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Home Sweet Home
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When the self-help gurus are trying to coax us into the up-by-the-bootstraps position, they often throw out this little nugget of wisdom: "Any job worth doing is worth doing well." Being the trained professional slacker that I am, I have managed to turn this motivational goad inside out. (I am a professional--do not try this at home.) If any job worth doing is worth doing well, doesn't it follow that any job you cannot do well isn't worth doing? It is my practice to sooth my conscience for my perennial weaknesses by denigrating the importance of what I cannot seem to do. Keeping one's work area neat, that's something for small minds to do. Getting chickens to lay eggs, that's a matter of complete indifference in the grand scheme of things. This little twist works wonders for my self-image, and we all know how important that is. The trouble is that sometimes I have trouble doing things I'm supposed to be able to do well. I am, while wearing several of my hats, a professional wordsmith. You will never catch me saying "You know, it doesn't really matter if I can't communicate very well. What difference could that make?" I spend far too much time teaching either with my pen or my tongue to lose interest in words. Yet, try as I might, and now after having five years to learn how, I still cannot succeed in communicating what it is we do here at the Highlands Study Center, nor what we love so deeply about it. Words fail me, or, rather, I fail words. There are some things I can explain about what we do. You all know what a magazine is. You're holding one. (For those of you reading this on the net, make that an e-zine, and shame on you anyhow, zip us an email with your address and then you'll be able to read it the proper way.) All of you can grasp what a Bible study is, like the ones we offer on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. All of you have had classes before, and so have some idea of what we do at the Highlands Academy. And I venture to guess that nearly all of you have been to a conference before, or attended camp. But as much as we enjoy doing them, these "programs" are not really what we do. And they certainly are not what we are. Another approach I could take would be to run through a list of the things we're for. We're covenental, agrarian (or at least want to be), and Reformed. We believe in homeschooling, courtship and headship. We leave our family size in the hands of God, and lead His blessings into worship daily. We make our own salsa, our own bread, some of our daughters' dresses, and our own beer. In short, we're a hardy band of prairie muffins, but of the Scottish variety. But that's not it either. What we are escapes words, not because the words are not powerful enough, but because they are too powerful. When we take the poetry of the grace of God and try to reformat it into some sort of equation, when we try to crunch the numbers of God, something amorphous, ethereal, somthing that is at once full of power and impossible to pinpoint, slips through our fingers like quicksilver. What we're left with is nuts and bolts, even perhaps a schematic drawing, but the life has left. The best word I can come up with is home. Laurence is the guilty part in coming up with the theme of this issue. The process by which we do this is very messy--it usually involves maple syrup and runny eggs. We, back before we made the big time with a daily radio program, used to meet with several men for breakfast once a week. (And I'm sure the audience in the diner is larger than our current radio audience.) Laurence, ever mindful of the need to obey the letter of the law in order to write off the meal, asks "What do you think we should do the next issue of ETC about?" Only last time he said "I think we should have the theme of 'home sweet home.'" Sometimes we hammer out some broad ideas on how to connect the theme to the theme of each column. Sometimes we don't. Then I go home and write out a list of basic ideas for each of the columns, contact the writers, and let them know a little of what we would like them to say. There, at the top of this list, is this little reminder of what this column is to be about: "a sense of place." Now is everything abundantly clear? I've charged myself with the task of communicating to you what I am unable to communicate even to myself. But I have no one to blame but myself. What we love about our little community is that there is a here here. Where we are is distinct from everywhere else. Some of those someplace elses are also distinct, but those kinds of places are getting fewer and fewer. Too many places are becoming indistinguishable collections of strip malls filled with indistinguishable exercise clubs, Hallmark stores and Blockbuster Video stores, with an Arby's somewhere out front in the parking lot. In these towns you drive a few blocks for a change of pace--a strip mall with K-Mart, a hair salon and a bad Chinese restaurant. And if you're in the city you can drive a few miles up the interstate to the next suburb, and see the same thing all over again. Here in southwest Virginia we have mountains that look like molehills compared to the Rockies, forests that look like so much grass compared to