When the Homily is about Immunology

My simple guitar skills

My skills upon the six-string rather serve rather well as an analogy to my life as a self-proclaimed American thinker and philosopher. I guess I've never actually claimed this title...but I must confess to having such delusions of granduer from time to time.

Simple is a word I am contemplating lately, and it describes me in many ways - and in many ways it doesn't, though I find I rather prefer the simple things in me and that are around me. To the guitar playing: I can beat out a few chords and can generally maintain a consistant rhythm, but have never liked B's much (they hurt) and cannot go much beyond the staggering qualities needed to pound out a good round of campfire songs. Also I learned most of these "skills" on my own - which likely doesn't say much, but also fits well with the fact that there aren't a whole host of letters following my name to lend more sophistication to what I write and say.

Yes, I can make music, but I know that only those who know and like me to begin with really would appreciate it. And that is more than fine, for such is precisely the audience I would seek - those willing to join right in.

There is a certain peace in knowing better who you are and making no secret about it - most of all to yourself. While I would not offer any vast claims of self-knowledge (I know better than to do that...hmmm), I do believe that in my "old" age I am beginning to better see who I am and honestly like my guitar playing, "simple" is the only word I have right now. Which is not to say that I am some saintly person willing to live like the Amish...no, far from it (well maybe not terribly far from it, I dunno.) Anyway, I am also learning more about what these "revelations" mean for me in a variety of practical ways.

One of those ways is in regards to where I call home. I would not trade my proximity to my friends, family, or Parish for almost anything...but that emphasized "almost" has been evolving in my mind and heart as I have been pondering more deeply the simple man that I am for quite awhile now. There is a way of life, a stlye of life (I've not really got a name for it)that is calling me.

When I used to live in Sultan and people would marvel at me for choosing to make such a long commute (working in dowtown Seattle), I would cite my love for living "away from it all" and being close to the things I enjoy doing such as fishing and being amidst the wilderness. Of course, I didn't really live in the woods in Sultan, not at all...but it was a mere hop skip and a jump from where we were. No small truth in this matter was the fact that living that far away from "civilization" was neccesary for me to afford a house. Come to find out, civilization is overrated anyway.

I cannot help feeling claustrophobic today. I love the big trees that grace my tiny tiny backyard...well...the big trees that are near my tiny backyard anyway, but more and more I have been believing that the grass is greener further out where there are no McMansions. I want land, I want quiet, yes I still want nieghbors - but maybe a bit (lot) further away than being able to watch me sleep or use the restroom? Maybe a bit further away so that my kids may run and scream and play without my worrying about the old retired couple next door? Maybe enough land for my wife to dirty her hands and feed her family? Maybe enough land so that we may enter into that symbiotic relationship we have had with certain animals for longer than written history can tell us? Enough so that my wife can have her small farm and I can have my fishing cabin in the wilderness? Enough so that we may be a little more in touch and dependent on each other and the earth. Simple.

A dream...a fantasy...an escape? No doubt. It's simple...as I am simple. What "lifestyle" do I want? For my kids? What sounds do we want to wake up to? What voices do we wish to hear singing at night? What do we wish to see as we sit upon our porch sipping a fine Kentucky Bourbon? What would we give to be oblivious to the price of our favorite veggies or eggs these days? How wonderful it would be to step off that porch and FEEL these words:

Woods
by Wendell Berry
I part the out thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me.

Think not that I have not considered the pros and cons in all of this...I believe I know them well. I do not think I have the proper words to fully describe the momentum I feel pulling me (and us) out and away from the life of living in a residence (from the latin "to sit") and toward the life of making and working a home. No, I cannot devote all of my time to it and I do not anticipate that I will ever be able to work it full-time (but you never know). To put it as simply as I can: I have come to believe, with my wife, that who we are makes us best suited to adopt a life of country living.