The Tree of Life...

It haunts my dreams.  A tree in the depths of a garden.  A tree that, if you eat from it, will allow you to live with the Master, forever...

If you believe the stories, our first father and mother were banished from the garden because the Master feared we'd reach out and take from the tree and live, in our rebellion, forever.

So we were cast out.

And have been wanderers since.

Longing to go home.

That's a central theme (maybe THE central theme) in a new TV series I'm developing.  The idea that we all want to go home.  We may not even be sure where home is but we have this bone-deep sense that home is and is out there somewhere or somewhen. 

And we must find it.

I often think that my constant missing of wife and babies is echo of a greater missing.  I was so lonely for home on my recent trip that I cracked open the ubiquitous Gideon Bible in my hotel room and rekindled my long-time pastor habit of spending time in the NT, OT and Psalms each day.

T'was like balm for the soul.

Funny, you know, I've preached about it dozens of times and have even mentioned how easy it is to forget, but I still forget the simple truth that, through spending time with those ancient stories and in worship (however structured or non-structured) the person of the Master touches me.

And I find comfort in that, because that touch is the touch of 'Daddy' and where He is, is home.

That deep sense of longing is what gets me in entertainment.

And I'm quite the sap.  Took my kids to see 'High School Musical 3' and cried my way through parts of it.  "Man, this guys a sissy..." or this man's a guy in touch with a longing for home.  I feel frequently disconnected from the garden where it all began where (if you believe the stories) they say the Master used to walk with our first father and mother in the cool of the day.

An evening stroll.

My cells miss that stroll.

And so, whenever love or longing or belonging or the search are portrayed with honesty on the screen, it gets to me 'cause it reminds me of the tree in the heart of the garden where we used to be...

At home.

Put that longing back in your sermons friends.  Put it in your stories.  Salve it with reading the story and rediscovering worship in the midst of the mundanity of your ordinary life.

'Cause you were meant for more than just this.

T