A Porch To Be Swept

I was reading my favorite columnist, Sharon Randall, yesterday as she talked about their upcoming move to California from Vegas.  Retirement and the grandchildren were calling them back "home" to CA.  In her column spoke about the rituals she performed to get comfortable in new place of residence, whether an apartment, a trailer, or a house.  It got me thinking about all our moves and what each place meant to us.

We have moved 20 times, with 14 of those being major moves to new towns, several states, and one third world country.  We have lived in tiny apartments in both a basement and upstairs of a house, we have lived in an air stream trailer,  duplexes, parsonages, and houses rented and owned.  Packing up and changing locations has been a major part of our marriage.

I think moving can be fun and exciting, but it is also stressful. Starting over can be challenging.  When we were first married we had a built in community in the Air Force and then after seminary in the ministry.  People waiting to welcome us, people who were on the same journey as us, or those awaiting the arrival of a new pastor and family to love on.  For 35 years in ministry, God led us and the people welcomed us.

Unpacking was always an adventure. Finding the right rooms for the family, the right place for things we held dear.  One of the first things I always did was to put up the wall hangings.  You would think they would go up last, but, for me, I took comfort in knowing that those pictures and paintings, many with an emotional attachment, had their rightful place on the walls.  They helped make each house a home.

Our friends who are now full time RV'ers have a house on wheels.  Their location will change periodically except for winters in Tucson.  What they treasure is compact now, with what fits in their movable space.  Their RV has become their home.  The familiar within will be a comfort I expect, as each adventure takes them somewhere new.

Sharon Randall wrote that one of the ways she feels "at home" in a new place is to go out and "sweep the porch", something she and her family in North Carolina have done for generations.  It brought up to me the importance of a porch for us.  Decks are more popular than ever, but I have noticed that many houses also have porches.  When we added a porch to the front of our house 10 years ago, it not only changed the look of our home, but it changed us inside.  We love "porch time".  In the sun or rain we are protected from the weather and yet able to get outdoors.  I am not sure I would want to live without a porch again.  It soothes my soul.

Life often redefines where we call home.  In Randall's column she stated that a home is a place where you offer hospitality.  Where you put your feet on the couch and your coffee on the table, turning your TV up too loud.  It is a place of peace where you welcome family and friends.  I can only nod in agreement with her wise words.  And hopefully it is a place for your hopes and dreams, your memories, and even a porch to be swept.

Home Is Where Your Story Begins

I looked over a friend's recent photos on her blog and saw a picture of a wooden bird house with one word written below.  Home.  I had just finished writing about "home" and how my favorite columnist Sharon Randall, defines it.

Seeing that birdhouse made me think of the house Joel made that graces our lilac trees in the backyard. A place wrens nest every year.  And our resident duck couple who come to nest in our neighbor's yard each Spring.  They come back to the neighborhood when the snow leaves, and we look forward to greeting them.  Yesterday we heard our residential female cardinal as she sang her familiar song. The same crazy robin seems to be back after a year of reprieve, a day after we had just talked about robins that continually bang against a window ~ maybe talking about it was a bad idea.  And the deer......our neighbor continues to feed them (sigh) and yesterday I went out on our deck and shooed them away, chasing 6 of them out of our yard and away from another neighbor's, where they were raiding his bird feeder.  I like deer......I do NOT like ticks.  Definitely the animals and birds are holding the belief that Spring is here to stay.

Regarding birds, I wondered why certain ones call Iowa home?  Why do they settle here and not head further north?  What calls them to our corner of the world and are they mostly snow birds returning to their "homes" along with their human counterparts?  Dr. Google says that most have a remarkable ability to come back to a particular place.  They may come back to the same back yard, and even the same tree.  They have cues they use to get there.  They are born with genetically encoded routes, timing, etc. in their brains.  Amazing, isn't it!  Only God.

One of our families has been on a great adventure across the sea, and will be soon be back to their own beds at night.  They have no genetically codes to lead them, but I am thinking they will be expressing the "home sweet home" phrase after plane and time changes and so many days of new places and new things.

