Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane
I ain't got time to take no fast train
Lonely days are gone, I'm comin' home
Oh my baby, she a wrote me a letter.
If you’re into funky live concerts maybe you’re familiar with the words Joe Cocker sang at the Fillmore East in 1970. Maybe you’ve tapped your toes when the tambourine comes in at the start of the second verse:
I don't care how much I gotta spend
Woah I’m gon’ find my way back home again…
Even if you don’t know the song, you know what it’s like to have an email spread a smile across your face. You’ve had a text message make you all warm inside.
My wife, Annie, is in London as I write and I’m in Kansas City, Kansas, and we’re grateful for WhatsApp. But I feel it when John writes:
“I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete” (2 John 1:12).
Even if John had had Zoom he would have said the same thing. “…face to face, so that our joy may be complete.”
What is it about physical presence that is so compelling? Why is a live concert always better than the recording? Why is talking on the phone with my daughter not as good as sitting silent in a room with her as she paints and I read? Why isn’t joy complete when we’re not face to face?
The pandemic throws this into relief for all of us. We’ve ached to breathe the same air as our friends, our sisters and brothers. We long to embrace without thinking about transmission, we long for the end of social distancing. We were made to be face to face with each other, and as much as we are able, face to face with God.
We know our joy is not complete when we wave goodbye to our Zoomies, turn off the camera, and shut the laptop. And as happy as it can make us, the letter is not itself the joy, but it points to the joy, it warms and prepares, it motivates us to move toward each other. It gets Joe on his “aeroplane.” That warm WhatsApp message from Annie makes me itch for that big welcome home hug in a couple of weeks.
What are the “letters” in your life that point to God? What do they make you long for?
Have you intentionally isolated yourself for any reason? Is it possible that moving toward people instead of away will make for a more complete joy?
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dan Erickson has been with Novo for 13 years and serves with the prophetic and artistic makers in Novo. He lives in Kansas City, Kansas with his wife and three adult kids.