’tis the season

I’ve been out driving a lot lately, familiarizing myself with the various backroads and dirtroads that twist in and around this area.  Today I hopped out of my car and walked along the road for a short distance…until I came across a bunch of bear scat, dropped in various places along the roadside and full of berries.

Apparently it’s “bear season” around here.  Not in regards to hunting them…but in the fact that they are now around and more common than other times of the year.  We had some snow in the mountains last week, and with the incoming cold at higher elevations, the bears gradually make their way down to lower ones where the berries can still be found hanging on to their respective bushes. 

 So when fall arrives, so do the bears. 

from rural to…more rural?

Look to yourselves, ye polished gentlemen!
No city airs or arts pass current here.
Your rank is all reversed; let men of cloth
bow to the stalwart churls in overalls:
they are the doctors of the wilderness,
And we the low-prized laymen.
In sooth, red flannel is a saucy test
which few can put on with impunity.
What make you, master, fumbling at the oar?
Will you catch crabs? Truth tries pretention here.
The sallow knows the basekt-makers thumb;
the oar, the guide’s. Dare you accept the tasks
he shall impose, to find a spring, trap foxes,
tell the sun’s time, determine the true north,
or stumbling on through vast self-similar woods
to thread by night the nearest way to camp?
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A couple weeks from now we’ll be moving to a new community called Plain.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it’s going to be like there, what the culture is about, who the people are.

This past winter we had some pretty big snow, and at one point some lines went down under the weight.  Plain was one of the communities that lost power because of it.  I was at a local Starbucks and heard a local lineman talking about the incident and how it took two days to fix the lines, primarily because they had gone down in a such a remote and hard to reach area in the mountains.  For two straight days the people in Plain were without power in the middle of winter…and there wasn’t a single phone call made.  They didn’t complain.  They didn’t freak out.  They just got through it.  Contrast that with a windstorm this last spring and some lines that went down in one of the biggest cities around here (and large sections of town remained with power) and the near countless phone calls the power company received.

It seems this new community has a sort of rugged independence about it.  I’m told that people live there because they want to.  They made a conscious decision to live there in semi-isolation from the larger towns and communities of the area.  I’m not sure how or if this will play out.  Will it be a helping hand in forming community, or a hindrance?  Will relying on other people (or even accepting help) be seen as a weakness, an affront to their very DNA? 

In previous entries I’ve talked about trying to create a center, a common space.  Even in the confines of my small town it seemed hard…but in a place like this?  How does that happen?  And does it need to?  Do you need to get everyone together regularly under one roof, or is a nebulous network of relationships enough?

I’m looking forward to serving with the pastor of the local church there (there’s only one, so it is very much a non, or should I say multi, denominational church) as he is really about community.  He doesn’t want to create a church community within the community…but a community.  To to live and work and serve in such a way that everyone benefits, and hopefully, many are drawn to follow the way of Christ and help in bringing about healing and restoration and new creation.