Soon
Bilbo’s stomach was feeling full and comfortable again, and he felt
he could sleep contentedly, though really he would have liked a loaf
and butter better than bits of meat toasted on sticks. He slept
curled up on the hard rock more soundly than ever he had done on his
feather-bed in his own little hole at home. But all night he dreamed
of his own house and wandered in his sleep into all his different
rooms looking for something that he could not find nor remember what
it looked like. –
from “Out
of the Frying-Pan Into the Fire”
chapter 6 of The
Hobbit
Well,
we’re back and so is Ed. We returned a little after midnight from
our journey south to retrieve our son. We had a wonderful time in
Kansas City – we enjoyed long visits with Justin and Tara (and got
better acquainted with their three month old daughter, Lyla Jane,
too) and Janessa, one of the small company of young people from
Focus/Refuge that have been drawn to IHOP over the past few years. We
attended our first regular season Packer game and even though it was
a clinker for the Pack, we enjoyed a beautiful Sunday afternoon in
the company of our son whom we had not seen since early October.
Linda cannot visit Kansas City without venturing out on brief
shopping sprees with Tara or dining out at Jack’s – as planned,
she accomplished both. On the way south, we had a spur-of-the-moment
extended lunch with good friends James and Jennifer Petersen in
Albert Lea (Minn) and the monotony of the ride home was broken up
with fun stops at Liberty (MO) and at the Trails Travel Center in
Albert Lea once more with traveling companions and friends the
Lamberts (who were also in Kansas City retrieving their daughter,
Sarah, from the same internship) and Josh and Alex, too (young men
from Refuge attending school at IHOPU). And, of course, there was the
main event: being present for Ed’s graduation from the Onething
Internship (OTI).
 |
|
| James and Jennifer Petersen (and some of their brood) |
 |
| Looking for anybody to be open |
I
think of the Christmas of 1982, my first extended stay home since
leaving for Bible college the August before. I had been home for a
weekend here and there during that time but after being on my own, as
it were, for several months, forming new friendships and beginning
to be spiritually reoriented, to be home again over break felt so
good and yet so...unsettling. It was good because I could enjoy the
plenty of my parents' kitchen and mom's cooking. It was unsettling
because even though I'd only been gone four and a half months I had
been in a community that was intentionally be equipped for ministry.
No doubt there was sin in our midst but my classmates and housemates
were also my comrades in spiritual formation. And now that I was
home, I was more sensitive to the fact that many of the same people I
worshiped with were, for whatever reason, not able to sustain the
devotion they expressed so exuberantly on Sunday morning. This sounds
harsh but I do not mean it that way. What I mean is that come Monday,
they would be back at their job or back in high school while I would
be either in chapel or in a class learning how to study the Bible.
So, I don't recall any kind of judgment towards them; I just felt out
of place. But that “out of place”-ness was not all about them,
either. Many of my new friendships were forming in that community
called Christian Life College and not within the circle of Madison
Gospel Tabernacle.
 |
| Janessa with Lyla Jane |
 |
| Fatherhood suits him |
 |
| KC and Jack Stack go together like peas and carrots |
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| A greenhouse something like this... |
The
community that Ed has been a part of these past six months
spiritually speaking was far more intense and energized than I recall
the one I had been a part of back in Bible school days. I mean
spending thirty-six (36) hours in the Global Prayer Room on a weekly
basis, participating in regular fasting days and all that goes with
being a member of the IHOP community as well as being essentially
unplugged from TV, movies and the like for half a year has left its
mark on him. He's still Ed – as far as I can perceive – still
jovial, still quick to smile and laugh but at the same time his
hunger for God and his passion for Jesus has multiplied. I don't
discern any kind of spiritual snobbyness about him but how can you
live in that environment for this extended season and not be affected
by it? I think these next few weeks are going to be hard as he comes
up from the deep as it were. Some of the disciplines he practiced
while in Kansas City may fall away simply because there is no real
community to enforce them (we still watch some TV at our house) but
that is, to some degree, to be expected. He's been in a spiritual
green house for a season – a temperature controlled environment
designed to maximize growth – and now, now he's been placed back in
the garden out back with all the other plants. Culture shock is to be
expected.
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| Lyla is pretty like her momma |
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| Our friends the Lamberts and their amazing daughter, Sarah |
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| Coming up from the deep... |
So
he's home...and yet, understandably, he misses his friends, fellow
interns, teachers and core group leaders. Praying for an hour in a
prayer room anywhere for most of us we would deem that heroic. But
six hours a day every day...? We who go to work or run a household
would call that something for the professionals. And we'd be right,
of course. A man who has a family to support and nurture needs
gainful employment unless his gainful employment is doing labor like
prayer and worship. Yeah...now he's back in the “real world.” But
having said that I trust that what has been imparted to him will rub
off some on me and the rest of us who live at 825 Fifth Street and
the greater Refuge/Focus community.
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