Midweek Musing- August 6, 2025

Musing: "Far from Home, Yet Not Alone"

Inspired by "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child"

Last Sunday afternoon, at a concert with the very talented James Boyle, he

sang a song I hadn't heard in years. At least not in a way that made me stop

and feel it again.

I remember not only hearing it but studying it in a class I took on the

African American Religious Experience. This spiritual dates back to the turn

of the last century, by that I mean the 1800s to the 1900s, not Y2K!

It was first sung by those who knew bondage not only of the spirit but of

the body-enslaved people whose cries to God became sacred resistance.

This old spiritual's mournful first line is its title.

"Sometimes I feel like a motherless child..."

While Mahalia Jackson and Louis Armstong do my favorite version of this

song, Mr. Boyle did an outstanding job as well. By the way even Elvis did a

cover of it.

And as I listened to this sorrowful tune with its powerful words in the

beautiful sanctuary which was built with the help of slaves. All the while

surrounded by those majestic stained-glass windows it hit me in the center

of my chest.

It was a deep lament; a mingling of grief and hope wrapped in that one

simple phrase "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child..." 

These words carried with them the sorrow of disconnection-not just from

family, or people, or land, but from the very presence of God. And I

couldn't help but feel the truth of it.

You see, sometimes we all feel far from home. And I don't just mean physical

distance, but even more poignantly the spiritual.

In those moments it is as though we're separated from something we can't

quite name. One commentator I once heard referred to it as holy

homesickness.

It is a longing for a place where justice rolls down like waters, where

mercy is not rationed, and where love is not conditional or earned but

simply is. I often refer to it as the promised day of God.

And while I know this place is true for the moment we live in an in-between

place:

Already, the kingdom of God has broken in through Christ.

But not yet have we fully stepped into its fullness so that we might know it

in all its glory.

We are, in many ways, like a college student trying to make a dorm room feel

like home-bringing little items that carry memories: a photo from the

mantel, a pillow from childhood, the smell of a familiar candle. But let's

be honest: it's not the object itself that makes us feel at home. It's the

story it holds. The memory of a time and place where we were safe, known,

loved.

I wonder if the same is true for our spiritual homesickness. We are both an

already there and also a not there yet people.

So, when we love mercy, do justice, walk humbly with our God-these are the

holy treasures of the home we long for. They are the sacred echoes of the

creation, and they are also the promised whispers of the world to come.

Every time we extend grace, stand in solidarity, or choose empathy over

apathy, kindness over cruelty and love over hate we aren't just decorating

the dorm room of this earthly life. We're remembering. We are rehearsing for

life in that promised day. And deep-down part of our soul is returning

We are, for a moment, living in the light of the kingdom.

We are not fully home yet. But we are not lost either. The Spirit walks with

us. Christ goes before us. And the memory of our true home is written in our

bones and sung in our songs and is alive in our souls.

So yes, sometimes we feel like a motherless child-a long way from home.

But friends, let that ache lead us not to despair, but to a deeper more

profound kind of living.

A living that insists on justice, that risks mercy, that remembers who we

are and where we're headed.

After all, kingdom people know:

Home isn't just where we're going.

It's what we're here to become.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Alleluia Amen.

Hope all is well and you're enjoying these cooler temps.

Here is a link to Mahalia Jackson

https://youtu.be/J80rdIjGR3k?si=QOEcH8NtJ6WzAbis