In Hallock, this is home

I was a little stressed this week. OK, actually a lot. And I couldn't put my finger on it. I assumed it was something to do with returning from a mission trip and trying to catch up on sleep--I'm sure that was part of it. I assumed it also had something to do with catching up on work and the return of general monotony to the routine--that was surely part of it, too. Then, I assumed it was that I had reached my limit of extroversion in the past week--yep, that too. But I think none of those were actually the main reason for my stress.

Yesterday, Kate and I finished painting our living room--finally! As we put things back into place I could absolutely feel the stress lifting from my life. It was weird. There's no reason why the location of furniture should be such a big deal, except IT WAS. I could not focus, could not rest, could not let go of things, until things were as they should be--until, in short, I had a place to call home.

Coming back from Idaho is always a maudlin experience for me. Home is Golden Valley, Minnesota, and home is now Hallock, Minnesota, but home is also the ponderosa pines of northern Idaho, the banks of Lake Coeur d'Alene, and the shores of Shoshone Creek. Of course, it was wildly appropriate and completely random that I was reading Bill Bryson's At Home over the course of the week I was there. Home is weird; it's the intersection of a place and feelings and people and all sorts of things that are harder to put our fingers on. Going off to Idaho reminded me of home out there, but it also strengthened my ties to Hallock back here. It's weird. And beautiful. And I don't get it.

The thing is: it's never the same. I knew Shoshone wasn't going to be the same this year as it was the last time I was there three years ago or the first time I was there five years prior to that. I knew that going into it, but I was still struck, driving up the river road when we first approached camp that Sunday afternoon, that it was so different. There was traffic. I never remembered traffic. There were gnats, thick and all up in our faces. I didn't remember gnats. Some things were the same; many things were different. I happened to have one of my best weeks I've ever had up there this time, but it was altogether different from the great week I had eight years ago. This is how time and place works. A home, like a stream, is never the same.

I suppose this is all a rambling explanation of where I find myself now. I am home. As Hallock celebrates school reunions and another County Fair visits our little town, I know that I am a very recent visitor to this place. My history here is an awfully shallow stream. I also know that I work the weirdest job in part because it discourages the kind of roots that are necessary for people to find meaning. Pastors are terrible at staying in one place--sometimes by choice and often by necessity. So, in some ways the mantra is true: "I am always just passing through."

But I'm also not. I am rooted here--more than I could have imagined upon taking this call twenty months ago. The people here slay me again and again with their kindness and generosity and, frankly, their awesomeness--as quantifiable as awesomeness clearly is. This is home. My things are back in their place. My office is still a complete mess. Kate and I are exhausted. The fair is rolling in. This is home. And I wouldn't have it any other way.