The Good Old Days...an appropriate theme for a Homecoming
Sunday, don't you think? Or at least it would have been a month
ago. But a month ago, we all lived in a different world. Now
the "good old days" are any days before September 11th.
Everything has changed now. We feel like the angel Gabriel in
the play, Green Pastures - returning to heaven after coming down
to investigate the havoc of Noah's flood, Gabriel says, "Lord,
there ain't nothin' fastened down there anymore. Everything
nailed down is comin' loose."(1)
Two men lived on a houseboat. One night while they were
sleeping, the boat broke loose from its mooring and drifted into
the open sea. One of the men got up in the morning and, going
out on deck, noticed there was no land in sight. Excitedly, he
called to his mate, "Joe, get up quick - we ain't here anymore."(2)
In quiet moments, I guess we all occasionally reminisce
about the way things were "back then." It is true we did not
have to worry about the safety of air travel "back then" - only
birds and insects flew; it is true that we did not have to worry
about anyone breaking into our home and stealing our television
"back then" - we HAD no television, or even electricity for that
matter; it is true that we did not have to worry about AIDS "back
then" - we were too concerned about our kids getting diphtheria
or polio. Remember? If we really think about it, the "good old
days" were not all our memories crack them up to be.
Still, we WOULD rather go back...at least to September 10th.
In Anna Quindlen's column in the current issue of Newsweek,(3) she
writes,
I go over to the school to vote in the New York City
primary, and Im in the booth looking at all the names
and the levers and the sign at the top that says
INFORMATION FOR VOTERS, and its déjà vu all over
again. This is where I stood, this is what I did, just
after 8 on the morning of September 11. And suddenly I
think that if I just stand still, dont flip the
levers, dont leave the booth, that time will move
backward, the spool rewind. I will come out into the
bright sunlight instead of the steady drizzle, and
downtown those thousands of people will go about an
uneventful day, those hundreds of firefighters get
called to a few uneventful fires, those passengers have
an uneventful plane trip, those buildings stand until
the glitter of the sun on their surfaces turns to the
reflection of the stars on their night-black glass.
That would be lovely. I wonder if that is what all those
people who have been flocking to churches and synagogues and
mosques in the wake of the attack have been praying for. No, not
really. Folks want to get in touch with something that offers
some stability.
Thirty years ago Alvin Toffler wrote a best seller called
Future Shock.(4) In it he said, "If [humanity's] 50,000 years on
this planet are divided into lifetimes of approximately 62 years,
then there have been 800 such lifetimes. Of these, over 600 were
spent in caves, only the last 70 have had written communication,
and only the last six have had printed words. But of them all
the most crucial is our lifetime - the 800th. This one lifetime
is the center of history with as much happening in it as in all
the previous lifetimes put together...Unless man learns to
quickly control the change in his personal affairs as well as in
society at large we are doomed to a massive adaptational
breakdown."
No doubt, that is part of what the terrorists hoped would
happen following their attacks. But the early evidence is that
they were mistaken. Instead of collectively falling apart, our
nation has come together in ways that no one has seen since World
War II. And part of what has allowed us to deal with the crisis
as effectively as we have is that we do have deep spiritual
roots, roots that have been with us since "the good old days,"
even though we sometimes neglect them until confronted with
catastrophe.
After the September 11th attacks, Anna Quindlen says she
asked her sixteen-year-old son, "Don't you feel that the world is
a much more perilous place?"
He responded, "Mom, I always thought the world was a
perilous place."
Yes, it is, and these recent days have jolted us with that
truth. Not just that terrorists are on the loose. We get jobs
then lose them. Homes are established then break apart. Friends
are born, and friends die. It is easy to think that nothing in
the world is tied down and to feel in danger of being blown away.
But then we gather on a Homecoming Sunday, a day which happens to
be World Communion Sunday as well, and, along with millions of
Christian brothers and sisters around this perilous planet, hear
again those soothing, calm words that we first heard as children,
back in those good old days: "Take, eat...drink...I will help you
make it through...do this to remind yourself...do this in
remembrance of me."
And what else do we remember? In these tumultuous and
terrifying times, we remember how history finally ends. From the
good old days we look forward to a grand NEW day, and we hear
again the mighty voice of a celestial choir resounding through
the universe singing,
The kingdoms of this world
have become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,
and he shall reign forever and ever.
Hallelujah!
Amen!
1. Marc Connelly (1930)
2. Pastors' Professional Research Service, 1/89-2/89 - 2
3. "Everything Is Under Control," Newsweek, 10/8/01, p. 64
4. New York: Random House, 1970
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