essential living

Yesterday I took a long ride across much of our lovely state, from our area to Harrisonburg.  I wanted to approach the mountains from the backroads, rather than from the highway, a route I had taken many times before.  It was a beautiful experience to take in so much country and to wind through a number of villages with interesting names like Mineral and Bumpass.  Along the way I passed some very old houses and I noticed that one design must have been pretty popular because I saw quite a few dwellings with an identical appearance.  This home style was a very basic two story frame home with a tin roof and a porch off the front.  Over the years some had added a wing coming straight off the back of the original house.  You could almost picture the layout without seeing it.  Two rooms downstairs with kitchen and two, or perhaps three, bedrooms upstairs above the three below.  I thought about the many generations of families that had been raised in these homes.  Although these places were basic they met the needs for shelter required by a family to grow, be nurtured, and to provide a gathering place at the end of a long day working the fields.  I thought about how these were simple homes, but adequate for complex lives.  We may have much fancier homes today, with many more comforts and features, but we haven't reduced the complexities of life or the essential needs for shelter, nurture and gathering.  I thought about the essence of living and remembered that its fabric was truly formed from the strong cords of loving relationship far more than by any form of wood, glass, metal and steel that we surround ourselves with.  I saw many basic homes yesterday in out of the way places.  They didn't command attention and they were certainly humble.  But just imagine the many lives that were launched from these homes.  I remembered that it is the "essence" of life that is most important rather than the "appearance" of living.   Psalm 91:9 Because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge,          Even the Most High, your dwelling place,   blessings, Rob Smith