Homecoming Part 6

September 13, 2026

I walked up to the door of the mysterious house in the woods—the house I had seen countless times from afar but had never had the nerve to approach, climbed onto the porch, and rang the doorbell. I was curious about the mysterious people who lived there.

I rang the buzzer and shortly a housekeeper opened the wide, thick door. She looked surprised to see me but seemed so delighted that she smiled, took a deep breath, and, with her eyes still fixed on me, hollered over her shoulder, “Mrs. Robertson, it is a child—a child! Come see for yourself.”

A petite lady came to the doorway. She wore delicate earrings made of gold and red stones in her pierced ears. After her first glance at me, she clapped her hands together in excitement.

“Oh my!” she said. “The ladies will have to see this. Who are you, young man?” I told her who I was and that I lived behind the barbed-wire fence in one of the new houses in the subdivision. “I have spoken to your father. I believe I have seen you in your backyard on my walks. Give me your hand. I have some people I want you to meet.”

Then, in her unmistakable Old Mobilian accent, she added, “Leave yo dawg out heah on the poarch.”

She brought me into a living room filled with velvet-covered furniture with doilies pinned high on their backs. The room was full of older ladies like her. She introduced me to every person in the room. Each lady had a question for me. I was old enough to know they weren't always asking because they needed an answer. They wanted to observe me and perhaps get a chuckle out of a child’s way of describing the world. They smiled at me as though I were a sweet novelty. I remember wishing I were regarded that way at home, but my brother and I were just regular kids there.

The ladies’ meeting was almost over, so they soon left, and Mrs. Robertson asked me to stay. She introduced me to her furry Persian cats, which were nearly as big as my dog, and to a parrot in a golden cage. I patted one of the cats, but she quickly ran from me. The parrot spoke only to Mrs. Robertson, and I recall that it said over and over, “You bet your bottom dollar.”

My hostess then took me to a special room called the solarium, which had a blue corrugated fiberglass roof. We sat in metal chairs while the nice housekeeper brought me a dish of ice vanilla cream. The ice cream looked blue because it reflected the light coming through the roof. In fact, I was blue too. As I looked around, everything was blue.

Then Mr. Robertson came in. We talked for a while, and he invited me into his office, where huge pieces of radio equipment stood, some nearly the size of our refrigerator. Mr. Robertson explained that these machines allowed him to talk with people anywhere in the world. He put on a set of earphones and placed another set on me, just like the ones I had seen people wearing in airplanes on television. He was speaking with people in Japan who were in the Army. Then he invited me to say hello, which I gladly did. I could hardly comprehend it. I had walked through the woods behind my house and somehow ended up talking to Japan.

It was time to go, but as we walked down the hall, something caught my eye—a strange glow coming from one of the rooms. “What’s that?” I asked. “Oh, go in and see if you like,” they said.

As I entered the room, I passed an elaborately carved wooden bed that was so high there were stairs beside it. I asked Mrs. Robertson about the enormous bed, and she told me that it had come from her hometown of Genoa, Italy. I nearly asked if I could climb the stairs, but I didn’t. Then I moved toward the strange glow. On a special table was a statue seemingly illuminated from within. It depicted Jesus and all the disciples sitting together at a table, eating and drinking. “This is the Last Supper,” Mrs. Robertson said.

The illuminated scene drew me toward it as though I were somehow there with Jesus and the disciples themselves. I asked what they did with the lighted shrine. They pointed to a prayer stool nearby and explained that this was a place where they prayed—a place where they felt nearer to God.

I found my Sparkle waiting for me on the front porch where I entered the house. We walked home together; I pulled the barbed wire apart and climbed through back to my everyday life. But I would never be the same. I was always welcome at the Robertsons’ home, and I took some of my special friends. Every time I went there, I had blue ice cream, learned more, and talked to people from all over the world. 

Much of the spiritual life takes place at thresholds. We begin with a yearning of the heart, and with curiosity. We leave what is familiar, approach a door we have never entered, knock, and wait. We cannot know what will answer us. Sometimes what waits on the other side is generous spiritual hospitality—a welcome into something larger than the world we have known.

Crossing into the unknown can certainly involve risk. We may encounter something unsettling, or perhaps nothing remarkable at all. But sometimes going beyond our familiar boundaries brings a kind of sacred shock—an experience that changes how we see ourselves, other people, or even God.

On one side of the barbed wire, I was just a regular little boy. On the other side, I could talk to people in Japan and eat blue ice cream. On one side, I had no idea what a shrine in someone’s home was, or why anyone would have one. On the other side, I knew. Crossing that threshold enlarged my world. Spiritual pilgrimage can do the same. It takes us beyond what we already know and enlarges the territory in which our soul can live.

I believe our soul’s home is not created in childhood. I believe childhood is when we first discover it. The things that mysteriously attract the soul—beauty, wonder, mystery, freedom, and the sacred—are already waiting within us. Then life gives them form.

Again and again, life invites us across another threshold, where something already known by the soul meets an experience it has never had before, but one that it knows is part of it. 

And with each crossing, the territory of our soul’s home becomes larger.

Spiritual Practice

What are the descriptors of the landscape of your soul?

Inquiry

Why could it be possible that you were born with a landscape of your soul that you recognized in your outer lived experiences?

Prayer

Dear God,

You placed treasure in us all. I am truly grateful.

Amen