TheLifeIWant

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Home as Sanctuary, Refuge

Rumors are flying on both sides of the political spectrum, as America heads toward the anticipated inauguration of Joe Biden next Wednesday. It’s a difficult time, and not a little alarming, as Trump supporters and other Conservatives are threatened with retaliation by those on the Left.

A few years ago, Rod Dreher wrote a book called The Benedict Option, in which he urges people to consider following the example of the venerable Father Benedict of Nursia, who abandoned Rome and headed to the hills to dwell in caves before he was persuaded to take leadership of a monastic community. From that community he wrote a Rule which has become the standard of many successive Orders’* Rules over the centuries, and is still read and aspired to by Benedictines, today. Dreher recommends abandoning society and retreating to a more isolated life away from the controversies and difficulties of modern society.

Of course, Benedict left the depravities of Rome, not its collapse. And he didn’t have the technologies to complicate his life that we do, today.

Fact is, a full withdrawal from the world is extremely difficult in the 21st century. We have families, jobs, obligations of varied descriptions that make a full retreat impossible.

However, there is something to be considered in the Rule and life of St. Benedict that is useful for us all: the mandate to consider every dimension of our lives as belonging to God. He required his communities to set aside very particular times of the day to pray (the Mass and the Divine Office/Liturgy of the Hours), to study, to labor. In addition, his counsel calls his communities, and us, to remember that every dimension and aspect of life is God’s. The tools of life did not belong to the monk, nor even to the monastery; they were God’s, and were expected to be treated respectfully in consequence of that reality.

Likewise, our lives and our homes belong to God. And in a world where so much stress and uncertainty are at the fore (Will more shutdowns cost me work, and income? Will political and theological convictions jeopardize my employment?) the only place where we really have influence and some degree of control is in our homes.

The control should, must! be used to make our homes places of refuge from the world — for our families, certainly, but also for our neighbors and friends who are drawn to us to share concerns, burdens, prayer, need in an uncertain and frightening time. Reduce/eliminate clutter. Establish a place for everything and put items in their proper place (a great personal challenge). Cultivate a standard of hospitality, not entertainment, for welcoming friends to your home. Plain simple food with warmth and affection in the atmosphere is far more soul-nurturing than an impressive meal with stress and irritation.

In the coming days we will be called upon to comfort and encourage others, in and out of our family circle. Let’s be careful not to look on this challenge as a burden, but as our calling as home-makers. Let’s establish as our objective that all who enter our homes might sense God’s holy and healing presence there.

  • An Order, for my nonCatholic readers, is a community founded upon the particular gifts and insights of its founder — i.e., the Franciscans (St Francis of Assissi), the Domincans (St. Dominic), the Benedictines (St. Benedict), et al. Each Community and its daughter houses adhere to a Rule which outlines the particulars for that community, that Order, to live out its special gifts and calling.
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A North Carolina Tar Heel in the Heart of Acadiana

I’m not accustomed to having windows open and to be wondering whether I ought to just go ahead and turn on the a/c on New Year’s Eve. Welcome to Southern Louisiana! Evidently this isn’t at all unheard of, around here. We’re also under a tornado watch, as a cold front is coming through overnight, dropping our temps from (low) 60 to 47 and (high) 76 to 59 for New Year’s Day. That’s still on the mild side, isn’t it? Uh, yes, it is.

I haven’t done as much exploring of my region as I’d like. I live in a lovely town, one which date from about the same period as my home area in the Sandhills of North Carolina. That makes it one of the newer towns down here; there are towns like St. Martinville and New Iberia that date from the mid-1700s (and had European settlers in the area at what were simple trading outposts, much earlier, late 1600s-early 1700s). This area is also pretty “English,” in contrast to “Cajun,” although there’s a large Cajun population here. We are very much in the heart of Acadiana.