Home.  Songs are written about it.  Christmas sentiments make us think of that place we each name. We are not like the birds with inbuilt honing devices to draw us back to the place we came from, yet often we are drawn back...........whether your home was a place of the good, the bad, or the ugly, that world brings up images and emotions for each of us.

I expect we all do our best to make our domestic nests welcoming, restful, and a good place to be. We may not always appreciate our home until we are away from it, though.   Looking around our current place of residence today, I am grateful for the familiar.....the sun streaming in the window across the floor....the cozy sofa with my pile of books close by.  The sound of the furnace as it kicks in to take off the chill.......the large windows that bring the outside in and from where I can view nature.....the sounds of my soulmate doing life.   May the place you lay your head tonight, bring you the peace and contentment longed for.  Home.  So many great quotes about it.

"He is happiest whether king or peasant, who finds peace in his home."

" The magic thing about home is that it feels good to leave, and it feels even better to come back."

"Home is where the heart is."

"There is no place like home".

"Home is people, not a place."

"Home is where your story begins"

Welcome Home!

I was reading a post written by my favorite columnist, Sharon Randall, and she asked questions that she asks of many she meets, "Where are you from?"....and...."How do you define home?  It set me thinking.  It has been on my mind in this senior season of our lives, a time of wanting roots while hungering for the more.  Desiring something new while making the effort to embrace what is.  Where is home?  What is home?  Randall defines home as where her people and land co-exist.....so I pondered.

Joel grew up on the family farm, 1/8 mile from their country church.  Surrounding him were family and friends as far as the eye could see.  Yet at his mother's suggestion he left home at age 20 and headed down to The Lutheran Bible Institute smack in the middle of a big city.  We met there, graduated, married and headed out and away from anything or anyone we knew.

I moved a lot as a child, from house to house, town to town, state to state.  When I was three I called the car "home".  I expect it was a familiar place for me.  From age 12-18 I lived in a small three bedroom 1950's house with my newly defined family.  I moved in with my older sister and her husband in 6th grade and her children became my siblings while my two sisters remained my sisters. Complicated?  Not for me.  Even though I left home at 18 and have not lived there is 51 years, I can visualize every room, every closet, every corner of that house where I felt safe, loved, and happy. More than a few years ago now, that house was demolished along with many others that stood in a flood zone.  It rests in my memories.

After Joel and I married the Air Force sent us around the country and across the world.  When Joel became an ordained minister we continued to travel to new houses, new churches, new towns.  We enjoyed friends and congregations very much, but always put down shallow roots because we knew what the future held ~ another move.

Our children endured many moves with their parents.  I am not sure where our children call home, since none of them live where we reside.    Is it when we gather as a family once a year, or is is where they live and where each of them has put down roots, bypassing childhood visions of "home", for their people and land where roots run deep?   It makes sense.   Home is where the heart is............

And where does that put us?  We are coming up this month on the 21st year we have lived in this town. Joel has preached in 24 of the churches in the synod.  We have lived in three houses here, the last one for nearly 13 years.  Yet, our roots are still not very deep.  If a stranger asks us where we are from, my reply is "We are from Minnesota, but we live in Iowa for now."  No offense to those we know well here, but we have never felt this was a permanent place for us.

If you read my writings here, you know that this topic of where to call home, defining home, and seeking roots has pulled and tugged on us for awhile now.  Sharon Randall's questions stirred the waters, although to be honest our friends who, too soon for us, will venture out into a new definition of home, have inadvertently got us thinking again.  It does not take much.

So how do we define home?  Familiar land take us back to our hometowns, but we have been gone for over 50 years, only visiting briefly at times.  Mostly for us, home is defined with the people we love and care about.  Remember the siblings that came into my life at age 12?   "Home" has come with texting.  Crazy?  Maybe not so much.  When my older sister broke her back she was isolated often at home.  We all began texting to get information, but it continued on long after with a way to connect. We share pics, talk politics (we all lean one way), pass on information, and just chat.  A way to connect that has given me a feeling of "going home".   Roots run deep with them and my sisters who helped raise me.  Doubly blessed.

