eschatology of moving

There’s a super-catchy tune on the Austin airwaves these days titled, “No Roots.” A line from the refrain keeps sticking in my ear, “I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground.”

It’s the end of the term. I’m chugging a bunch of theologians and my brain leaks words like “eschaton” and “soteriology.”

So as I’m listening to the radio, “My home was never on the ground” echoes around my head like the promises my Baptist-reared friends grew up on. At the end of time as Christians construe it, we will no longer live on earth but in our True Home, where we have a oneness with God…plus some other stuff that various people describe in various ways with no consensus.

“My home is never on the ground.”

I went over to Genius.com to chase her lyrics. On the way, I see a half-dozen interviews where she patiently says she had a peripatetic childhood. 12 homes in 24 years, she says. I know about that: 7 in 11, myself.

Not about the end-times after all. But I stay struck and thoughtful—

What if moving so much as a child changes the way we hold onto the life we’re in now? Does our experience in ‘holding places lightly’ translate?

Does moving every other year help one focus on the one unmoving destination?

 

I know that one of my senses of paradise includes a belonging-to-place so profound that my roots will twine through its dirt forever.


 

I like digging holes and hiding things inside them
When I’ll grow old, I hope I won’t forget to find them
‘Cause I’ve got memories and travel like gypsies in the night

I build a home and wait for someone to tear it down
Then pack it up in boxes, head for the next town running
‘Cause I’ve got memories and travel like gypsies in the night

And a thousand times I’ve seen this road
A thousand times

I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh

I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh

I like standing still, but that’s just a wishful plan
Ask me where I come from, I’ll say a different land
But I’ve got memories and travel like gypsies in the night

I count gates and numbers, then play the guessing game
It’s just the place that changes, the rest is still the same
But I’ve got memories and travel like gypsies in the night

And a thousand times I’ve seen this road
A thousand times

I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground…

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