I grew up in town in NC but I have farming roots on both sides of my family. so the agricultural makeup of this area fascinates me. Now, I know what a tobacco field looks like, and peach orchards, and soybeans, and a variety of other crops grown in quantity up in The Old North State. But I’m not so sure what I’m looking at, yet, down here. I assume the recently-flooded fields that were so cleanly plowed and disked, just a couple weeks ago, are rice fields, as I live near the nation’s Rice Capitol, but that assumption is based entirely on my reading of the novels of Pearl S. Buck. They could be crawfish fields, too, but I’m more inclined to think the fields that had some water and a lot of plant growth even after being drained last year are the crawfish farms. I don’t know who can clear that up for me, yet, but I keep looking. Sugar cane, on the other hand, is pretty easy to recognize, and there’s a lot of that here and south toward the “coast –”

— if you can call it the coast. The Louisiana coastline is primarily swamp that becomes the Gulf oF Mexico, unlike the Carolinas’ flat and distinct sandy coastline.

Another big difference is that, although the Coastal Plain of NC is flat as flat can be, there are miles upon miles of woodlands. Here almost all land is under cultivation. The only place I’ve seen real forests are actually down along the Atchafalaya Swamp. Everywhere else, there are hedge rows and trees in people’s yards, but not acres and miles of woodland. That is peculiar, but it also gives one a vista that is out of this world — miles and miles of open land to the horizon, allowing you to see the moon coming up over the horizon and the water tower of the town maybe 12 miles away.

This is also a big beef area. I get a kick out of seeing pastures with cows and small lots with cows all around here. There are some breeds I know, like the Hereford, Brahma, Angus, and Charolais, and a couple of breeds I’m not sure of at all. They all help me feel at home, as cows are also a staple of the NC agricultural scene. More and more, this area, which has felt like home since my first visit nearly two years ago, is getting into my bones, and i absolutely love it.

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New Life Well Begun

I wonder whether this might not be a good time to revive this blog. The past year has seen a lot of changes in my life, including a major move to another part of the country, and I once again have new material to write about. I’ve not posted in months and months. I ran out of steam; living in depression is exhausting. But my new home is full of unfamiliar and interesting things to write about, and evoke reflections that might be of interest or benefit to someone, somewhere, so I believe I shall try again.

The shift began a year ago, early fall, when several things converged in my mind to make me aware that I very much wanted and needed a major life change, specifically, a move. One of the big issues influencing my decision was the arrival of my 62 birthday. My mother was 62 (and 5 months, 6 days) when she died of cancer, in 1991. To me, she had always been old. Poor health, most notably in the frequent recurrence of debilitating migraines, had robbed her of a lot of energy and ambition. Being “too old” was always her excuse not to make needed changes in her life; the fact was, I think, my poor mother’s spirit was too badly wounded and she simply hadn’t the confidence to do a thing about her unhappy life.

I did not want to be like my mother. Not in that respect, anyway (I have many much more interesting and worthwhile things in common with her). I wanted to live while I could, not to be confined to others’ expectations and demands, or their limited vision of my capabilities, or the constant reminders that, for years, for others, no matter how hard I had tried I could never be good enough to warrant their approval, or their love.

The only way that seemed open to me was a move, and the desire for a move was revealing itself in subtle ways, once realized begging action, even though physical and financial limitations made a move appear impossible.

I began to pray, “Father, may I?” not really believing that I could, only knowing that I wanted to, with no reservations left in mind.

Things began to happen with amazing speed, and in February, my NC home sold, I travelled to my chosen region on what I thought would be my first “recon mission.” I arrived on Thursday night. Friday I met with a realtor and found a charming house to rent in a pleasant neighborhood at a rental price within my budget and far less than comparable properties rent for in my former area. As the realtor, a lovely, vivacious Christian woman, and I sat on the front steps, talking, she suddenly burst out, “Laura! You need to get in touch with the pastor at First Church! They just lost their organist! She’d been there more than fifty years . . . ”

I sat on the job lead, unsure the timing would work out. But Sunday I got a message from the pastor, could I come and meet with him Monday afternoon? My realtor had given my number to her friend, who’d passed it on to the pastor. I left that meeting with a new job.

One more day in town to visit with friends, then back to NC to pack, and even there God had His hand in the matter. Instead of having to pay several thousand for professional movers to help me out, friends offered to use their church’s mission trailer and move me themselves, for the cost of their expenses. Other friends came and helped me pack and sort . . . I found a taker for my older mobile home (which had not gone with the sale of the real property) who also helped me with the clean-up.

In less than two weeks, I was back on the road for good.