Far-Flung Roots

Just home from a family wedding in Indianapolis where beautiful second cousin just married the love of her life. It was a reminder of so many things--how old I am getting (I remember holding beautiful second cousin in my arms as an infant), how nice it is to step out of the daily grind of life and go some other place, and most of all, how lovely it is to reconnect with family. There were many "best parts" of the brief weekend, but the most striking was when all of the Eureka Finches and "adopted Eureka Finches" and mates and children were gathered around two tables on the veranda of our hotel. We had a few adult beverages, ate some marginal pizza, but engaged in a lot of laughs and journeyed down memory lane. It struck me as particularly interesting that although we are spread-out across the country--California, Florida, Indiana, and Illinois--that all roads lead back to one bucolic college-town in the heart of Illinois. It doesn't matter where we've gone, how we've grown, or who we have met--we are our most "at home" selves when back with our roots. I suppose it is no surprise that I have then spent much of my adult life searching for a way to get back to that place. With a little hard-earned wisdom, and a lot of God's grace, I have begun to learn that getting "back to that place" can mean more than, and sometimes something other than being physically in Eureka--but one can still idealize a bit, can't they?