jayber crow

Ruth grew up in a loving home in the countryside just outside Coleraine. For fifteen years she flourished under her parents’ gentle care like her other siblings.

But in fourth form she fell in with a crowd of girls who were a little wild, a little rebellious. It started with black eyeliner and pierced tongues and angry music, but with time their rebellion took on more extreme forms. Her parents saw enough to break their hearts, and they kept reaching out to her, but she was slipping away from their influence.

By seventeen she was living with her boyfriend in London. He had some money and introduced her to a vibrant party scene. She was funny and attractive and confident and she moved easily into the centre of a hip new social world.

She jumped at the chance to apply to be on a new reality TV show inspired by Big Brother. At her interview she sold herself as the little girl from the provincial backwater who had become the party girl in the big city and they bought it.

On the show, she found herself acting more crudely to get attention. She got drunk every chance she got, dressed provocatively, got involved with two of the guys. And she entertained her housemates, and the watching world, with hilarious stories about her dull hometown and her small-minded parents and their stupid family traditions.

Her parents tried not to watch but they were drawn like a magnet to the TV, to the internet, to the papers, hoping for some small glimpse of the daughter they knew and loved, but they came away hurt and confused. Their friends eventually stopped mentioning Ruth in their presence because they saw the pain it caused.

For a while after the show Ruth was the darling of the tabloids and the fashion magazines. She was everywhere. But before long there were rumours about her drink-problem, about drugs, about a succession of tempestuous relationships. The stories in the tabloids became more sordid. As the papers turned against her, she seemed to turn to ever more outrageous behaviour to get attention. She alienated everyone she had called a friend. There were rumours about anorexia, about an abortion, about a suicide attempt…

Finally the stories dried up. In the canteen at work her dad would scan the pages of the trashy papers looking for the tiniest mention of his daughter, but her fifteen minutes of fame had passed.

Five years later, Ruth woke one morning in her grotty apartment in north London. She had no job, no money, no friends, no options. Her body was a wreck, her mind was worse.

Suddenly she saw the most vivid picture in her mind, of her family home and garden and her little box-bedroom and her mum and dad and she felt a longing like a deep pain in her side. She didn’t feel like a rebel or a confident woman of the world. She felt like a little girl, lost and alone. She wanted to go home, more than anything in the world.

24 hours later she’s sitting on a bus headed from the airport to Coleraine. She had phoned her parents to tell them she was coming home. She got the answering machine. The first two times she hung up without leaving a message. The third time she told them she was coming home,  told them what time her bus got in. Now she’s realizing the stupidity of her plan. What if they’re out of town and don’t get the message? What if they’ve moved house? She should have waited another day to talk to them, given them some time to get over the shock. What if they just don’t want to see her again, after all the ways she’s hurt them?

She practices her apology for her father. “Dad, I’m sorry. I know I was wrong. It’s not your fault, it’s all mine. I don’t blame you if you hate me, if you don’t trust me. If you’ll let me stay for a bit, I’ll get a job, I’ll pay rent, I’ll help out in the house. Maybe with time you can forgive me.” She hasn’t apologised to anyone in years.

She watches the familiar countryside rolling past her window. Every now and then a sign tells her the miles to go to Coleraine. She feels sick.

Finally the bus pulls into Coleraine station. She checks herself in her make-up mirror, looks at her pale reflection, fixes her hair.  Her stomach is in knots.

She walks into the terminal not knowing what to expect. Not one of the thousand scenes that have played out in her mind have prepared her for what she sees. There in the plastic-chairs bus station in Coleraine stands a group of forty brothers and sisters and little nephews and nieces and great-aunts and uncles and cousins and a grandmother and even a great-grandmother in a wheelchair. They’re all wearing goofy party-hats and blowing party-blowers, and taped across the entire wall is a home-made banner that reads “Welcome home!!”

Out of the crowd steps her dad. She stares at the floor as the tears run down her nose and she begins to stammer out her memorized speech.

But her dad is crying too and he’s holding her so tight she can barely breathe and he’s saying, “Hush, child. We’ve got no time for that. We’ll be late for the party. I know its July but your mum has cooked Christmas dinner and there’s a feast waiting for you at home.”

(OK so clearly I’m not much of a story-writer, but in the spirit of “telling it slant” I’m having a go. The best bits were my wife’s idea, a few lines are stolen wholesale from Philip Yancey, and obviously the whole thing is inspired by the greatest story Jesus ever told…)