J. Davy Crockett III

Some time ago as I visited a member of the Church in a nursing home, which was a new facility with a lot of amenities, I said to the dear lady, “This is a very nice place!” As she sat in her wheelchair, she looked at me with sadness and said, “This is a place full of homesick people!” “Are you homesick, I asked?” “Oh,” she said, “this place will never be home!” Though I have visited many such facilities before and since that afternoon, I’ve never heard a more poignant definition or description of a nursing home.

The old Victory Hotel had seen better days. In fact, at that time, some 40 years ago, it was an abandoned building, shuttered and boarded up, though it was only a stone’s throw from the main railway station in the city. Passenger trains were no longer in vogue, and this area had become a pocket of decay in the city.

In the well-known biblical account of the prophet Jonah, God instructed His reluctant Israelite servant to deliver a warning to the city of Nineveh, an Assyrian stronghold. Assyria was traditionally a bitter enemy of Israel. Jonah unwisely attempted to shirk his duty and flee from his responsibility. To get away, he booked passage on a ship in Joppa (modern-day Jaffa) going to Tarshish, which some theories connect with an ancient port also called Tartessos in the region of what is now Spain, though other theories abound.