If you stand on the banks of a river and step into the water, then step out, and step in again, have you stepped into the same river or a different river?
Greek philosopher Heraclitus answers: "Into the same river we step and do not step. We are and we are not."
12 September 2007
11 September 2007
A lifelong dream fulfilled
People often ask us if buying the farm is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. When we say no, that owning a farm never occurred to us, not even once, not until we saw Four Cedars Farms, they seem surprised.
Early in our relationship, before marriage, before kids, before serious employment, before the house in the suburbs, Jim and I had talked about leaving our hometown and seeking adventure in some exotic destination, far removed our parents, our homes and the traditional path toward the future every one of our friends seemed to be traveling on. We were convinced that if only we could go someplace we’d never been, the adventure of it would eclipse any of the mundane activities we would certainly participate in there, such as studying. For a reason I could never explain, Michigan seemed to fall within the definition of “exotic.” Neither of us had been there, it had good skiing and cherry orchards and three great lakes, all displayed in an attractive brochure; we quickly decided the first place we’d unfold our new life together, this life of adventure, ought to be in Michigan. Never mind that neither of us ski; it was Michigan or bust!
Well, we didn’t get to Michigan until our oldest moved there a few years back. When we look behind us to the path that led us here, we realize we did travel the safe and familiar roads, the paths that gave the children stability and our family economic security. Our life evolved so quickly, we never really revisited the idea of escaping to someplace exotic. (Well, there was that one week in Grand Cayman.)
When we stumbled upon Four Cedars, we were simply looking for a place to get away to on weekends, perhaps to fish, or sit in a lawn chair with a good book. There was nothing outlandish to be said about those goals for a middle-of-the-road middle age. Then, we stumbled upon a farm for sale… .
There was nothing beautiful about this farm when we first laid our eyes upon its grounds and buildings. It was rundown, neglected, in need of the kind of love that turned Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree from a shedding twig into a thick spruce. It needed a handyman like Jim. But from the moment we laid our eyes upon this property, we felt adventure awakening deep within us; it was that feeling we shared in the late 1970s, a feeling we both thought had died decades ago from neglect. It was a desire to take to a world we hadn’t ever seen. To learn from the ground up.
This farm was miles from our hometown and our families and the traditional path on which most of our middle-age friends now travel. It represented an entirely new experience, too, because neither of us had ever before lived anywhere outside the Twin Cities. It would require us to learn, together, and to view each new day from a different perspective, to discover something about each other and something about ourselves. In a way, then, this farm gives us everything that we thought Michigan would so many years ago.
Perhaps you could ask me: Is owning a farm the fulfillment of a lifelong dream? If you asked, I would say, yes.
Early in our relationship, before marriage, before kids, before serious employment, before the house in the suburbs, Jim and I had talked about leaving our hometown and seeking adventure in some exotic destination, far removed our parents, our homes and the traditional path toward the future every one of our friends seemed to be traveling on. We were convinced that if only we could go someplace we’d never been, the adventure of it would eclipse any of the mundane activities we would certainly participate in there, such as studying. For a reason I could never explain, Michigan seemed to fall within the definition of “exotic.” Neither of us had been there, it had good skiing and cherry orchards and three great lakes, all displayed in an attractive brochure; we quickly decided the first place we’d unfold our new life together, this life of adventure, ought to be in Michigan. Never mind that neither of us ski; it was Michigan or bust!
Well, we didn’t get to Michigan until our oldest moved there a few years back. When we look behind us to the path that led us here, we realize we did travel the safe and familiar roads, the paths that gave the children stability and our family economic security. Our life evolved so quickly, we never really revisited the idea of escaping to someplace exotic. (Well, there was that one week in Grand Cayman.)
When we stumbled upon Four Cedars, we were simply looking for a place to get away to on weekends, perhaps to fish, or sit in a lawn chair with a good book. There was nothing outlandish to be said about those goals for a middle-of-the-road middle age. Then, we stumbled upon a farm for sale… .
