I was reading the article by Joshua Becker: "Those Things By Which We Get Embarrassed" and he made this statement: "What if, instead of being embarrassed because our house is too small, we became embarrassed over the amount of unused space within it?"
As I read this article I thought about my visit with a dear neighbor, Jesse Ann, this past weekend. She lived next to us when we were small and has continued to maintain her parents' house next to daddy's (my house), even though they have been gone many years. She spends Wednesdays and Saturdays each week at the old homeplace. What a wonderful visit we had - talking about days gone by and some more recent memories of daddy, which brought us both to tears. The Weavers were such good neighbors. Oh the magic of ordinary days!
The inside of the little farm house still looked much like I remembered it as a child growing up. The beautiful pine wainscot paneling in the "front room". Jessie Ann gifted me with some absolute treasures that belonged to her parents that I will cherish and I hope my children will too after I'm gone, knowing "the history" behind them and the memories attached.. A couple of old (1930) churns and other collections that she wanted me to have.
Among them were two old books about the history of Fayette.
Sitting there in the small farmhouse having conversation with Jessie Ann, I thought about how life seemed so much more simple in days gone by. Memories came to me of running barefoot along the path from our house to theirs. She must have thought I was such a country bumpkin. "Probably still does". It seems that people were much more relational then. And even though life was hard, the hurried pressures of day-to-day life that we live under now were non-existent.
We have enjoyed reading the stories about the history of Fayette - some from the 1900 - such comical entries in the local paper about events such as "fisticuffs" and items like "demijohns" which I had to seek the definition. As I was reading those stories it was even more magnified how much more connected folks were then and my soul longs for that. They worked hard "together" and they celebrated accomplishments together. It seems to me that folks were less interested in themselves and their personal interests. It was more about "community".
You know, I guess we can just "wish" for a simpler life with days of enjoying lemonade with our neighbors after a hard days work OR we can purpose to create those times in our own life today.
Somehow, I think we believe it's either one or the other - work OR play. But one huge important thing our daddy taught us - work and play go together! "Many hands make the work load light!" And even fun. Make a party out of everything!!
To quote Johnny Williamson, "It's very simple. Now I didn't say it was easy, but it's simple. You just have to make up your mind to do it."
Always keep "The Son" in your eyes.
Becky
A little interesting history
