Coming home...

"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes 

home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow."

- Lyn Yutang

Hotels are pretty much the same.  It really doesn’t matter much once the lights are out.  It is usually about the bed…maybe the desk…maybe the Internet...yeah, the Internet. 

The week had been busy, and at week’s end there was that trip to Chicago. The flight scheduled for Thursday…but something was wrong.  You know…that nagging undercurrent that some balance has shifted…a change has occurred.  The email on Friday confirmed it.

A few days earlier…

There was another week in another part of the country that had also gotten under way, with another fellow preparing for a trip.  It had been a hard week – you know the kind.  It had followed a hard week before and one before that.  When weeks and months have been difficult, the exhaustion becomes almost routine…the sense of fatigue so bone penetrating that there appears to be no hope.

This fellow’s trip had been a long time coming and he deserved it…it had been earned the old-fashioned way…hard work, integrity, virtue, honesty…all of the things that when exercised on a regular basis form character.  Character??  His life defined it!

In many ways both of these fellows were looking forward to their flight.  Neither would need to pack a lot…there wasn’t much required at the other end.  One was leaving home…the other going home.

Both trips had itineraries…a sense of meaning, but in the end, one would mean more.

That is the thing about going out and coming home, isn’t it?  The excitement of a new place…a new adventure…the experiences yet unknown…the place untested.  When the journey has been completed, it is time to come home…for the traveler, there is little better than coming home…

It’s hard to know how or why…

The thing about these two men is that they were friends.  One a little older than the other – he reached out first.  The older fellow was Jim Priester…the younger me, and it had begun with a phone call in the fall of 1964. It came after a heart breaking weekend loss to our chief rival football team on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

“Hi Ted, this is Coach Priester (coach of the rival team).”  “I heard Coach Feltz (my team) didn’t get that touchdown on film.  We got it and I thought you might like to see it.”  Just as the first half of the football game ended, I had caught one of those long, long passes – the kind every kid dreams about – and scored a touchdown. The film from our cameras had run out before the play.  The rival’s had not!  The next evening I was in Priester’s home watching that film!  Who was this man??

There was something about Priester that struck my heart like a marksman’s bullet…straight and true.  He had singled me out…made me feel special.  I thought it was me, but in fact it was him.  I had simply found myself ‘in the sights’ of his gift…his calling – the cultivation and guidance of young men.  In fact, as it turns out, I was only one of uncounted numbers of young men who were influenced by this man.  I’ve known many gifted motivators in my time…Priester was the best of them all.

This small gesture began a relationship that would continue for decades.  There weren’t long hours spent together – really not much in the way of quantity at all.  It was just that in the most critical of moments, when important course corrections were needed, this man emerged. 

It takes more than a village…

Success in anyone’s life comes on the shoulders of many people, and in truth it would take a fairly large concert hall to hold all of those who are responsible for my journey.  However, when standing on those shoulders, it is those near the bottom that form the foundation. 

There would be no way to know at the time how significant this man would be in my life, nor would there be time or space now to write about how his influence rippled through the decades.  In those days, his gift seemed to be always ‘at the ready.’  It was smooth, practiced, direct, always seeming to know exactly what was needed.  Each time, his encouragement was significant, and in the end it altered the course of my life.

Oh yeah, the flight…

The attendants on my flight were friendly and pleasant – that’s really their business, you know.  They greeted me with a smile and welcome me aboard.  They pointed me down the aisle toward my seat. I took my place, fastened the seatbelt and waited for the flight to take off.

Jim’s flight had a little more personal touch.  He was tired as he made his way down the entryway.  As he stepped on board, it wasn’t the flight attendant that greeted him…it was the captain.  It was a warm greeting as the pilot gathered Jim in his arms and held him closely for his flight home.  This would be the last flight from this dimension of time and space…he would be landing in a different place.

The email was short and direct…

I had been in meetings all day and it was dark when I saw the message in the ‘in-box.’ It had been there from the morning.

“Ted - Thought you would want to know – Stan” 

I read the accompanying obituary, and turned off the lights in my room.  In the quiet darkness of that place, the image of his gentle face slipped softly into my mind and I wept.  I wept for the family he left behind, who had loved him so deeply, and who had carried the burden of his care in recent years…I wept for all those whose lives had been touched by him…I wept for his courage and faith…the nagging undercurrent the past couple of days had been correct – the balance had shifted…I wept for me.

Over the years, I have studied and accumulated the language of faith.  I know the words and have used them many times myself…but what do I really know?  I know this…in the sorrow and pain of loss, there is freedom…in the desperate desire to understand, there is faith…in the despair of the empty heart, there is love.

Most reading this never knew Jim Priester, but in fact, anyone who has known me has met this man…anyone who has seen the twinkle in my eye, has seen part of the twinkle in his…anyone who has felt any assurance or easy calm in me, has felt part of him.  It has been said, we are the accumulation of all those we have known in our lives...some hold more than space others.  In the quality of my life, he held much…

You may never have known this man, but I am certain there is a ‘Jim Priester’ somewhere in your life…along your journey.  I am certain God has a way of putting these people along the way…to be there when we “…hunger and thirst…” And so in this time of loss I also rejoice for the honor of having known and walked part of my life’s path with this generous and thoughtful soul…

- ted