Several years ago I was living in Kokomo while serving as a student pastor. While I was there, the minivan of my host family developed an issue with the internal compass. It never pointed in the right direction. We noticed something was up when we were traveling south and it told us that we were going northeast. That doesn’t sound like a huge deal, but a wrong compass can mess you up, especially when traveling in unfamiliar territory.

My grandpa Denham grew up in the tenements of Glasgow back when the residents leaned out the window and shouted, “Comin’ oot!” and threw the contents of the chamber pot into the street. Grandpa got sick of being dumped on and brought his brood to Minneapolis and he never looked back. He wasn’t nostalgic about his origins. He was happy to be here.