YOU are like coming home....

I'm fascinated by airports - the stale weary air baited by anticipation, expectation, happiness, sadness, nervousness... A place with a cacophony of personal life events, from the mundane business trip to the extraordinary honeymoon or cross-country move; a place where dreams break and come true in the same stretch of worn-out carpet; a place of the sweetest reunions and the most heartbreaking partings...a place where physical distance conquers or is conquered by the creation of our own inventions (Oh, "Those magnificent men and their flying machines..." If you think I'm crazy, see the movie.). 

More particularly, I love the Arrivals Gate. I was at the airport just a couple of days ago to pick up my roommate who was returning from the States and had a inspiring goose-bump kind of moment while waiting. 

At the Entebbe Airport you have to wait for your expected passenger to clear customs and walk out through a glass partition, then halfway across a tiled room to reach you, waiting not-so-patiently behind a roped stanchion. The Ugandan experience was awesome. A passenger would emerge through the glass doors barely visible behind a mound of luggage and suddenly a loud and shrieking (high-pitched "aye-yie-yie-yie") group would emerge from the waiting crowd, sprint across the open space (arms and handbags wildly flailing), to mob their loved one in hugs, kisses, and and more loud exclamations. Here's the fun part. With each passenger that arrived it almost seemed as if it made the anticipation for the next one even greater. The walk to cover the distance to the loved one almost took on the art forms of an improv performance for the benefit of the rest of the waiting crowd- they danced across, they sashayed across, they MO-OOVED across. I loved imagining and guessing at the relationships between them, how long they had been apart, and how long they would be together. 

I was so touched by these unabashed displays of love and affection - words, noises, and gestures that all add up to a sense of home and belonging because you are with a person you love.

It's not that I spend my days in misery pining away for the people I miss in the U.S...but the holiday season lends a certain clarity to life... How precious, how dear just to have the presence of those you love the most...to know that despite current life situations or future events, "I am KNOWN by you. We've been through the good and bad together. You've seen me at my ugliest... And you love me still." That, my friends, is home; a home not restricted by time zones, air miles, land miles, latitudes or longitudes. A little bit of heaven here on earth. 

Zephaniah 3:17-20 (The Message)

God Is Present Among You

 ^16-17Jerusalem will be told: 

   "Don't be afraid.

Dear Zion, 

   don't despair.

Your God is present among you, 

   a strong Warrior there to save you.

Happy to have you back, he'll calm you with his love 

   and delight you with his songs.

 ^18-20"The accumulated sorrows of your exile 

   will dissipate.

I, your God, will get rid of them for you. 

   You've carried those burdens long enough.

At the same time, I'll get rid of all those 

   who've made your life miserable.

I'll heal the maimed; 

   I'll bring home the homeless.

In the very countries where they were hated 

   they will be venerated.

On Judgment Day 

   I'll bring you back home—a great family gathering!

You'll be famous and honored 

   all over the world.

You'll see it with your own eyes— 

   all those painful partings turned into reunions!" 

         God's Promise.