The Longing

Anyone who has ever been to a High School Homecoming Football game in Texas understands the concept of longing for our youthful days. Men from 18 to 80 gather along the sidelines and remind each other of the time they won the championship- or almost did. Women comment on how they could do what those cheerleaders were doing when they were in school. Stories of adventures from days gone by are the reason we have this ritual- and I love it.

But there is a dark side to this. While most spend a few hours on that Friday night reliving, some can't let it go. They dwell,and worse, they try to recreate. I believe a real problem with our society today is that we feel we got jipped on our time as kids, so we'll just take a second helping now. It's relatively harmless to be the fifty year old trading in the minivan for the Corvette- not so harmless to be trading in the wife for the new girlfriend. Not so bad trying- and mostly failing- to pick up that sport you used to excel at. But it's kind of ugly when we try to relive that vicariously through our kids and thus get labeled as "the obnoxious one" at their sporting events.

I believe the reason for this, is that we are sad. We miss the good things that have gone away. That's good- we need to remember the good things, relish them, tell the story again and again. We need to feel that sorrow at things gone by, but it is how we deal with it that makes us live, or makes us die.

2 Corinthians 7:10 says "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death." Paul is talking about sorrow over sin, but I think it's a good application for lots of things. If we look at what we have lost with the eyes of the world- we will die. "Those things that matter so much to me are gone- I am not who I was, I am not good anymore, so I must start over." Hello, Mid-Life Crisis. We die here, because we stop living in the now and try to live in the 'back then.' We don't move forward anymore and therefore, we die. Bit by bit, the parts of our lives that matter now fade away until we're that person that's in the Bowling for Soup song '1985':

She hates time make it stop
When did Motley Crue become classic rock?
And when did Ozzy become an actor?
Please make this stop
Stop!
And bring back

Springsteen, Madonna
Way before Nirvana
There was U2 and Blondie
And music still on MTV
Her two kids in high school
They tell her that she’s uncool
Cause she's still preoccupied
With 1985

But Godly Sorrow brings repentance and salvation. We are the product of our past, and our past feeds our future. The past should make us press on with more knowledge and preparation. I've been working on writing a memoir of sorts that puts this theory into practice: That the things we though were inconsequential ten years ago do in fact shape us today. I realize that I often went against the norm the entire time I've followed Christ (I led a conga line down the middle of a Baptist Church, for crying out loud!), and now I lead a church that challenges the norm (No conga lines, though).

So when we go to homecoming, or class reunions, let us not try to be what we were then, but who we have become because of who we were then.