Thank you for this, Hadden. Four years ago my husband and I returned to where I'd spent most of my twenties, a rural and mountainous region that has always felt the most like home for me. I, like you, hoped to be a rejuvenating and invigorating presence. I'm not saying it couldn't have be done, but there's so much we couldn't have foreseen as we made our way back here. The pandemic, the politics, the arrest of my brother and the total community upheaval that happened because of it.
If you had told me four years ago that our "light in the city on a hill" would be almost completely extinguished four years later, that we would be preparing to leave here, limping and glad to leave, I wouldn't have believed you. I needed the bit of hope that I came with, the hope of being both rejuvenated and a rejuvenating presence, the hope of rooting myself deeply in this small post-Christian community and effecting change, even microscopic.
It turns out the change we produced mostly (and unsurprisingly) happened in our own selves. We are more detached from so many of the things that girded us up and gave us meaning before four years ago, and more attached to what it means to simply be faithful to Jesus—no matter where our feet are, no matter where we have found roots or for how long we are rooted there.
I have always had a sort of angsty desire to stay in a place for life and that has never been my portion for various reasons, but I think more than ever before I am recognizing it is not roots in a particular place that make us faithful, but a rootedness in our own place—wherever that place is—that is the measure of faithfulness. This is what much of my last book The Understory is about. How do we be "at peace and in place" (in the words of Berry) when the places around us shift and change?
Anyway, thanks for this. I always appreciate your pieces. Truly.
Thank you so much, Lore, for taking the time to write this, for bearing your heart here - and for this "elder wisdom to the young and starry eyed". It is a reminder we both need - greatly. I know there are going to be lots of tears and failures on this journey and much heartache - but hope too (with patience) that eventually the feeling of home and being a blessing to our new place will come.
Urban dwellers are more mired than rooted. I hope, after you have moved, you will learn the true meaning of rootedness by growing roots. You just might be young enough to do that. I was seven years old when my parents moved from a city to a rural location. My father was born in and grew up near where we moved to and soon became re-enculturated, but my mother was (and remained) a city person.
The verb to dwell has a completely different meaning than to live, as may be seen in the terminology, he dwelled over certain location, contrasted to, he lived over a certain location. While the former implies lingering, even lovingly lingering, the latter is nonsense. A rural setting can become one's everlasting home, regardless wherever else one happens to be later in life. An urban setting only becomes where one is from.
After you have moved you will find that you won't be accepted or acknowledged as a local; you will be from somewhere else for quite a long time--perhaps forever. You will be an intruder. Don't be intrusive. Learn to relax and love the place. Accept your role. As in a marriage, one marries a family. In a rural setting, one's home is a region, not just a house. Until you feel at home and in love with the region, you will always be an outsider and your neighbors will feel it.
Thank you Jesse, there is excellent wisdom in what you have written - and some hard but necessary truths which I shall be aware of, especially concerning being viewed as an outsider (it is common knowledge that it takes three generations before incomers families are viewed as Northern in the UK!)
I moved across the country from my hometown, which has been hollowed out by consumerism, to the realest place I could find. There is no home for me to go back to, only family in the place where it was.
I am terribly sorry to hear this Casey. I imagine many places in Rural America have suffered from this insidious problem. Was there a particular trigger for the invasion of consumerism in your old home town/a point where it markedly changed?
I should clarify that I am from a mid-sized Midwestern city. Not a rural area. It used to be pretty blue collar, but has become increasingly professionally oriented, and with upward mobility and mass affluence comes consumerism. It is all hipster kitsch and urban sprawl.
This is so exciting, Hadden. I was raised in a rural town in northern Illinois here in the States, yet for some years now I've lived and worked in a much more urban area, a place with a pace far quicker than that which I hope to live at. I look forward to the days when I manage to return to a slower, quieter pace of life. I trust this move will prove very fruitful for you and your wife -- if not for the tomatoes. I'm looking forward to getting a glimpse of what new perspectives and beauties you take on with this change of season!
We moved here 40y ago to the other and drier side of the country from where you will live Those years ago it turned out I had to still keep my job and travel, so I hope your arrangements work out.
