Hosea 11:1-11

Pentecost +10 - Year C

Hosea 11:1-11

The more I called, the more they ran -- this seems to be every parent's/prophet's experience at some point along the journey.

Many of us have been on both sides of that divide. Some of us still prefer one side over the other and operate out of that preference. There are inveterate callers and knee-jerk runners-away.

I've been led with "cords of human kindness" and experienced some of them as shackles. Our "spiritual care" for one another can be pretty heavy, laying all manner of expectation and reservation of acceptance upon us. Greg Brown's song Driftless has a line about this:

Have I done enough, Father,
can I rest now?
Have I learned enough, Mother,
can we talk now?

Yet, thankfully, the impulse to keep everyone a thankful third-grader who would never respond like that older teen, can keep us going long enough to move past a need to control things like setting a fiery sword at Eden's gate. With blessings aplenty we don't give up on folks. With high hopes we just can't bring ourselves to separate from one another, no matter how disappointed we have been.

In our family, my dearly beloved often has been heard to exclaim, "I don't know how we are going to get through this (whatever was having its day or season), but I'm going to keep loving you." Simple words; profound words.

May you be returned to your "home" (which may be different than where you thought it was or who else is there) in such a way that you can move on into the next stage of your life and your relationship with other family members, near and far.