A Place Where You Belong | The Normals

            

A Place Where You Belong  |  The Normals

   release date:  2001                

   record label:  ForeFront

track
 listing:      1) I’ll Be Home Soon

                  2) Romeo on the Radio

                    3) Innocence

                    4) Grace

                    5) Less than Love

                    6) King

                    7) Happiness

                                                                              8) We Go On

                                                                              9) On My Own

                                                                              10) Brittle Bone

                                                                              11) Epilogue

“help me remember my way home…”

There is one place on earth where I feel completely at ease, overwhelmingly comfortable.  A place where I know I am always welcome, even wanted – one place where I know I belong.  It’s a two story house in a little town in the heart of central Kentucky.  It’s where my brothers and I played baseball on a narrow strip of road until the sun went down, where I learned to appreciate music and the importance of hard work, where my family sat down together for dinner every night and where I learned about the grace and love of an Almighty Savior.  It was, and still remains, home. 

In the basement, at the end of a long hallway, is my room.  Although I sleep there only a handful of times a year, it’s still mine.  Granted, it doesn’t look much like it belongs to me anymore; it’s gotten a paint job, some finer furniture, made itself more presentable.  In middle school the walls were plastered in Star Wars posters and lost hubcaps I’d collected while walking home from school.  I’d kick my brothers out and lock the door so I could listen to music or talk to my best friend about girls.  As I changed, so did my room.  In high school the Star Wars posters were replaced with concert bulletins and band posters.  Instead of hubcaps littering the floor there were piles of clothes and books lying open, half-read.  When the church my father pastored decided it was time for new furniture in the Sunday School rooms, I commandeered my favorite chair.  It was bright yellow, with a tear here-and-there exposing the stuffing inside.  With my father’s church keys and the help of a friend I saved it from the junkyard, giving it new life in my room.  My mom hated it.  Before graduation my friends took turns signing it like a yearbook – now reminders of people that I haven’t seen or heard from in years.  Time robs us of so much, including home. 

In the fall of 2003 I left that house to attend the University of Kentucky.  I enjoyed my new found freedom, but make no mistake, the dorms were not home.  Five years in student residence halls earned me a Bachelors degree in Biology and a Master’s in Education.  My first job afforded me enough income to live on my own – an efficiency apartment in a converted home in Georgetown.  A year later, a move back to Lexington found me claiming a new space as my own:  a small room in an aging community house.  Each residence had its own set of positives and negatives, but none provided the feeling I got as I walked into the front door of that little house in Danville. 

For almost a year I’ve been living in someone else’s home – my grandparent’s.  Serving as an in-home caretaker changes the “home” dynamic.  Home doesn’t completely become work, but to a degree, it does.  I possess many fond memories of this house that nothing will be able to rob from me – spending the night with my brothers and cousins every Friday, staying up late to watch T.G.I.F. on TV while my grandmother cooked Bagel Bites and cookies.  The roles have been reversed; it is now my turn to get up early and prepare meals for them.  I take great pride in being able to serve my grandparents, but it prevents my current house from granting the freedom and relaxation of home.  Since I left as an eighteen year old, nothing has been able to replace it – nothing else can be home.  

The Normals are, hands down, one of my favorite bands.  I used to tell people that if I could choose to play with any musical group it would be this one.  Formed in 1998 by songwriter Andrew Osenga, the band was together only five years but the music they produced remains timeless.  Interestingly enough, in high school I was a big fan of their sophomore release Coming to Life.  Although I had a copy of A Place Where You Belong shortly after it was released in 2001, I didn’t fully discover it until I left home for college a few years later.  I’ll be honest with you – the majority of the music I listened to in high school isn’t worth remembering.  The Normals, in that regard, are a rarity; the further I get from high school the more I find myself connecting with their music.  Do yourself a favor and find any of their three superb albums.  

Recorded in a house the band rented, A Place Where You Belong was The Normals’ final release; they disbanded a year later.  If the title doesn’t give away the theme of the album, then the songwriting surely does:  of the eleven songs on the album, eight of them mention “home.”  Perhaps this is why this album first came alive to me while in college. They say you never really miss something until its gone; I couldn’t appreciate an album written around the theme of home until I was away from mine.  Years later, its message rings truer than ever. 

I’ve tired to call Lexington home for the last six years.  Honestly, I’m ready for a change.  I’m burned out.  I’ve looked for home here and found it lacking.  The feelings of belonging, of acceptance, of rest have eluded me; I often catch myself dreaming of a move, leaving everything behind and starting over somewhere else.  I can echo the words of Andrew Osenga in We Go On:  “I took the long way home but it led to the same apartment, no one’s paid the phone bill and no one really cares.  When will that road go somewhere beautiful and somewhere safe?”  I’ve learned, the hard way, as Andrew sings in I’ll Be Home Soon that “time has no respect for a lonely man with a longing heart… if you have a place where you belong, then you’re a lucky one.”  The more I look around town, the more I believe that “this place tries so hard to break a man” and like Andrew, “I’ve tried to stand, but I’m drowning in its sorrows and I need to catch my breath.” 

In my dreams I see myself living on a farm in eastern Kentucky - close to friends and the mountains that I love.  I walk outside my little house and am surrounded by crops that I tend to, the produce feeding my family.  In the corner of the farm are fruit trees, on the other end, chickens laying eggs.  With excess produce God blesses us with my family starts a little farmer’s market in town, allowing fresh produce to get into the hands of people who, for economic reasons, have only be able to eat processed food much of their lives.  Slowly and over time, the culture is changed.  People learn the importance of eating real food; some plant their own gardens, others support local farms.  Every October, when the first chill gets into the air, we host a big party at the farm:  a fall festival complete with a big harvest meal and live music.  As the sun goes down on a hard day’s work, I can sit on the porch of my house with my family, drinking lemonade and playing with the dog.  In the peacefulness of the night I am able to tend to my other passion:  writing.  When I tire I’m blessed to crawl into bed beside a woman I love, a partner at life who works as hard as I do; we wake up the next morning excited to do it all again.    

Lexington will never be able to provide that idea of home for me.  Unfortunately, neither will a farm in eastern Kentucky.  In fact, no place on earth can provide the sense of hope, the acceptance and the unconditional love, of home.  That’s because this planet is not our home.  We were created in the image of the perfect God to dwell with Him.  Instead we find ourselves living in a broken and dying world, one that can never provide what we need. Nothing in this world can be home – relationships, money, vacation homes in exotic places – they will all eventually leave us unfulfilled.  We were created to find home in our Creator, the only place where acceptance, hope and love intersect in perfect harmony; as Andrew sings on Brittle Bone “its here where I can find the grace of a Savior, the face of a lover, the absence of what I fear.  I’m not alone, for here I’ve found my home.” 

We must, however, still live in this broken world; yet we yearn, as a traveler does, to finally make it home.  The last book of the Bible describes this home, saying that “the dwelling of God is with men and He will live with them.  They will be his people and God Himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away… there will be no more night, for the Lord God will give them light.”  Perhaps taking a cue from this, A Place Where You Belong ends with a description of this celestial city: “home, to the land of our fathers, where the sun rises forever, we rest in its splendor, and our questions have answers, when the traveler comes home.”  As the book of Revelation ends, it reads “blessed are those who wash their robes… that they may go through the gates into the city.”  Indeed, blessed are those travelers who find that city, who find their Creator, and in so doing, finally find their way home.