Joel and I talked yesterday about Randall's question, "Where do you call home?"  We both feel that home is where we both are.  Together.  There are always family roots that draw us in, on the farm, and in houses that reside now only in our memories.  There is always our family that brings a definition of who we are, and yet with circumstances and miles between,  in this season of our lives we are most drawn to each other.

I visited with the massage therapist today about her story.  I asked here if she has always lived here and she told me yes.  She even bought the house she grew up in and has lived there nearly 65 years.  I tried to fathom that.  I cannot, and honestly, it would not be on my bucket list.  Even thought it is not all roses by any means, I prefer a life of new adventures.  I guess we are all unique in the way we do life and where we live, but are we unique in how we define home?   I think my favorite columnist has it right.....home is mostly about the people we love and for some the land beneath our feet.

Where are you from?  How do you define "home"?  For some it may be an easy answer....for others complicated.  Whether you are are well rooted, or feel the pull and tug of desiring more,  we know without doubt our final home will be a place of continual joy, rest, glory, and Presence.  And when we arrive we will hear our Papa God say....."welcome home!"

Walking The Land

There is something about the West that has always drawn me.  It is not just because my husband wears cowboy boots, vests, denim shirts, and a great Stetson hat.  No, it is much more.  I love the way the land presents itself.....both barren and beautiful at the same time.  We have lived out west in Utah, New Mexico and Montana and I lived as a child in South Dakota so we are familiar with western landscapes. Each place had it's own beauty to offer.  After returning from Montana to the Minnesota in 1983 we mourned the loss of living in the West for a long time.  It was not just the people, even though they were great.  It was not just the mountains and their majestic beauty, since we did not live near the Rockies.  It was the land.  The history embedded in the land. The pioneer spirit is there ~~independent, rugged, persevering.  We have only been back to visit Montana one time, mostly due to my past health issues, but memories are held close to our hearts.

I am attracted to places like The Pioneer Woman's BLOG, not for the recipes, but for her stories and photos of their life in Oklahoma.  I find it all intriguing.  Wide open spaces, hard work, and a satisfied life.  At least that is how I see it.  Joel and I both like the West.  If we believed in reincarnation, we would be thinking we were once pioneers out west, but since we do not, I think that maybe the beauty of the West, the history the land holds, and our good memories are what pull us in.  I expect it is one of the reasons we liked Gold Canyon AZ so much.  It certainly would not be due to it being near Phoenix.  Gold Canyon sits on the edge, nestled between the Superstition Mountains and the suburbs of that over populated desert city.  There is a rugged beauty to be found there in the green desert.

The land out West draws us.  There are also other places the land calls to us,  but in different ways.  Joel's childhood home and land is familiar and holds history.  In fact we will be buried in the cemetery next to the church where he grew up.  Just a quarter mile from the home farm seventeen Dahlens are buried, so far.  The lakes, rolling hills, and farm fields  where Joel spent his whole childhood bring forth an emotional response.  We are also drawn to the land and front porch of one of our families.  A porch that gives us a view of the flat fields and roads for miles, bringing us a sense of peace and quiet.  Far from town, it holds generations of history that you can sense deep in your soul.  I am grateful that our three treasures there will have that history for themselves and can look back at who walked the land before them.

In our years of moving, the 22 plus moves we have experienced around the country and overseas to the Philippines, our children missed out on putting down any deep roots, and so did we.  But as adults they have each found a place for themselves.....a land where they left footprints that brings them peace and a sense of "here is where we belong".  After a few years of "wandering" they walked the land God gave them and put down roots. They are living out God's purpose for their lives on their own soil and we are so grateful for that.

