State Side

Family, Friends, Community, Colleagues, and Mentors:

Thank you for your interest.

Keith and I have been in the habit of sending weekly email updates whenever we travel, but we are changing things up. This time, we will post periodically on this blog. You may check in whenever you are curious to see if we've posted, or you may sign up to receive email notifications whenever we post.

These travels are just the opportunistic leeches on the leg of something much larger in motion. Keith and I, along with several close friends, have the opportunity to live out some of our dreams on 1400 acres of land in the mountains of West Virginia. It was a difficult decision to leave close friends and great jobs.  We are trying to reframe this as a 'leap of faith' and not a 'dumb decision'. Through either lens, we made the move last week.

Since then, we have been slowly moving things into our new home, which in this community of several houses, carries the endearing title, "Homestead". Vivian Heading, a founding mother of the community, once wrote from her home overlooking Homestead, of another family moving in:

The Reincarnation of Homestead

by Vivian Headings, June 14, 2003

Surrounded by encircling woodland

In the emerald clearing Homestead stands

Origins lost in unrecorded years.

I have known a few of Homestead's incarnations. 

The first I knew was Bill and Mary Jones. 

Mr. Jones it was who told us, 

"This lace has a year-'round spring". 

A year-'round spring!

And year-'round Mary would go daily

to the spring to carry water

From the big old cast-iron bathtub,

shuttered habitation of salamanders.

(Mary, did you miss your daily amble

when at last we piped in water?)

Jay and Marilyn and their children

there lived lightly on the land

little children running leaping

through the woods like merry fawns. 

For Jerome it was a refuge

and a kindly healing place; 

and for James, a summer refuge

from the world of Academe. 

Then a young man led by longings

Began his life there, and had visions;

fairer dwelling, using the best of old.

Rough-hewn beams, stout pine for walls,

revealed and restored,

set in the safety of the earth itself. 

you opened up the roof to light the sky,

you set discarded jagged fragments, bright and somber,

 in their matrix, making

surprising beauty across the seasons. 

And so with vision, skill and patience,

and hope, frustration, pain, and delight,

and a little help from friends

was homestead readied for reincarnation. 

Surrounded by encircling community

rooted in its sacred call

now tend the fire, work, love, and sing

Your thanks for grace's ever flowing year'round spring.

In the midst of moving, Keith had an interview for the Spiritual Life Coordinator position at Shenandoah University. He was offered the job yesterday, and accepted. He begins in August.

We are now at my parent's home, celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary. We fly out tomorrow. Hope to post again from Finland!