the redwoods of California. We have a river that runs through it that looks like a brook compared to the Mississippi. God has not blessed us with any overwhelming superlatives, but He has given us a place. Home, however, is not just about geography. We know we are home when we see the same old diner that has been feeding generations. But we also know we are home when we see the same old folks in that diner. That we stay and make it home helps to make it home. The center of this is, of course, our Reformed community. Next Sunday evening, as with every Sunday evening that is the fifth Sunday of the month, we will worship together with five other area Reformed circles. No church is there trolling for new members. No church is there to pick a fight over liturgical versus traditional worship, or over classical versus presuppositional apologetics. We're there to see our friends. Tonight, two of those friends are putting on a baby shower for a third friend. Monique Dewey is about to give birth to her seventh child. She and Mark, and the children as their family has grown, have traveled all over the country. Mark's work has taken him to Michigan, Louisiana, California, New York, Florida and Pennsylvania. And Monique has gone through six children without a single shower. (She will also, God willing, for the first time have the baby delivered by the same doctor that cared for her during the pregnancy, the husband of the host of the shower.) There's something wrong with that. If we cannot join in with friends to celebrate the impending arrival of a new blessing, we're far from home. But it doesn't stop there. Just as my attempt to describe home, to reduce it down to something that can be expressed in words, somehow takes something out of the real thing, so too does the creation of fellowship programs at the church rob us of some of the joy and meaning of the fellowship. Scheduling fellowship is not unlike scheduling time for bouncing baby on the knee. The charm evaporates, for both parties. We actually run into our friends, because in part we are not in a megapolis. Our circles are small enough, we live close enough to each other, that our paths cross even when we don't mean for them to. We pass each other on the road, and no matter how many more miles we have to go, we know that we are home. We run into each other at the grocer's, or at the diner. Though it is at its most sweet when it is with likeminded people, we find ourselves even rejoicing when running into those to whom our ideological kinship is not quite so tight. I not only visit with Frank (my local homebrew supplier) when I am in his shop, but I see him at the vet's. I ask after Myra, his chronically overweight labrador, and he asks after my children (all of whom love to go to Frank's and visit Myra). We run into the dentist at the county fair, and at the piano teacher's house. The result is not flashy. I don't get an overpowering home "high" when these things happen. But that's not what home is about. Home is sweet, not spicy. This sense of place gives a sense of peace. It is more of an anchor than a big wave to surf, more the strong tower than the bungee ride down. We have it because we have sought it. For many of the locals this sense of place is as natural, and as unnoticed, as the air they breathe. We came here, however, because there was no air to breathe in the many places we came from. We were deliberate in choosing simplicity, and such sets us apart, makes us separate. We don't have access to the beach, nor to multi-mile long ski runs. We do not have high-speed cable access to the internet, but we are quite at home on this side of the digital divide. We don't even have a Thai restaurant within an hour's drive. What we have is a sense of place, a place where, even though we don't yet talk like the locals, we know we belong. And while I can hope against hope that my children will catch the accent, I know that they will be like the locals, and not even know that it is possible to not be home. I know that they will never know that the world is filled with sad and wandering wretches who left home in search of a pot of gold on the other side of the rainbow. They will forget when we arrived, and like a child in a dream, even as they grow old, believe that they have always been here. This place will be to them as the water is to the fish, as it has become to us, a source of daily life. And so they will fail to thank us. But their peace, their sense of place, will be all the thanks we need. This is not really a sales pitch. Or, rather, it is not an attempt to persuade you to move here. (You can find that in our Apologia column for this issue.) (And of course we hope you will.) But it is a sales pitch to make a home somewhere. Get close to God's covenant people. Get to know your neighbors, and those with whom you transact business. Be a neighbor, as Christ has commanded. Get out of the rat race. Find a sense of place, and when you have, you will know that you must never leave. For you will have found your own little corner of heaven, that will be joined with ours, and all of the corners of the world, in the eternal heavens and the eternal earth. Put your heart where your home is, and you will never be sorry. Fail to do so, and you will never go home.
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