Rural life and the people have changed a great deal both before and since our arrival. There were already many fewer farm workers than there had been in the 50s and even in the 60s, and ''big farming' has since got bigger! The local first school roll had contracted markedly before the 80s and it is only in the last 15y that there has been an influx of 'incomers' with different sources of income.
'The Lakes' and your adjacent hills will show the marks of 'modernity', but it will be very interesting to hear what you find! Just a thought: your qualification in agroecology would make a fascinating companion to your nature writing and to your insights in that new lanscape. The tradition in Britain and America has good examples of authors with social, agrarian and indeed spiritual interests.
I hope we can drop by on our travel to family in Wales when you get settled! Best wishes!
Thanks Phil, I must schedule another call with you sometime once things have quietened down.
I greatly look forward to writing about the Howgills and finding the hidden treasures therein - it is an area I have no experience in, but have just bought a great book published by Hale in their old "Portrait of" series on the area. And of course, you will be more than welcome to drop by at any time (if the move goes ahead smoothly!)
This sounds like an exciting time for your family! The north of England sounds beautiful. I found your thoughts on moving very relatable...I moved from a home I loved to make a new home with my husband and his family, and it has made me feel at times a little hypocritical, because I'm always going around preaching how important rootedness is and here I am, a transplant in the midwest just like almost everybody else. It does appear to me there are circumstances in which making a move is really the best way to establish long-term roots, and truly the Lord brings us to where He can best use us for His glory. I hope that will be very evident for you in your new home! Best of luck also with your writing.
(And thank you for recommending my Substack! It means a lot, and I am grateful to be part of your community here.) :)
Moving to a new place, with such a clear vision of your role in the new community, is as far from any hypocrisy as can be. Roots are not static, they grow, too. Good luck with all the difficult logistics of the move; and let your roots thrive in new soil!
What exciting news Hadden! What a joy to start putting down roots in a new place where you can try a hand at being the good farmer yourself. I hope everything goes smoothly as you embark on this adventure! Best of luck!
Thank you for this, Hadden. Four years ago my husband and I returned to where I'd spent most of my twenties, a rural and mountainous region that has always felt the most like home for me. I, like you, hoped to be a rejuvenating and invigorating presence. I'm not saying it couldn't have be done, but there's so much we couldn't have foreseen as we made our way back here. The pandemic, the politics, the arrest of my brother and the total community upheaval that happened because of it.
If you had told me four years ago that our "light in the city on a hill" would be almost completely extinguished four years later, that we would be preparing to leave here, limping and glad to leave, I wouldn't have believed you. I needed the bit of hope that I came with, the hope of being both rejuvenated and a rejuvenating presence, the hope of rooting myself deeply in this small post-Christian community and effecting change, even microscopic.
It turns out the change we produced mostly (and unsurprisingly) happened in our own selves. We are more detached from so many of the things that girded us up and gave us meaning before four years ago, and more attached to what it means to simply be faithful to Jesus—no matter where our feet are, no matter where we have found roots or for how long we are rooted there.
I have always had a sort of angsty desire to stay in a place for life and that has never been my portion for various reasons, but I think more than ever before I am recognizing it is not roots in a particular place that make us faithful, but a rootedness in our own place—wherever that place is—that is the measure of faithfulness. This is what much of my last book The Understory is about. How do we be "at peace and in place" (in the words of Berry) when the places around us shift and change?
Anyway, thanks for this. I always appreciate your pieces. Truly.
Thank you so much, Lore, for taking the time to write this, for bearing your heart here - and for this "elder wisdom to the young and starry eyed". It is a reminder we both need - greatly. I know there are going to be lots of tears and failures on this journey and much heartache - but hope too (with patience) that eventually the feeling of home and being a blessing to our new place will come.
Congratulations to you and the Patron in Chief of Over the Field! I look forward to your updates on this adventure and wish both of you all the best.
Urban dwellers are more mired than rooted. I hope, after you have moved, you will learn the true meaning of rootedness by growing roots. You just might be young enough to do that. I was seven years old when my parents moved from a city to a rural location. My father was born in and grew up near where we moved to and soon became re-enculturated, but my mother was (and remained) a city person.
