Time Toward Home

This day marks one more transition in family life from our roots to the wings they were meant to supply. It begins with the sacred reminder that the soil from which we have sprung and the rich nourishment it continually supplies goes far deeper into the rich loam of earth than the Hawkinson name itself. We are more deeply rooted, in fact, in a family of faith that extends all the way back to Father Abraham and even before him to Adam and Eve.

Tomorrow my son Peter and I return to all those yesterdays as we embark on a journey together to Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. There for the first time in our lives we will stand and walk together, only one generation apart, on terrain we have each been taught to be our inheritance over thousands of years. Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, all the prophets and kings, Jesus himself--the only-begotten Son of our God-- and the twelve apostles there nurtured and first sent out to proclaim and evidence good news all over the world will no doubt come alive in fresh and new ways. "Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name," Jesus once said, " I will come and be with them."

We are both aware, given this extraordinary privilege, that "unto whom much is given, much will be required." So when we leave tomorrow afternoon our thoughts and prayers will range far beyond personal concerns for blessing and safety. They will be gathering rather round a charge my son issued his congregation recently that lingers in my soul as a challenge to us all: "Time to grow deep, that we may grow tall, and shade the lives of those coming after!"