Where everybody knows your name

I just spent an hour and a half with people I trust in a safe atmosphere.  When I entered that place, my mind was racing with the events of the day, filled with frenetic activity and unable to settle down.  

Just thirty minutes into that time where everyone knew who I was and they were still glad to see me - that was enough to let me relax and let down my guard.

There's an old song to a TV show I used to watch - a TV program called "Cheers" - and the chorus to the theme song goes, "Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name - and they're always glad you came!  You wanna go where people know that people are all the same; you wanna go where everybody knows your name."

And I do.  I've spent most of my life hanging around people who expected me to be someone I wasn't.  And it's good to know I can be me with these friends and I don't have to prove anything to anyone.  The only requirement for friendship with these people is that I am real, honest, open, and willing to embrace change as long as it's God who does the changing.  I could really get behind that.

Coach, Sam, Carla, Dianne, Cliffy and "Norm" always made me so wistful when I watched how they interacted and just accepted each other.  I never knew why.  Going to bars wasn't my thing - still isn't. It wasn't the fact that it was a bar (and don't get me wrong - some bars got more God than most churches!!) but it was the atmosphere I longed for and didn't know where to find.  And then I met this group of people with whom I was hanging out with tonight - and I knew I had come into my own.  

That's where I wanna go.