Where's My Ruby Reds?

Shoes that is ... ruby red shoes ... like Dorothy had in the Wizard of Oz? She spent the whole movie trying to find her way back home when all she had to do, according to Glenda the good witch, was to click her little toes and she'd bee-line it back to Kansas. All she wanted was at the click of her feet. However if she had clicked earlier, the movie would have been too short, box-office profits too low and we would not have gotten to see the flying monkeys tear the scarecrow to bits … and give us bad dreams … and haunt us still after all these years!

Living in Vienna for the past year and a half, I have looked back from time to time at the things from home with way too much fondness: Braum’s, air conditioning, the purple room at my parents home, the #5 burger at Boomerang. Braum’s was delightful, but I must say the ice cream down the street at Kenny’s Eis is just as good if not better. Air conditioning was great but left my allergies in chaos and my throat sore. The purple room was occupied. The #5 was good … ok, really good … but nothing like I had imagined my reunion would be. The only thing that was as sweet as I remembered in my mind was the relationships. Relationships with The Vine, friends and family … those were the things that seemed little altered by the strain of time and distance.

So, if what Dorothy was looking for was at her fingertips … or toe tips all along … what was it I was looking for? I don’t have a clue! The only thing I know is that “home” felt familiar but not like my “home” here in Vienna. I found out that “home” is where my Chris and girls are … and where God has put me. I’ve known that all along but somehow my vision was a bit clouded by the lack of Braums, AC, the purple room and the #5. Having had all those things and still feeling like I wasn’t home realigned the truth that is reality.

It helped that my reason for going home was to say goodbye to my dear Uncle Johnny. I got the privilege of sitting in his room with an empty journal and a waiting pen. Every time he had the energy to share a story or update genealogy I wrote. This experience strangely put my live in perspective. It’s not Braum’s, it’s not AC, it’s not purple rooms … and it’s not even #5’s that make life what it is. It’s the relationships.

I come “home” with fewer expectations. I don’t expect to desire those things I’ve left behind as much. I do expect to pour more into the relationships God has so graciously given me here … and at “home”.