Blog 194 – 12.28.15

A friend was disappointed that I did not say more about Christmas on my blog last Friday, Christmas Day. So even though Christmas is 363 days away I would like to say a little more about Christmas. The song that the title of this piece comes from goes on to say, “… If only in my dreams.”

Some postulate, guess, that your consciousness and mine are only an elaborate, fancy, dream. Every time I use a big word, I try to follow it with a smaller one so that you don’t have to read me with a dictionary. I love language but being understood is way more important than showing off one’s vocabulary, the list of word’s one knows.

I see myself as a teacher of sorts. Often the greatest barrier, wall, to learning something new is unlearning what we think we know. The “conventional wisdom” or accepted truth is often wrong. It never hurts to question, to re-examine what you think you know or believe.

Back to the famous Christmas lyric, “I’ll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams.” I spent my almost three years in the Army in an almost constant state of “home sickness.” When I signed up on my eighteenth birthday the longest I had ever been away from home was one week of Boy Scout summer camp at the age of eleven. My definition of home for most of my life was, mother, father, brother, the place they lived, grandpa, grandma, aunts, uncles cousins, friends, a special girl friend, wife, and children, church family, work mates. Mine was a pretty conventional definition of home.

My dad used to tell guests at our table things like: “Make yourself at home.” ” If you don’t see what you want ask because we’re not afraid to tell you we don’t have it.” and “If you’re not home you ought to be.” I never knew anyone in my life more at home in his own skin than was my dad.” Sadly, a lot of the great things he tried to teach me I did not learn till after he passed and the hard way, through experience, not the easy way, “do as I say not as I do” that he tried so hard to impart with his wonderful stories and tried and true clichés, often repeated one-liners.

One of those I have used several times myself, not stopping to really think about it is, “Home is where the heart is.” If you think home is a person or a place you are absolutely right but only One Person and One Place fill the bill. God/the Universe and Heaven and according to a verse I quote more often than any other, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” God is within you, in your heart, mine, and everyone’s. Home truly is where God is. I was silly to be homesick those years in the service. For years I have told people how lucky I was that I spent three Christmases in the Army and never a one away from home. I had an unprecedented, rare, two week leave in the middle of Basic Training to go home on leave for Christmas and received a one month drop off my year tour in Vietnam which got me home on leave before Christmas. I didn’t have to ask for either of those. And actually the Christmas in between was just as out of the ordinary. I had been awaiting a security clearance and serving as a clerk in my teletype training company and orders came down saying the clearance was taking too long and they were sending us to Arlington Hall Station in Virginia, home of the Army Security Agency, to await our security clearances before we were to be sent to Vietnam. As we were packing for the move to Virginia word came that our clearance were complete (actually they were not). We were sent home on two weeks leave and told to report to Oakland Army Depot for processing to Vietnam on January 6th of 1970. I would cut grass and do odd jobs for two months in Vietnam before my security clearance was ever completed and I could do the job I was trained to do. But I had that Christmas with my family as well.

Some people think my home is Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I was born, grew up, and where my parents lived till they died. Some people think my home is Houston, Texas where I lived for over half of my life, attended Bible College, married three of my four wives, fathered and helped raise a daughter and a son. Still other friends think my home is the place they call home and want me to “come home for Christmas.” No matter where I am for Christmas someone is going to be disappointed that I didn’t come home. But, oh my friends, I have come Home and Home is where I intend to forever stay with the One Whose love never disappoints and always encourages me to love myself and to dream big and follow my dreams whether that be in Wyoming or Tennessee, California or New York.  To paraphrase the old American Express line and add it to my standard line, “Home is where the heart is and don’t leave home without it.” It is impossible to be homesick when you truly know that He, Home and Heaven are in your heart.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White