A man went to the doctor with a strange complaint. "Doc, when I drive to work in the morning I start to sing 'The green green grass of home'. If I see a cat then it's 'What's new, pussy cat?' It's so embarrassing, even when I'm asleep I still keep singing. Last night, it was 'Delilah', and my wife was not amused!"
"Yes, it would appear that you have the early symptoms of Tom Jones syndrome." "Well I've never heard of that, is it common?" asked the man.
"It's not unusual," replied the doctor.
I was musing recently about the road to church and all it has meant in my life. As a child I lived on a farm two miles east of St Donatus, the old stone church on a hill. My years as a teen passed with that road and that church in view. When I went to school it was past that church; when I went to a Friday night dance, it was past that church.
Today I live a few blocks from the church I attend, and again, I pass that church on the way to the post office, on the way up town. I purposely pass it since I am in part responsible for the grounds and maintenance. But always it is there, on my horizon.
As a child I remember my father being a councilor responsible for road maintenance and on occasion road building. As he worked on the church road one summer our Norwegian neighbor said, "Yorge, he is building himself the road to heaven." And I thought, "How true."
My father had been building the road to heaven for years, a road we all journeyed on. Everyday of the week we were aware of that road and that path we were journeying on. The sad thing today is that many don't see that road to heaven even weekly. It's not unusual.
If I can paraphrase the Lennon/McCartney song about that long and winding road perhaps I can illustrate what that path has meant in my life:
There is a "long and winding road that leads to your door" oh Lord.
It "will never disappearI've seen that road beforeIt always leads me hereLeads me to your door"There was a "wild and windy nightthat the rain washed away"
"Many times I've been alone and many times I've cried"
"But still [you] lead me back to the long winding road lead me to your door"
And I know that my father and mother wait for me, for us, at the end of that long and winding road just as they did for those many years of childhood. "They'll come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly" when I reach the "green, green grass of home", if I may mix in a Tom Jones lyric.
