Homecoming

The wind is fierce and the roaring waves crash over the reef. Coconuts fall from the Palm trees landing around me. The top of the mountain is covered in a purple blanket of clouds. People run passed my tiny little studio trying to keep their baguettes dry. The wind chime dances violently and sings to me. My neighbor dashes by chasing a crêpe that would have been his breakfast. After days on end of postcard perfect weather a tropical depression has come.

It is a good day to leave.

I’ve been here many times and have never yet been quite ready to come home. This time I am. There is a restlessness rumbling inside of me and it is something that I haven’t felt in a long time. It is a sense of anticipation. The birth of new things is coming. The old has passed away.

A couple of years ago I was sitting on the beloved back deck talking to Kathryn Martin. I was sad and tired and my face laid in my hand as we talked. I told her that it was time for me to leave Union Mission. There was nothing else to accomplish there and the longer I stayed my life grew increasingly stale.

“You can’t be serious,” she said.

I didn’t have the energy to respond.

After that I ended up staying which was a rotten mistake in many ways and a blessing in others. Isn’t it funny how life is that way? Ying and Yang always go together. Breathing in is always followed by exhaling. The good goes with the bad.

So I stayed and Union Mission survived some pretty horrific happenings. That’s the good. The bad is that it cost a lot. I became consumed with correcting the wrong. I drank too much. I grew self absorbed. I lost the capacity to really love others because it was suddenly all about me. Or the “me” that others wanted me to be. Not who I really was.

“But I still liked you better when you hated yourself,” is a song from the Badlees that my son Jeremy introduced me to. I love it. “Good friends don’t come easy, even assholes like you,” is the other great line.

And those last couple of years I grew to hate myself. And other people loved it. And I listened to assholes instead of myself (that would be you Board Chair who chooses to remain anonymous). So I lost many things that I loved.

I am a huge “Lord of the Rings” fan and have read everything, and I mean everything, that J.R.R. Tolkien ever wrote. And everything that C.S. Lewis ever wrote. AND everything that Charles Williams ever wrote. They all taught together at Oxford and were incredible influences on each other’s lives. They met every Tuesday to drink and read one another whatever they were writing. They called themselves “The Inklings” because they didn’t have an inkling of an idea about anything yet were the most brilliant thinkers of their time.

For years I knew everything. And the proof is in the pudding. At Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel and at Union Mission success was rapid and incredible. I lived this large life. And a couple of things happen when you live large. A lot of people appreciate and admire it. They tell you so. Then there are others who hate you because you have achieved success that they feel belong to them.

For the better part of the last year I’ve been quiet. I’ve let my wounds heal and marvel at the scars. My large world suddenly became small. The thousands of people that I know were reduced to a handful of friends. I know who loves me. And I know who doesn’t.

I’m ready to do things now. The restlessness that has always guided me washes over my heart. There are new rules to be broken. Accomplishments await! Love is all around me. It just means that I have to stop being self absorbed and recognize it.

Tolkien and Lewis used to drive one another crazy as they drank pitcher after pitcher of beer. One wrote one manuscript in his entire life that was a million pages long and ended up being multiple books and an incredible trilogy of movies. The other wrote thirty books and now has his own movie series with the Chronicle of Narnia.

But both readily admitted that it was Charles Williams who motivated them to do it all. He brooded. He ordered the next pitcher. His books are dark and not well known. There are no movies made from his writings. He went to the dark places to create and inspire.

So I feel creative again. And I don’t mind brooding about it. This morning when I the wind and the rain woke me, I turned on the computer and there were lots of messages from lots of people; some wanting me to come home and others who don’t really care. One told me that I could go to hell.

That’s cool. I’ve been to hell. Now I’m coming home.

To me.