A sense of place in the family business

In my last reflection, Samson wrestles with the difficult choice of whether to admit to Delilah the secret of his strength. He chooses to do so, and she in turn tells the Philistines, who torture and imprison him.

Many people remember the end of Samson’s story being about God’s favor returning to Samson one last time, and he destroys himself along with a great number of Philistines gathered in a temple. For my final post on Samson, however, my focus is on the verse after Samson’s death, when his family comes to bury him:

Then his brothers and all his family came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the tomb of Manoah his father. He had judged Israel twenty years. (Judges 16:31)

Samson’s family, who was last mentioned decades before, comes to get Samson’s body. They take him to the place where his father is buried, between Zorah and Eshtaol. Remember this is also the place where the Spirit of God first stirred in Samson. It was a special place to Samson and his family, and they made sure Samson rested there.

I know many family members who are strongly attached to a particular place. They are deeply rooted in a geography that might represent the history of their family, a physical and symbolic waypoint in their personal development, a place of spiritual awakening, or a station on their coming-of-age journey. It is, quite possibly, a place where their “spirit was stirred.”

I’m reminded of Walter Brueggeman’s quote in his book about Israel’s relationship to the land:

Place is space that has historical meanings, where some things have happened that are now remembered and that provide continuity and identity across generations. Place is space in which important words have been spoken that have established identity, defined vocation, and envisioned destiny.

Do you have a place to which you or your family is firmly attached? Do your family members know the reasons why a particular place is important in your life?