I dream of moving. Florida, in all of it's balmy beauty, is not home. I have always said that home is where my husband and kids are, and that is still true to some extent, by my soul calls out for the mountains of the West. Like deep calling deep. I pine for the jutting mesa-scapes of New Mexico, for the aspens of southern Colorado, for the gasping awe every time I looked out the window and saw a mountain. I also miss the wild west attitude - the whole "tie myself to a bulldozer b/c we don't want your stinkin Walmart screwing up our landscape" mentality. Oh, and "Don't tell me how to school my children. I don't even need to inform you of my plans to teach them at home, much less let you look at their work and judge them." Not to mention, the radical idea that minorities can govern. And women are equal. And same sex marriage is not the end of life as we know it. And a giant pick-up truck painted front to back with an American flag does not make you more American than me. But I digress....
Is a person's home just where they choose to make it? Could I *choose* contentment and beauty in FL? Am I not content because I don't want to be? I think the ocean is beautiful (although the beach is covered with red tide b/c of all kinds of man-made selfishness, but that's another post), but not awe inspiring. I want to wake up in the morning and have my soul rumbled by my environment. I don't want to be comfortable - mountains make me extremely uncomfortable and thoughtful.
What do you think? Should I choose contentment? Or allow the drive in me to push me back to the Rockies?
Posts
2 comments:
What can I say, you nailed it as usual. I've spent most of my life wanting to be somewhere else. There were even moments of yearning in paradise I seem to recall. On a cool bright morning just a few days ago I was up in the hills riding a favorite trail and it dawned on me - with some gravity:
There's no where else I'd rather be right now than here, doing this.
It was a profound moment. One new to me and I relished it for the whole day. I often envy people who seem to be content wherever they are. Lots of that probably comes from inner peace but we are spirits in a body who experience life through that body and it's environment. Thus there is a tie between the three, spirit, body, environment. They interact and influence one another.
My personal feeling on this matter is the West is calling you - please come!!
Yearning to be somewhere else....it is such a common human dilema that "greener pastures" is a term everyone knows and relates to. Sometimes, when I am nursing and ministering to precious people, my heart just feels rock solid. I am exactly where God wants me to be, I know it, I feel it in my bones. But only for a moment in time. Maybe that is the key. He keeps us moving, and then in those ethereal moments, He allows us to feel at home. But just for a moment, because our real home is not here. It's with Him.
Post a Comment