No doubt, many folks have heard this line, “you can’t go home again,” but have no clue its origins. It is a novel published posthumously in 1940 by Thomas Wolfe, the Welsh poet and writer. It is the story of an author who publishes a popular novel about his hometown, Libya Hill, which in reality was Asheville, NC. The people of that lovely city did not like what the author said about the city, which was the reason the author did not or could not return home. With this line in mind, I recently did go back home again.
I have spent quite a bit of my life in Indiana. I grew up on an Indiana farm and claim to love it. Of course, I have forgotten the days I did not like, the jobs that disgusted me, the times the cows kicked me and it was too cold to play basketball in the barn. I am sure my memory has made it more idyllic than it really was. But I am fine with that. And then after a decade in college and graduate school, I returned to teach in a college in my home state. In fact, I was close to my old hometown, but I was also a different guy. I had a Ph.D., had lived in a big city and lived abroad. It seemed that I had both changed and not changed at all.
And then I moved to another university and have spent considerable time outside of Indiana. I have a new home, new friends and in some ways a new life. But part of my always will be an Indiana farm boy. It is probably that way with most people. We change and we don’t change. It makes me think about the line from Thomas Wolfe.
I am sure people have done all sorts of things to that line: you can’t go home again. Most of us have never read his novel, but we think we know what the line means. Of course, it means whatever it means to us. And what it means to me likely is a bit different than what it means to you. And that is ok, too.
When I read the line, I don’t take it literally. I certainly can’t go back to the home again. In the first place, I would not know whether it means the home in which I grew up or the home I live in for 25 years while at the college---the home my girls grew up in and only left when they went to college in New England. As we think about it, most of us realize “home” is more than a place---although place can be important. Home is a feeling, a range of associations and things like that, as much as it is a building with our furniture, clothes and pictures.
Because Indiana has played such a huge role in my life, I am sure that at some level, it always will be “home,” regardless of how long I live and how much time I live elsewhere. I am forever a Hoosier in good ways and bad ways. I find that both serious and funny. It has its own stereotypes and deeper truths.
My trip back to my Hoosier roots, however, left me with the feeling that I don’t live there anymore. In a real way it is not my home anymore. I know my house is now in another state. I drive the familiar streets in my old hometown and they are also strange. It amazes me that I can feel both at home and a stranger on the same drive! Somehow they are both true. And I appreciate the truth of both.
I did not realize this pondering was more than my own mental entertainment. As I thought more deeply, I realized it is the fate of all of us who step out on a spiritual journey. I think of Jesus and his journey. While he was not a farm boy, he was from an insignificant place and was a nobody when he came into the world. In my reading of the gospels, it seems that Jesus slowly became aware of God’s Spirit at work in him. The story of his baptism is the culmination of this phase. By the time he emerged from the Jordan River, he was in a real sense a different guy.
While he could go back to where he lived, he no longer was the same person. The way I prefer to put it is to say that the work of the Spirit always displaces us. Even if we continue to live in the same place---literally speaking our address does not change---we are displaced. We become like a stranger in our own town and to our old acquaintances. To become aware of the Spirit at work in us causes us to grow and change.
What is important to us shifts. We might start doing strange things, like loving our enemies. We care about people and things in ways we may never have done. Spiritual experiences typically simplify and focus us in healthy ways---but these may be strange ways to our old friends and family. We are not self-focused and might even become self-sacrificial. I can share this because it has happened to me in my own way. It is not the same for everyone.
In my case, spiritual awareness and growth has been gradual and subtle. It normally is not very dramatic. It is not easy to explain, even to those who claim similar kinds of experiences. On my weak days, I can even doubt the whole process. But I am brought back to my own knowing when I happen to go back to where I used to be. It might be a trip back to Indiana or back to my life before having some spiritual sense. It is territory I know, but I also know clearly, I can’t go home again.
The Spirit is my home and here I stay.
Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber. I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s. It was already a famous book by then. I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it. It has been a while since I looked at the book. Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks? I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece. I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation. I wish more people read him and took him seriously. ...
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