VI.  I WANNA GO HOME
“Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.
God gives the desolate a home to dwell in…” (Psalm 68:5, 6)
         After sitting in a Los Angeles motel next to its closed down airport, we began to wonder whether we would ever get back home. After repeated phone calls, not to mention watching the news all day, it was apparent that our flight to Switzerland would never happen. In fact, the first confirmed date we could get was September 28. That was far too late for us to fulfill our plans in Switzerland.
         The next step was trying to find a way home. We thought we might be able to get a return flight to Eugene. We were told that we might be able to get a stand-by or possibly a flight via Seattle in three or four days. Since nobody was flying at the moment, we decided to seek other options.
         We tried calling AmTrak, but others were doing the same. We never got past a busy signal. We tried rental car agencies. Again, we were far too late. We even gave a brief thought to the possibility of buying a car that we might re-sell when we returned to Oregon.
         We wanted to go home.
         All the time we were reminding ourselves that our plight was only an inconvenience. What happened to all those people in the Trade Towers and Pentagon and Pennsylvania was much more. 
         We began to hear reports that victims in the terror-filled suicide planes, as well as people trapped in the trade towers, were using cell phones to call home. They seemed to know that they would never go home again, but their hearts were there. They sent messages of love and urgings to take care of children. They would never go home again.
         At the other end of the line, and in countless other homes, was the realization that home would never be the same. The reality was that death was taking mothers and fathers away from their homes forever. We don’t have a count of how many children were left fatherless, or how many widows (or widowers) resulted from those tragedies.
         Into the midst of this comes this assurance from a Psalm writer from centuries ago. He calls God “father of the fatherless and protector of widows…” 
         A first thought is to ask where God’s protection for the fatherless and widows was when it was needed. A second thought is that the fatherless and widows need to be assured that no matter what has happened, life-fulfilling possibilities still exist for them. That is a truth that needs to be affirmed in the midst of every tragedy. It doesn’t make anyone feel any better at the moment, but it offers a flicker of hope.
         The other part of the text says that “God gives the desolate a home to dwell in…”
         Everybody wants a home, a place to eat and rest and be. Everybody wants a place of security and safety, even though we now understand that there is not absolutely safe place. We want it for our children and ourselves and for all we love. And surely, someplace, probably in the Middle East, there are people living in humble homes who fear the retribution of our angry nation against them. 
         My best guess is that people who worked in the Pentagon or the Trade Towers, or who could afford to fly on one of those planes, had a home. Their families had homes. 
         What grieving people care about is going back to the way it was, when they felt secure and happy. They don’t like where they are anymore than we like where we are. We all wanna go home!
         The difference is that we can go back to the way it was. They can’t. 
         The word of the Lord, however, is that “God gives the desolate a home to dwell in…” In time the present moment will be woven into the fabric of life. We live beyond the present time and place to a new time and place. A new home.
         We will hear lots about those who died. We will witness memorial services and many grieving moments. We will probably not hear much about what happens to those who live beyond this tragedy. We will not hear much what happens when survivors make their way home again to the home that God gives the desolate to live in. We will hear even more renditions of “Amazing Grace,” against the reality that no God intervened to prevent the tragedy. Nevertheless, the faith remains in place that there is a grace of some amazing sort, that allows for life to go on for those left desolate. It’s one of those things that you don’t explain. You simply accept in faith.
         P.S. We caught a ride with friends who happened to be heading home to Oregon. Wonder of wonders, they took us to the home of our friends, Ken and Marilyn Salter, with whom we celebrated our 50th anniversary. We had intended to do it in Switzerland, but they had illness and we had September 11. We finally got home again.
                                                            — Art Morgan, September 2001