There was nothing beautiful about this farm when we first laid our eyes upon its grounds and buildings. It was rundown, neglected, in need of the kind of love that turned Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree from a shedding twig into a thick spruce. It needed a handyman like Jim. But from the moment we laid our eyes upon this property, we felt adventure awakening deep within us; it was that feeling we shared in the late 1970s, a feeling we both thought had died decades ago from neglect. It was a desire to take to a world we hadn’t ever seen. To learn from the ground up.
This farm was miles from our hometown and our families and the traditional path on which most of our middle-age friends now travel. It represented an entirely new experience, too, because neither of us had ever before lived anywhere outside the Twin Cities. It would require us to learn, together, and to view each new day from a different perspective, to discover something about each other and something about ourselves. In a way, then, this farm gives us everything that we thought Michigan would so many years ago.
Perhaps you could ask me: Is owning a farm the fulfillment of a lifelong dream? If you asked, I would say, yes.
10 September 2007
Listen to old words a new way
Years ago, I was acquainted with a man who, like me, had been raised Catholic. He married a Methodist woman in the early 1980s and each remained faithful to the tradition of their upbringing for the first few years of their marriage. After awhile, though, he began to frequent his wife’s church and eventually, he stopped attending Catholic services altogether.
Part of me sympathized with this man. I think it's very important for a husband and wife to share the same values, and certainly a family routine is less complicated when spouses are actively involved in the same faith tradition, especially when children enter the family. Yet, I was also troubled, not because of his decision but because I didn't know what thought process brought him to this change. (I'm a writer; I dig the thought process.) I wanted to ask him about his switch, but hesitated because I didn’t want him to think I was judging him. His situation didn’t raise my ire; it simply piqued my curiosity.
When we were alone for a few minutes, I looked for some insight by asking him one simple question: “Do you miss the Mass?”
“It never changes,” he complained. “The readings I hear are the same readings I’ve been hearing since second grade. It’s always the same.” I listened to him describe how vibrant the service at his new church was, how he was captivated by how they “mixed things up.” I left our conversation with the sense that the tradition of his youth had gone flat for him, that he needed more stimulation. He needed things outside of him to change so he could stay engaged.
Well, it’s true that the readings used throughout the Catholic liturgical calendar do repeat, if not every year, every few years. It’s also true that the format for the Mass hasn’t changed all that much through the centuries. Yet even though the Scripture text may not change, we do.
I can listen to the story of the prodigal son today and contemplate it in an entirely different way than I did when I last heard it. When I was twenty, the message embedded in the story of the Good Samaritan was much different than when I heard the same story, the same words, read to me this summer. I am a different person than I was while in grade school, while in high school, when I was thirty; even since Spring, I have grown and evolved. I have changed. And so the same words strike my ears differently each time I hear them.
I think this man was misleading himself when he felt tradition ought to change in order to hold his interest. Tradition isn’t meant to change. If it was, we'd call it trend.
But we are supposed to change. And when we do, when we evolve and grow, we bring richness to tradition that will keep it vibrant and relevant for a lifetime.
If you embrace tradition, there’s no need to "mix things up." Listen to those same old words; just make sure you bring your freshest self to them while you do.
Part of me sympathized with this man. I think it's very important for a husband and wife to share the same values, and certainly a family routine is less complicated when spouses are actively involved in the same faith tradition, especially when children enter the family. Yet, I was also troubled, not because of his decision but because I didn't know what thought process brought him to this change. (I'm a writer; I dig the thought process.) I wanted to ask him about his switch, but hesitated because I didn’t want him to think I was judging him. His situation didn’t raise my ire; it simply piqued my curiosity.
When we were alone for a few minutes, I looked for some insight by asking him one simple question: “Do you miss the Mass?”
“It never changes,” he complained. “The readings I hear are the same readings I’ve been hearing since second grade. It’s always the same.” I listened to him describe how vibrant the service at his new church was, how he was captivated by how they “mixed things up.” I left our conversation with the sense that the tradition of his youth had gone flat for him, that he needed more stimulation. He needed things outside of him to change so he could stay engaged.
Well, it’s true that the readings used throughout the Catholic liturgical calendar do repeat, if not every year, every few years. It’s also true that the format for the Mass hasn’t changed all that much through the centuries. Yet even though the Scripture text may not change, we do.
