Olly Olly Oxen Free: Coming Home

Martha Hodges - 2006-09-03

“Olly Olly Oxen Free: Coming Home”

Sept. 3, 2006

Martha Hodges

You’re pounding round the bases, your shoes driving up clouds of dust, your heart beating wildly, the shrill cries of your teammates in your ears. The coach signals you to keep going. You slide into home plate. Safe! Home free.

Now this never actually happened to me. My experience with elementary school softball was not a happy one. My strategy was to strike out as quickly as possible so that I could sit back down. If I was in the outfield—way outfield—I’d step aside if the ball came anywhere near me. Not that my spirit was unwilling, but I knew that, if by some fluke I caught the ball, I’d have no clue what to do with it.

Now, hide and seek, on the other hand, I know something about. Remember those summer evenings? Olly olly oxen free! Come out, come out, wherever you are! The signal that the kids hiding in the bushes or under the porch could race back to home base.

Not so different from what we’re doing here today, is it? The person who’s “It” —I guess that would be me—yells, Olly olly oxen free! It’s safe to run home. This church is waiting for you, waiting for you to claim it once again as we begin a new church year. This church is safe, this church is home.

Safety is, after all, a big part of what it means to be “home.” Now, not all homes are safe, for children or for grown-ups. But in our hearts, the idea of “home” represents the very essence of safety. Can you remember a time when the pull of home was so powerful, the sight of home so beloved that your entire being leaped in joy when home came into view?

For me, this would occur when I walked home from Girl Scouts. As you may have gathered by now, I was not very enthusiastic about being a child. In my two years of scouting, I only earned five badges and my favorite part of the meeting was the Rice Crispy treats. In those safer days, kids walked places. My Girl Scout meetings were held at the other end of our village, up a steep path through the woods, over narrow sidewalks slippery with packed snow. By the time meetings were over on winter nights, it would be dark. And cold. As I made the turn into our street, I could glimpse the yellow lights from our windows. My spirits would lift as I got closer. I knew that when I entered the kitchen door, the house would be warm, filled with the smell of meatloaf, my mother standing at the stove. Home safe. Home free for another night.

You probably have some similar memory that evokes the very essence of warmth and safety, of security and belonging—of home. At least, I hope you do. I hope that your home was free of abuse; that your parents were part of your home and that someone’s face would light up when you walked in the door. I hope that someone was there to put their arms around you when you were sad or scared; that you had enough to eat and someone to tell you to eat your broccoli. If you did not, you are surely not alone. You may have determined to create such a home of your own, and you may have succeeded. I hope so.

But even those of us lucky enough to have grown up in homes that supplied our basic needs for food, shelter, encouragement and love—homes in which our gifts were nurtured and praise was freely given—homes in which we knew we would find people who would protect us from harm and help us through the times of confusion or hurt—even those of us who were that lucky also remember disappointments, loneliness, rage, alienation… These are part of home, as well. But the word “home,” regardless of what our actual home was like, regardless of how dysfunctional our family is or may have been, this word is still capable of evoking a longing for those yellow windows shining through the dark and cold.

Last Wednesday, about thirty of us met here to talk about home. Here are some of the words and phrases that we associated with “home:” safe haven; privacy; quiet; peacefulness; nurture; laughter; shared work; pictures of places and people you think of with love; comfort and creature comforts; sufficiency; acceptance; respect; memory; familiarity; belonging. We talked about how a home reflects your personality, your interests and your values. Both what your home actually says about you and what you would like it to say about you. What it looks like to you and to visitors.

Then we took a look at this Fellowship. We often talk about people visiting a UU church for the first time and experiencing a feeling of coming home. An experience of “Wow! This is where I belong!” A feeling of sudden recognition that something they have been looking for is here! And what is this thing that people come here in search of?