Do you feel drawn to your own land, a land you have walked on where you held the soil in your hands? Many have done so.  One blogger friend shares amazing photographs of the beauty surrounding her from their home in rural Wisconsin.  Another shares the stunning view she has from her home of a proud towering mountain in Washington state.  Another speaks of their home in the mountains of California. Yet another, city life, vibrant and alive to her.  Each place is as unique as the people who share their stories.  Each one says...."we have come home"......

I cannot express fully the connections between the land, God, and our own need for roots, but as I read Christie Purifoy's book, "Roots and Sky" and as I have read the comments on her blog, this need for roots in a land God has provided resonates with so many people.  This is beyond the desire for roots in the eternal.  It is the need to be able to "walk the land" and know that you know that you know where you belong here on earth.  I believe that sometimes we choose the land and sometimes the land chooses us.

Do you know what my hope and prayer is for each of you, for all of us who desire to walk the land?
That we have found or will find our own place to walk during our journey on earth, where we have dug deep into the soil, put down roots and feel at rest.  A place where our dreams and God's purpose for our life have united together to create the peace and quiet our souls longed for.  A place where we realize "we have come home".

Welcome Home

As I mentioned before, I have been reading Christie Purifoy's book "Roots and Sky". It is not so much a reading of her words but a devouring.  First let me say, sadly, it has been years since I have eaten chocolate chip cookies....but my analogy lies in past experiences!   You know how you lift a warm chocolate chip cookie fresh from the oven to your lips and eat it in three bites, but then when you reach for the second one you take your time to savor its texture, flavor, and sweetness?  Yeah, that would be me with the book,  "Roots and Sky".  Taking in all that I can in big bites, knowing I will go back and read it again, underlining, reflecting, and savoring the texture, flavor and sweetness found within its pages.  Some books are meant to be read more than once.

It is a simple book concept, journaling Christie's perspective of their first year in the red brick Pennsylvania farmhouse they purchased.  A place that Christie, her husband Jonathan, and their children plan to intentionally put down deep roots.  But don't be deceived, because like most simple things, there is the complex to be found within. There are gifts to be opened and at this time in our lives as we long for roots, it has been a delight to read.

"As humans we roam the entire world.  We even venture beyond it into space.  The whole planet is ours, but the whole planet is not our home.  Instead, home is the ground we measure with our own two feet.  And home is the place that measures us.  Home is the place that names us, and that we in turn, name.  It feeds us, body and soul, and if we are living well, we feed it too.  Home is the place we cultivate with our love."  Christie Purifoy

Home.  We have always taken the houses we have lived in and made them into a home.  Did our best to cultivate love and acceptance in a variety of houses.....an old 1930's with an add on kitchen, ranch style parsonages, and one split level on three acres of land.  All without air conditioning, one without bedroom heat, a couple without enough space.  We made do, grateful for a home.   We have owned a variety, too, of mostly "unique" looking homes, since they always drew our attention when house hunting. We fed these places and I think they fed us well, but we knew it would be temporary.  When looking for roots, something more is needed.  Seasons need to pass, but an attitude of "this is where we belong" needs to be nurtured. Revelation comes, and you just know that you know that you know......you are home.  You sense it deep in your soul.

One of our children has a front porch on their house.  It is a place where I am always drawn.  I can sense the generations before that have nurtured and loved the land and this place they called home where roots run deep.   I find it very calming to sit in the early morning light and take in the peace that permeates the air.  It is what we long for in our own "red brick house".  And I believe God will guide us there.

Today I leave you with Christie Purifoy's words......:"This is the inheritance I long for.  I want to observe the ordinary things of earth~~~~the moon, the stars, the rainbows, even the yellowed leaves on the old cherry trees~~and receive their messages.  To hear them say what every weary traveler, every earnest seeker longs to hear ~  Welcome home."

Some day we will be welcomed home to Heaven, our eternal home.  Yet, we were also created to live here on earth and as "earnest seekers" of God's will and His purpose for us in this season of our lives, we long for our own place where we hear the words, "welcome home".  I don't think we have long to wait.