I can listen to the story of the prodigal son today and contemplate it in an entirely different way than I did when I last heard it. When I was twenty, the message embedded in the story of the Good Samaritan was much different than when I heard the same story, the same words, read to me this summer. I am a different person than I was while in grade school, while in high school, when I was thirty; even since Spring, I have grown and evolved. I have changed. And so the same words strike my ears differently each time I hear them.
I think this man was misleading himself when he felt tradition ought to change in order to hold his interest. Tradition isn’t meant to change. If it was, we'd call it trend.
But we are supposed to change. And when we do, when we evolve and grow, we bring richness to tradition that will keep it vibrant and relevant for a lifetime.
If you embrace tradition, there’s no need to "mix things up." Listen to those same old words; just make sure you bring your freshest self to them while you do.
09 September 2007
Driving in the dark
Author Annie Lamott says that writing a book is like driving at night. You know your destination, you can picture it in your mind, but all you see is the stretch of road that falls under the beam of your headlights. So you have to keep rolling forward, confident in a destination you can’t see, concentrating on what lies immediately in front of you. You go forward slowly. Your journey at any given moment is a length of thirty feet, forty feet tops. That’s where the writer’s work is done, right out front, in the headlights.
Being in transition also is like driving at night, I think, except the destination is undetermined. You don’t know what it looks like and can’t picture it because you’ve never been. You know you’re headed somewhere, but that’s all you know. So, you worry about the climate, or if the people will be nice, or if you’ll be happy once you arrive. And you worry that you’ll forget the route back, you’ll never again see your old friends, never again see the house in which you were raised. You’ll begin to think that old adage about never being able to go home again might just be true.
I have a friend who seems troubled by a transition that threatens stability, which he defines as “knowing where my home is.” I’ve had another woman tell me recently that “home is where your mother is.” Transition guru William Bridges says as people move toward the autumn of their lives, their transition is an effort to regain the “inner home.” I presume he’s really saying transition is our clumsy attempt to get our arms around the spirit that dwells within us. All of these perspectives on home are worth pondering.
I have another friend who lost her father to Alzheimer’s disease; her family’s experience is included in the anthology Voices of Alzheimer’s. She tells me people with Alzheimer’s universally express a desire to “go home.” I find it fascinating that when all else is dissipating in their minds, Alzheimer’s patients fixate on “home” as a destination they believe will give them respite from the ravages of their disease. Peace. I guess home, as a concept, is one deeply embedded in our tissue.
Of course, home can be where you came from, where you are, or a place you’ll find at the end of a long journey; it just depends upon where you happen to be along life’s highway. My favorite thought on "home," however, comes from a Virginia-based folk singer: “Home is where my heart’s at rest.”
Being in transition also is like driving at night, I think, except the destination is undetermined. You don’t know what it looks like and can’t picture it because you’ve never been. You know you’re headed somewhere, but that’s all you know. So, you worry about the climate, or if the people will be nice, or if you’ll be happy once you arrive. And you worry that you’ll forget the route back, you’ll never again see your old friends, never again see the house in which you were raised. You’ll begin to think that old adage about never being able to go home again might just be true.
I have a friend who seems troubled by a transition that threatens stability, which he defines as “knowing where my home is.” I’ve had another woman tell me recently that “home is where your mother is.” Transition guru William Bridges says as people move toward the autumn of their lives, their transition is an effort to regain the “inner home.” I presume he’s really saying transition is our clumsy attempt to get our arms around the spirit that dwells within us. All of these perspectives on home are worth pondering.
I have another friend who lost her father to Alzheimer’s disease; her family’s experience is included in the anthology Voices of Alzheimer’s. She tells me people with Alzheimer’s universally express a desire to “go home.” I find it fascinating that when all else is dissipating in their minds, Alzheimer’s patients fixate on “home” as a destination they believe will give them respite from the ravages of their disease. Peace. I guess home, as a concept, is one deeply embedded in our tissue.
Of course, home can be where you came from, where you are, or a place you’ll find at the end of a long journey; it just depends upon where you happen to be along life’s highway. My favorite thought on "home," however, comes from a Virginia-based folk singer: “Home is where my heart’s at rest.”
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