Loose Ends…Confessions Of An Unfinished Faith
Loose Ends…Confessions Of An Unfinished Faith
“Not Home Yet” as seen in the October, 2006 issue of CCM Magazine
By Nichole Nordeman
The situation in my mailbox is completely out of control. I cannot begin to describe the amount of junk mail and catalogs that show up every…single…day. I mean, occasionally I order something online, so I do understand how I got on some of these mass mailing lists, but could someone please tell me how I got signed up to receive the latest installment of Northwest River Supplies? And it’s not like it’s just addressed to “current resident,” it is specifically addressed to me, and usually arrives just after my copy of Dancewear Solutions. I mean, it’s maddening, really. Every time I throw a huge pile of those catalogs away, I hold a brief moment of silence for all the trees that had to be sacrificed because someone out there thinks I should buy some new pink leg warmers or a patch kit for my raft.
I suppose I come by it genetically. My grandmother, “Kiki,” was a catalog addict for years. If there had been a 12-step program, we would have staged an intervention for her. For months after she passed away, my mom would still get random packages delivered to the house, because Kiki had ordered some free weights or a bikini with matching eye shadow. I suppose it’s possible that the Catalog Command Center got word that she had a granddaughter in Dallas, and launched a shock and awe campaign on my mailbox, because they figured the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
I have become so annoyed with the situation, that even now, when I am asked for my address, and even if it is a legitimate person asking (like at my bank), I start to sweat and stammer and eventually blurt out some house number on Sesame Street. I just don’t need any more junk mail.
But admittedly, there are a few catalogs I like.
Pottery Barn. Anthropologie. IKEA (I would not protest some sort of endorsement opportunity, incidentally)…and one obscure little catalog called The Land Of Nod. It has the most clever children’s stuff imaginable. Toys, room décor, books, music, educational games, you name it…I love their stuff, and their catalog has a very whimsical and imaginative feel to it, even though in the end…it’s usually just more stuff. Stuff I don’t need.
The pastor at church the other Sunday, was talking about the story of Cain and Abel in early Genesis, and read aloud the part in the story where Cain really blew it and offed his brother in a jealous rage and was sentenced by God to be a “fugitive and a wanderer on the earth” banished far from the beautiful Eden he knew, to a place called the Land of Nod…which I learned actually means “wandering” in Hebrew.
I was a little sad and surprised to hear the name of my favorite catalog taken in vain. But I kept listening.
Cain’s story is a sad one. And yet gives context to our own. I think it’s interesting that God’s punishment for Cain’s murderous retaliation on his brother, is very simple. In essence, God sentenced him to homelessness. It’s a rather similar sentence to the one He gave Cain’s parents. The gates of the garden were closed as a result of their sinful choice. And so was access to all of the rich and wonderful blessings God had initially intended for them. They too, were forced to re-define “home” in that moment…and forever.
And generations later, so are we.
I’ve lived in a lot of different places that I’ve called home over the years—Colorado Springs, San Diego, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Nashville, and now Dallas. Music has taken me to most of those cities. If you read further in the Cain story, after a few verses about several sons who begat a bunch of other sons, eventually it traces the lineage to a descendant of Cain whose name is Jubal. Jubal, the Bible says was “the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and pipe.” So basically the first musician mentioned in the Bible, descended directly from the father of all wanderers. Makes perfect sense to me.
Each of those places I’ve lived has felt like home in its own way and made a very specific mark on my life. But none of them fully felt like home should fully feel. I’ve always imagined that one would truly feel “home” when not only does the grass not look greener over someone’s else’s fence, but you don’t even notice the fence anymore. And so, I feel a bit of Cain’s wandering in my spirit…and perhaps always will until I am home with a capital H. Because it is part of the legacy of sin that the Garden of Eden left us. Restlessness and transient discontent.
I’ve never known what to do with songs about heaven. I hear Steven Curtis Chapman sing, “We Are Not Home Yet…” or MercyMe sing, “I Can Only Imagine,” and I want so much to want that kind of longing. But I am immediately confronted with my own unbelievably shallow attachment with the stuff of my life here. Are you with me on this? Does anyone else bargain with God and say idiotic things like, “Okay Lord, I’ll be ready to see heaven only after I get married/have kids/run a marathon/buy a home/discover a cure for some disease/do something important with my life. And then,.. if You must…break out the trumpets and harps, I guess.” I mean, I like to sing and everything, but sometimes I get a little nervous about hours and hours of that celestial choir. I hope there are at least bathroom breaks and snacks.
What an incredibly myopic way to see the landscape of eternity.
Not only does Cain’s wandering resonate because we share in the consequence of sin, but I fear some days that it resonates because wandering has it’s own kind of comfortable familiarity...until we’ve forgotten that we’ve wandered from something and away from Someone. The wandering itself becomes perfectly and benignly routine. So while other people are usually singing about wanting for Jesus to take us home, and I am usually praying that Jesus will help me want to want to be home and to make the disposable, irrelevant, immaterial, trivial and terminal stuff of life…exactly that…tossed out with the catalogs.
I don’t need more stuff in my life...I want the real stuff of Life.
Homeward bound,
Nichole
Read Nichole's monthly column in CCM Magazine yourself by subscribing today with this SPECIAL OFFER FROM NicholeNordeman.com: 12 Great issues of CCM Magazine NOW ONLY $15.95! You'll save over 60% off the newstand price!
OR TRY CCM MAGAZINE FREE
Get your no-risk free trial today! Just choose the 'Bill me later' option below. There's no risk or obligation. If you decide to subscribe, you'll still receive the specially Discounted Rate of only $15.95.
Just click the image below
