Homecoming
14/08/25 00:50
The Black Hills of South Dakota
ever they’re calling me
I sit and dream
and then I seem
once more all their beauty to see.
The wind whispers through the pine tree
The bird sings its sweet refrain.
Out there friends are true
and heartaches are few.
Take me back to the Black Hills again.
I don’t know who wrote those words or the source of the tune to which we used to sing them. I learned the song at meetings of the Rapid City downtown Kiwanis club. When I tried to check the source of the song, I found a different song by Doris Day for the movie Calamity Jane. These lyrics, however, were in my mind as we drove into the hills yesterday. Our GPS was turned off. I didn’t need directions to follow the familiar roads. And the Black Hills greeted us with a typical Black Hills summer thunderstorm, complete with high winds and driving rain. There was no hail, however, which can be a factor. The summer that we moved from the Hills, we got caught out in the hail with both of our vehicles requiring a trip to the body shop.
Our hosts were ready for us with a space in their shop, so our car was protected in case of hail.
It is a homecoming for us. We lived in the Black Hills for 25 years. It was he longest we lived in any place in our lives. That fact sounds like we are nomads, but that isn’t the case. It is just that our education and careers led us to move several times. When we moved to South Dakota, we had completed ten years serving a congregation in Boise, Idaho. Before that, we had served two congregations in North Dakota for seven years. I hoped that we would stay in Rapid City for at least seven years so that both of our children could graduate from high school before we had to move again. I thought that about ten years might be right and leave me at a good age to become a Conference Minister or perhaps serve a larger congregation. I considered both possibilities, but in the end, we served our Rapid City congregation for 25 years until our retirement.
There were several factors involved in our decision to sell our home and move when we retired. Professional ethics require that we not exert influence on the future leadership of the congregation and that we separate ourselves from its leadership and decision-making. This could be best served by our moving out of the area and allowing the congregation to seek new leadership. Equally important to us was our desire to live near one of our children. We are happy with our decision to move to the Pacific Northwest and are enjoying living on the coast with our son and his family just a couple of miles down the road.
But we miss the Black Hills. We miss the people we had grown to love. We miss the meaningful work that we had serving the congregation in Rapid City. Five years have passed, and driving into the hills feels like coming home.
It might have felt different to us had we come a week earlier amid the thunder of 500,000 motorcycle riders celebrating the 85th anniversary of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Some years, when we lived in the hills, we would plan to be away during the rally. It isn’t that we didn’t enjoy the guests who came to the hills. We have always known that the hills need to be shared with others. Even though we owned a home on a half-acre lot, we were aware of the history of this place. It was sacred to the Lakota people and other tribes who did not have a concept of ownership of the land before contact with European settlers. The land belongs to the Creator, and we humans occupy it only temporarily. When we lived in the hills, we learned to welcome guests and share the treasures of beautiful land, temperate weather, and good people.
The primary focus of the next few days will be visiting people. However, I’m sure that we will also see some of the places that we enjoyed when we lived in the hills. I’ll probably drive by the home we used to own and go out to Sheridan Lake, where I paddled countless mornings. We may take a drive through Custer State Park and view the progress of the Crazy Horse mountain carving. We don’t have a complete itinerary for our visit. For now, just having come to this place is enough.
I am a poor wayfaring stranger A-trav'ling through this land of woe. And there's no sickness, toil or danger In that bright world to which I go. I'm going home to see my father (mother, sister, brother etc.) I'm going there no more to roam; I'm just a-going over Jordan I'm just a-going over home.
There are people for whom a particular place is home. Even those who do not travel and who stay in the same place for their entire lives are, in a sense, just passing through. As the Psalmist declares, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” Our true home isn’t a piece of geography, but a relationship with the Creator of all of the places of this universe. Along the way, however, we form attachments to specific places. There are several places that I have called home.
Coming to the hills will always be for me coming home.
ever they’re calling me
I sit and dream
and then I seem
once more all their beauty to see.
The wind whispers through the pine tree
The bird sings its sweet refrain.
Out there friends are true
and heartaches are few.
Take me back to the Black Hills again.
I don’t know who wrote those words or the source of the tune to which we used to sing them. I learned the song at meetings of the Rapid City downtown Kiwanis club. When I tried to check the source of the song, I found a different song by Doris Day for the movie Calamity Jane. These lyrics, however, were in my mind as we drove into the hills yesterday. Our GPS was turned off. I didn’t need directions to follow the familiar roads. And the Black Hills greeted us with a typical Black Hills summer thunderstorm, complete with high winds and driving rain. There was no hail, however, which can be a factor. The summer that we moved from the Hills, we got caught out in the hail with both of our vehicles requiring a trip to the body shop.
Our hosts were ready for us with a space in their shop, so our car was protected in case of hail.
It is a homecoming for us. We lived in the Black Hills for 25 years. It was he longest we lived in any place in our lives. That fact sounds like we are nomads, but that isn’t the case. It is just that our education and careers led us to move several times. When we moved to South Dakota, we had completed ten years serving a congregation in Boise, Idaho. Before that, we had served two congregations in North Dakota for seven years. I hoped that we would stay in Rapid City for at least seven years so that both of our children could graduate from high school before we had to move again. I thought that about ten years might be right and leave me at a good age to become a Conference Minister or perhaps serve a larger congregation. I considered both possibilities, but in the end, we served our Rapid City congregation for 25 years until our retirement.
There were several factors involved in our decision to sell our home and move when we retired. Professional ethics require that we not exert influence on the future leadership of the congregation and that we separate ourselves from its leadership and decision-making. This could be best served by our moving out of the area and allowing the congregation to seek new leadership. Equally important to us was our desire to live near one of our children. We are happy with our decision to move to the Pacific Northwest and are enjoying living on the coast with our son and his family just a couple of miles down the road.
But we miss the Black Hills. We miss the people we had grown to love. We miss the meaningful work that we had serving the congregation in Rapid City. Five years have passed, and driving into the hills feels like coming home.
It might have felt different to us had we come a week earlier amid the thunder of 500,000 motorcycle riders celebrating the 85th anniversary of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Some years, when we lived in the hills, we would plan to be away during the rally. It isn’t that we didn’t enjoy the guests who came to the hills. We have always known that the hills need to be shared with others. Even though we owned a home on a half-acre lot, we were aware of the history of this place. It was sacred to the Lakota people and other tribes who did not have a concept of ownership of the land before contact with European settlers. The land belongs to the Creator, and we humans occupy it only temporarily. When we lived in the hills, we learned to welcome guests and share the treasures of beautiful land, temperate weather, and good people.
The primary focus of the next few days will be visiting people. However, I’m sure that we will also see some of the places that we enjoyed when we lived in the hills. I’ll probably drive by the home we used to own and go out to Sheridan Lake, where I paddled countless mornings. We may take a drive through Custer State Park and view the progress of the Crazy Horse mountain carving. We don’t have a complete itinerary for our visit. For now, just having come to this place is enough.
I am a poor wayfaring stranger A-trav'ling through this land of woe. And there's no sickness, toil or danger In that bright world to which I go. I'm going home to see my father (mother, sister, brother etc.) I'm going there no more to roam; I'm just a-going over Jordan I'm just a-going over home.
There are people for whom a particular place is home. Even those who do not travel and who stay in the same place for their entire lives are, in a sense, just passing through. As the Psalmist declares, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” Our true home isn’t a piece of geography, but a relationship with the Creator of all of the places of this universe. Along the way, however, we form attachments to specific places. There are several places that I have called home.
Coming to the hills will always be for me coming home.
