Where?

"Where Wise Men go?"
"Where guy go?"
"Where Advent go?"

These were the questions that I fielded over the course of the Feast of Epiphany.  And, as my 2.5 year old son gazed at me earnestly, I began to understand...

He wants all that he loves, and all that he likes, together.  This is his dearest hope and wish.  He is happiest when surrounded by people who love him.  "Mama, Mommy, Aye Aye" are his litany each night at his "God blesses", and as his circle expands the litany becomes longer.

And, isn't it amazing, how this longing to live in the Kingdom of God begins?  When I was in high school I would draw pictures of what I wanted the perfect neighborhood to be like--coffee shops, feminist bookstores and all of my friends on the same block (I think Melissa Etheridge was located in a house next door to mine in one particular drawing...).  And, now (minus, perhaps the next door location of my high school, favorite, rocker) I imagine the Kingdom of God to be something like that perfect neighborhood--where all of my friends, all those I love, live nearby (and of course--because Christ tears down walls--everyone I don't care for is there too!  But, in the Kingdom, I am delighted to have them there!).

For somebody who has spent the past 17 years moving from place to place (moving every time it felt like I had a community, a "family")--the idea of being settled in this kingdom, surrounded by all those I've ever loved and lost, is compelling.  So, I get it, when my son inquires plaintively where those guys went, where the animals, the mamas and the mommies have gone...he is asking why we don't get to live in the Kingdom yet.

Good question.