions proceeded from their perception of their own lack. Further, the Wizard’s “cures” for them brought them ultimate fulfillment.
TRUTH: God’s all-sufficiency – and our surrender to His forgiveness, healing, and transformational empowerment – are what define us. Ultimate fulfillment can only be found in God. God will surely send us out on quests and adventures, but those quests and adventures will begin in Him and glorify Him – not the other way ‘round!
- LIE: Evil is always ugly and obvious. The Wicked Witch of the West wore her heart on her sleeve (and her nose)! She announced her arrivals with loud, smoky explosions. She cackled chillingly and issued overt threats. She even gave fore-warnings of all she intended to do to harm Dorothy and Co. Getting rid of the evil was as straightforward as getting rid of her, and that job was pretty easy!
TRUTH: Evil is often beautifully disguised and hard to discern. Evil almost never gives itself away on the front end or reveals its ultimate intentions. Rather, evil insinuates itself, one teensy step toward the abyss at a time, and confuses its prey to the point they don’t even perceive their own peril. Getting rid of evil is never straightforward and always difficult; only God can do the job.
- LIE: Ruby slippers keep us safe. Dorothy’s ruby slippers dominated the plot of the Oz saga: they propelled the Witch to hunt Dorothy; they kept Dorothy safe as she sojourned; they provided the magic to get Dorothy home in the end. How many of us clutch ruby slippers of our own? Money, accomplishment, image, ambition – we mistake these talismans for the dominant factors in our own sagas. We look to them for our security and our momentum. We defend them against those who would take them from us.
TRUTH: Only God keeps us safe. God’s story IS the dominant factor in our own sagas, whether we see that or not, so our ruby slipper fetishes actually produce plot-snarls and derailments rather than security and momentum. Where the Wicked Witch could separate Dorothy from the ruby slippers, “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD… HOME
To get to Pat, we will be driving to Kansas City from Breckenridge, Colorado – heading straight east through Denver and across the flatlands, descending almost 13,000 feet in the process. Our route handily demonstrates a larger reality: going home can require endurance for a long haul.
For Christians, this life is not our home. We were made for Heaven, are already citizens of Heaven, and exist here as ambassadors for that Kingdom which is both “now” and “not yet.” The journeys we make here – and the homes we cherish here – are specifically temporary and finite, while our ultimate destination and purpose is specifically eternal and infinite.
That’s not just food for thought. That’s fuel and focus for the road.
All our home-goings and reunions, all our departures and separations, give us glimpses of what is to come, someday: arrival at a family reunion that will persist forever and forever.
