Archive Entry #102: April 16, 2009

I remember the surprise I felt as I wrote today’s entry six years ago. I had taken a trip to my hometown of Council Bluffs, Iowa, during which I toured some of the sites that were critical components of my childhood. Though the trip itself had been filled with bittersweet nostalgia, as I began to write the column I assumed that its journalistic intent – reporting the trip’s itinerary in order to compare it to the first disciples – would exempt me from anyh significant emotional expression; I was completely wrong. Even today, as I prepared the column for its entry into this archive, the paragraph that describes my walk around neighborhood of my youth struck a deeply root nerve in me.

The trip chronicled in today’s entry was perhaps my first – and still the most – emotion-laden journey back to my roots. In this trip back I discovered that I owned appreciation – awe – for where I had come from. It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t remarkable. It wasn’t anything much at all. But it was my home. As I wrote six years ago, so I write now: Wherever are your roots, may youi value them just as deeply.

COMING NEXT: From April of last year, the most poignant, emotionally expressive “And from Bill...” ever, written in anticipation of the date in June of last year when the length of my tenure as FCCEM pastor would equal the tenure of my grandfather as pastor of the Council Bluffs church he planted and in which I was raised: 10,560 days. Find it HERE.