The verb to dwell has a completely different meaning than to live, as may be seen in the terminology, he dwelled over certain location, contrasted to, he lived over a certain location. While the former implies lingering, even lovingly lingering, the latter is nonsense. A rural setting can become one's everlasting home, regardless wherever else one happens to be later in life. An urban setting only becomes where one is from.
After you have moved you will find that you won't be accepted or acknowledged as a local; you will be from somewhere else for quite a long time--perhaps forever. You will be an intruder. Don't be intrusive. Learn to relax and love the place. Accept your role. As in a marriage, one marries a family. In a rural setting, one's home is a region, not just a house. Until you feel at home and in love with the region, you will always be an outsider and your neighbors will feel it.
Thank you Jesse, there is excellent wisdom in what you have written - and some hard but necessary truths which I shall be aware of, especially concerning being viewed as an outsider (it is common knowledge that it takes three generations before incomers families are viewed as Northern in the UK!)
I moved across the country from my hometown, which has been hollowed out by consumerism, to the realest place I could find. There is no home for me to go back to, only family in the place where it was.
I am terribly sorry to hear this Casey. I imagine many places in Rural America have suffered from this insidious problem. Was there a particular trigger for the invasion of consumerism in your old home town/a point where it markedly changed?
I should clarify that I am from a mid-sized Midwestern city. Not a rural area. It used to be pretty blue collar, but has become increasingly professionally oriented, and with upward mobility and mass affluence comes consumerism. It is all hipster kitsch and urban sprawl.
This is so exciting, Hadden. I was raised in a rural town in northern Illinois here in the States, yet for some years now I've lived and worked in a much more urban area, a place with a pace far quicker than that which I hope to live at. I look forward to the days when I manage to return to a slower, quieter pace of life. I trust this move will prove very fruitful for you and your wife -- if not for the tomatoes. I'm looking forward to getting a glimpse of what new perspectives and beauties you take on with this change of season!
Thanks Joel, much appreciated! And I am glad to know a little bit about your life history too. I look forward to writing about the slower pace of life
We moved here 40y ago to the other and drier side of the country from where you will live Those years ago it turned out I had to still keep my job and travel, so I hope your arrangements work out.
Rural life and the people have changed a great deal both before and since our arrival. There were already many fewer farm workers than there had been in the 50s and even in the 60s, and ''big farming' has since got bigger! The local first school roll had contracted markedly before the 80s and it is only in the last 15y that there has been an influx of 'incomers' with different sources of income.
'The Lakes' and your adjacent hills will show the marks of 'modernity', but it will be very interesting to hear what you find! Just a thought: your qualification in agroecology would make a fascinating companion to your nature writing and to your insights in that new lanscape. The tradition in Britain and America has good examples of authors with social, agrarian and indeed spiritual interests.
I hope we can drop by on our travel to family in Wales when you get settled! Best wishes!
Thanks Phil, I must schedule another call with you sometime once things have quietened down.
I greatly look forward to writing about the Howgills and finding the hidden treasures therein - it is an area I have no experience in, but have just bought a great book published by Hale in their old "Portrait of" series on the area. And of course, you will be more than welcome to drop by at any time (if the move goes ahead smoothly!)
This sounds like an exciting time for your family! The north of England sounds beautiful. I found your thoughts on moving very relatable...I moved from a home I loved to make a new home with my husband and his family, and it has made me feel at times a little hypocritical, because I'm always going around preaching how important rootedness is and here I am, a transplant in the midwest just like almost everybody else. It does appear to me there are circumstances in which making a move is really the best way to establish long-term roots, and truly the Lord brings us to where He can best use us for His glory. I hope that will be very evident for you in your new home! Best of luck also with your writing.
(And thank you for recommending my Substack! It means a lot, and I am grateful to be part of your community here.) :)
Moving to a new place, with such a clear vision of your role in the new community, is as far from any hypocrisy as can be. Roots are not static, they grow, too. Good luck with all the difficult logistics of the move; and let your roots thrive in new soil!
What exciting news Hadden! What a joy to start putting down roots in a new place where you can try a hand at being the good farmer yourself. I hope everything goes smoothly as you embark on this adventure! Best of luck!
Quite the move! I wish you the best as you undertake it.