Where the Heart Is
Starting our family’s van a couple weeks back, the dashboard promptly told me the engine’s oil needed changing, and so went the start of our 3,000 mile journey. In one day the weather turned from blizzard snow and ice to torrential down-pouring rain. The temperatures rose from below freezing to about 80 degrees as we descended from the northern plains to the south.
Our path took us to new places, for a little while. We traveled on somewhat familiar places for a little longer. And then there was the most familiar stretch of all: passing through my hometown of Kansas City. Twice.
Our electronic map urged us to bypass the city altogether. We were supposed to drive on rural highways and rejoin the Interstate after city traffic cleared. But my heart doesn’t lie in Cameron or Chillicothe, Missouri, even if the latter is the boastful home of sliced bread. My heart lies in Kansas City.
No matter how tired of driving I was, and 3,000 miles in 10 days is a most tiring affair, I perked up when I got to Kansas City. Our route took us past the iconic stadiums, where the newly minted world champion Royals play. We slowed down on the east side of town through both the Benton and Jackson curves, unfolding out of the downtown loop. My kids were amazed at the size of buildings and at the “real cop” who passed us by on the left with lights flashing. And just days later we got to do it all over again: past the stadiums, through downtown and so on. We crossed the Missouri River for the last time, a steady close companion for over half of our trip, and then proceeded through the suburbs of the northland, capped off by the airport with its jumbo jets coming and going. The last signs that one is in a big city.
About an hour north of the airport my wife took over the driving. She played a newly purchased live worship album from Casting Crowns on the car stereo. I stared out the window at the bluffs to my right. They rule over the flood plain with stately houses here and there that overlook abandoned farmsteads. In winter the trees that dominate the space between bluff and plain grow bare with branches flinging all over in a mixture of rest and praise. I cried.
“It’s my Dad’s birthday,” I said to my wife. “We didn’t even go by his grave today. The route just didn’t make sense.”
“We could have,” she replied.
“I know.”
There was a pause in conversation for some time as the miles continued to pass beneath our van. She reached over the armrest to clinch my hand.
“I still miss Kansas City; it’s always been home,” I admitted, although no one listening knew it was a secret.
“Home is where the heart is,” she replied as she kept driving. The praise music continued to play. I stared out the window some more.
On our trip we drove, even hydroplaned, through Appalachia. Rich Mullins has a song about road trips in America in which he says he went to Appalachia, for his father was born there. He saw the mountains one morning, and his soul was with them there in that moment.
My Dad was born in Los Angeles, but lived and died in Kansas City. Part of my soul will always be there too, and merely driving through its highways pulls at it once more like an ex-girlfriend sending a random text. I still follow up on Kansas City news, root for the local sports teams, crave to recreate my favorite eats, and never tire telling my wife which people in Hollywood are from Kansas City. She’s tired of that plenty. My soul is with Kansas City, and it was bittersweet driving through it the second time, not knowing when I would see it again.
In that same song Mullins also says, “I am home anywhere, if you [God] are where I am.” And so it is with me. God is everywhere. The ground of all being. The true. The good. The beautiful. He is in the sunshine passing through the car window on a cold winter’s drive. He is in each breath I intake, sometimes quickly and other times slowly, giving me sustenance through life’s highs and lows. He is in the laughs of my children, the cries of my family, and the faces of each person I meet. No matter where I get my mail, and it’s been several places so far in my adulthood, my heart is home. For God is also there, reminding me that no place in this life, even Kansas City with all its fountains, boulevards, and barbecue, will ever satisfy like his coming kingdom. That’s home, and I can get a taste of it in worship, at the Lord’s Table, in prayer, and in quiet time.
I could even taste it sitting in a car toward the end of a 3,000 mile journey, looking out at the bluffs as my wife continued to drive us away from home and yet toward home. There was no turning back. How could there be?
T. S. Eliot once wrote, “And the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” Due to a water leak we came home after our long journey to an uninhabitable house. We didn’t even unpack the van. Being at home would have to wait.
