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how it works

TITLE: All Roads Lead Home | Previous Challenge Entry
By Wesley de john
12/06/07
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I am at that point in life where the pangs of youth trail behind the realities of adulthood, and for me most of the realities are harsh and unforgiving. The earth is a desert. If joy was a garment it would be tattered, torn, and well used, that is the former joys. For we find the transition that is growing up casts away the former things and presents new things, new challenges that we must take up, ready or not. The earth is a desert. We are trekkers, along a winding road; with parched throats we scour the earth in search of refreshment. The earth is a desert. I stop, suddenly weary of the journey, afraid to look back but yearning nonetheless for the former things, unwilling to look forward to face the truths. I am roughly compelled by the ticking clock to move inexorably forward, ready or not. A stranger on the road, the face is familiar and his mannerisms are friendly, and a trickle of hope enters the dry chasms of my heart. I hope for that familiar touch of friendship, of companionship. For a while we walk the dry roads with animated conversations that are the spark that ignites our friendship. Suddenly the road forks into two paths, and my friend opts to walk a different path to the one I am strangely compelled to walk, I am alone again. Seeking a joy that I cannot grasp. My journey is near its end and in the distance I see a house, I start to run, and as I near the house familiar objects come into my view, there is the tree I always played on as a young boy, there is the stone I pretended was a car when I had none, there is the cricket ball I found, there are my friends who I have not seen for years, there is that mountain that always amazed me as a young boy, and finally I reach the house and I see that the doorway is one strikingly familiar and immediately I am overcome by a wave of nostalgia, I open the door and the corridor leads me to a lounge, there I am as a young boy sitting watching Night Rider, but I look pale and ill, and I suddenly remember I had laryngitis that day, behind me is my grandmother, looking very young, and my sisters, my mother with her traditional look (curlers in the hair), my father playing his guitar looking very debonair. I walk further along the corridor and I am in the kitchen and I see myself again and this time it is my 8th birthday party, I remember that because I was given two cakes and the taste tingles in my mouth. I walk further along and I am in the bathroom and I see a very sad young boy staring out the window unsure why he is sad but longing for something, it is me again, and I recall those days with a silent tear. As I walk further down I see myself in all walks of my life and I see all the things that have given me joy, the constants, and always visible, always walking beside me was my family, and beside us all the grace of God. I am in a room now a big room, and sitting in a circle are all the people that I have known in my life and at the front are my friends. There is a chair for me and I take my place, at the pulpit a powerful speaker is addressing us and as I turn towards Him my heart leaps and my spirit sings for I am home, and there my Lord says ‘And where two or three are gathered in my name, I will be with you’.

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