Many of those same things that we talked about the other night when we named some qualities of “home.” A safe haven: You should feel safe here—not safe from challenge, but safe from abuse of any kind. You should be able to feel safe to express yourself without being mocked, dismissed or otherwise disrespected. And the haven? You should be able to find respite here from the dangers and stresses of the world: competition, criticism, personal attack, the need to defend yourself.

Peace, quiet: a place where it’s possible to shut out the distractions and demands of the outside, if just for a short while. A place that gives you space to think deeply and feel deeply. A place where it’s possible now and then to put aside worries and plans and self-criticism, and exist in the moment, to be fully aware and fully present.

Church—this church—seeks to be a place of nurture, where we are encouraged to develop our gifts, challenge ourselves to think new thoughts, feed our most heart-felt need to connect to our better selves. It nurtures us—feeds us with friendship and laughter, and supports us in times of need, illness, and loss.

This church home offers the opportunity to work together and to get to know each other in ways that only working side by side can accomplish. It offers a channel for our energies and goals worthy of our dedication.

As in any home, this Fellowship is built on shared memories. It has a history that you, the current members, have lived through, and an older story that has helped to shape your collective identity—how you do things, why you do them the way you do, how you understand yourselves in relation to the world, what you expect from the future.

The people with whom you share your home are ones you hope you can count on to accept you for who you are, deep down. They know you. They have seen you in good times and bad, when you are at your best and on other occasions when you may have been struggling, unsure, impatient, or petty. The people with whom you share your church have likewise seen you responding to a variety of situations. It takes awhile to develop this degree of trust, but this church holds as one of its highest ideals the acceptance of one another. One of the qualities of “home” that we identified last Wednesday was “freedom to be yourself.” I think we do pretty well at this; you have only to look at the diversity of personalities, backgrounds and opinions at MVUUF.

On the other hand, in any church, people occasionally take the ideal of acceptance to mean that anything goes, that any behavior is okay. But as in a home that is working well, its members need to depend on each other to let them know when they have stepped over the line, to hold each other accountable.

And a home demands patience, as does this church community. We are constantly changing, as individuals and as a congregation. Every time a new visitor honors us with their presence, we change. And yet, these changes are incremental and often hidden. Because even imperceptible changes affect every other facet of this linked system that is this church, we must try to make wise choices. And we must understand that change is cumulative. We must be patient with each other and with this church as we try and perhaps fail, as we experiment with new ideas, rituals and structures, as we learn together and continue to build a community that is both flexible and strong.

So what does any of this have to do with spirituality? Church life clearly has a lot in common with home life. Or is something more going on here? What does it mean to be a spiritual home?

A church, if it is truly a spiritual home, teaches us to be discontented with the status quo. It challenges us to dig deeper in our search for what we hold to be true, and good. It provides a safe and loving and accepting home for our struggles, but it does not allow us to become complacent. It demands commitment and participation. As a member of this spiritual family, you are challenged to greater integrity and greater authenticity. And to take what you receive here back into the world. A spiritual home comforts and holds you, encourages and nurtures you, and asks in return that you do the same for other members of this community. It asks you to commit to living a life of reason and compassion, to seek a balance of intellect and emotion. To reject easy answers and self-delusions.

It asks you to come out of hiding. To come out of hiding behind fears, bitterness, easy answers, and cynicism. Come out from behind loneliness and perfectionism, despair, and hubris. Show yourself, your deepest doubts, hopes and ideals. Show your finest, most open-minded and open-hearted self, the self you aspire to be.

This church, this spiritual home, calls to you: Come out, come out, wherever you are, whoever you are. Let us know you. Teach us what your unique and precious life has taught you. Let us care for you and allow us to ask you to care for us. Olly olly oxen free! Come into this circle of love, this justice-seeking community. Come into this family of malcontents who love life. This family of hopeful realists, this community of individualists who recognize their common bonds, the web that connects but does not constrict.

This home belongs to you. Celebrate it, make it better, depend on it, and love it. Welcome home!