And yet it really was home, and that night it felt as if I’d passed under its threshold for the first time.
Our path took us to new places, for a little while. We traveled on somewhat familiar places for a little longer. And then there was the most familiar stretch of all: passing through my hometown of Kansas City. Twice.
Our electronic map urged us to bypass the city altogether. We were supposed to drive on rural highways and rejoin the Interstate after city traffic cleared. But my heart doesn’t lie in Cameron or Chillicothe, Missouri, even if the latter is the boastful home of sliced bread. My heart lies in Kansas City.
No matter how tired of driving I was, and 3,000 miles in 10 days is a most tiring affair, I perked up when I got to Kansas City. Our route took us past the iconic stadiums, where the newly minted world champion Royals play. We slowed down on the east side of town through both the Benton and Jackson curves, unfolding out of the downtown loop. My kids were amazed at the size of buildings and at the “real cop” who passed us by on the left with lights flashing. And just days later we got to do it all over again: past the stadiums, through downtown and so on. We crossed the Missouri River for the last time, a steady close companion for over half of our trip, and then proceeded through the suburbs of the northland, capped off by the airport with its jumbo jets coming and going. The last signs that one is in a big city.
About an hour north of the airport my wife took over the driving. She played a newly purchased live worship album from Casting Crowns on the car stereo. I stared out the window at the bluffs to my right. They rule over the flood plain with stately houses here and there that overlook abandoned farmsteads. In winter the trees that dominate the space between bluff and plain grow bare with branches flinging all over in a mixture of rest and praise. I cried.
“It’s my Dad’s birthday,” I said to my wife. “We didn’t even go by his grave today. The route just didn’t make sense.”
“We could have,” she replied.
“I know.”
There was a pause in conversation for some time as the miles continued to pass beneath our van. She reached over the armrest to clinch my hand.
“I still miss Kansas City; it’s always been home,” I admitted, although no one listening knew it was a secret.
“Home is where the heart is,” she replied as she kept driving. The praise music continued to play. I stared out the window some more.
On our trip we drove, even hydroplaned, through Appalachia. Rich Mullins has a song about road trips in America in which he says he went to Appalachia, for his father was born there. He saw the mountains one morning, and his soul was with them there in that moment.
My Dad was born in Los Angeles, but lived and died in Kansas City. Part of my soul will always be there too, and merely driving through its highways pulls at it once more like an ex-girlfriend sending a random text. I still follow up on Kansas City news, root for the local sports teams, crave to recreate my favorite eats, and never tire telling my wife which people in Hollywood are from Kansas City. She’s tired of that plenty. My soul is with Kansas City, and it was bittersweet driving through it the second time, not knowing when I would see it again.
In that same song Mullins also says, “I am home anywhere, if you [God] are where I am.” And so it is with me. God is everywhere. The ground of all being. The true. The good. The beautiful. He is in the sunshine passing through the car window on a cold winter’s drive. He is in each breath I intake, sometimes quickly and other times slowly, giving me sustenance through life’s highs and lows. He is in the laughs of my children, the cries of my family, and the faces of each person I meet. No matter where I get my mail, and it’s been several places so far in my adulthood, my heart is home. For God is also there, reminding me that no place in this life, even Kansas City with all its fountains, boulevards, and barbecue, will ever satisfy like his coming kingdom. That’s home, and I can get a taste of it in worship, at the Lord’s Table, in prayer, and in quiet time.
I could even taste it sitting in a car toward the end of a 3,000 mile journey, looking out at the bluffs as my wife continued to drive us away from home and yet toward home. There was no turning back. How could there be?
T. S. Eliot once wrote, “And the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” Due to a water leak we came home after our long journey to an uninhabitable house. We didn’t even unpack the van. Being at home would have to wait.
And yet it really was home, and that night it felt as if I’d passed under its threshold for the first time.
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