Doorbell in Full Dress

AWW ~ 3/02/11
non-subject: searching
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Searching.
Us humans.
Always searching.
Anything that is alive searches.
It is the nature of the beast.
To search for sustenance,
whether it be physical or emotional or mental.
Even at the end of life,
there may be a longing
for death to come quickly.

Longing is a type of searching.

Sometime in the past few years, I've counted the places I've lived since I was 17 years old. The total came to 23 places. I last moved when I was 44 years old. That comes out to 23 moves in 27 years. No wonder I have a difficult time feeling settled. I've lived in my current house, in this year of 2011, for 7-1/2 years.

Up until I was 17 I only lived in two places, that I know of. Most of that time, from the ages of 2 until I was 17, my residence was at one house. I'd move in and out of that house a couple more times, until finally at age 25 I made the permanent move away from my house of developmental years.

1981. Sometime in the late winter or early spring I think it was, because Kathy and Nancy and I were living in the split-level house over off 16th Avenue in Viewmont, a community that is part of the city of Hickory. The house was brick with green siding. There was a fenced-in backyard where Jessica, a dog someone had given me, ran and played.

Kathy, Nancy, and I were loyal Way believers living in a "Way Home." A Way Home was a home where Way believers lived together, prayed together, ate together, ran Way fellowships and classes together, heard from God together, and moved the Word together. The Way didn't furnish any housing or supplies or monetary supplement for a Way home. All who lived in Way homes and moved the Word were volunteers.

I worked waitressing at a local pub. Kathy washed windows. Nancy must have worked at a bank or in some sort of money management.

Kathy was on her Interim year assignment of the 10th Way Corps. She was originally from North Dakota and was in her early to mid-20s. Nancy, a native North Carolinian, was also in her early to mid-20s and had been with the Ministry since she was around 16 years old.

I was 21 and had been "in the Word" for a little over 3 years.

I had been in the 10th Corps with Kathy. This Ministry year, 1980-81, had been my Interim Corps year; but I had failed, miserably. I had started the year as a W.O.W. Ambassador Team Coordinator in Connecticut; that was my Corps assignment. But I'd quit without notice, leaving my team high and dry. I'd hitch hiked alone to North Carolina, my home state, from Connecticut in early fall of 1980.

There was nothing worse than breaking your word, a deplorable sign of betrayal without integrity.

Now I was in this Way home with Kathy and Nancy, getting back to the "It Is Written" standard - my goal being to reenter The Way Corps in order to serve God and His people, to fulfill my calling.

On that 1981 late winter or early spring night, whichever it was, in the split-level home in Viewmont, I sat in the living room. I'm pretty sure I was sitting in an upholstered chair reading my Bible when the door bell rang. I looked out. There stood two police officers in full uniform.

I opened the door and asked, "May I help you?"

"Yes," they responded. "Is this where Carol Hamby lives?"

"I'm Carol," I answered wondering what they wanted with me.

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