Ten Years Here

It was ten years ago next week that I moved here, to deep rural America. Moved here from the city. Moved out here to a big old house on a gravel road, so far from the centers of population that in the daytime the bottom half of the AM dial is dead. Yes, during daylight hours you can't receive any of those big urban 50 kilowatt radio stations out here. That's how remote this area is.

Ten years ago that I moved to deep rural America. Ten years now that I've been living here. Gainfully employed. Became a member of the community -- which, you know, isn't easy in a remote place like this where everyone's lived since their ancestors arrived here as pioneers. But I did it. This has become my home.

And these past ten years have been the best years of my life.

I came here out of a mix of motives. To find and make a home. To set down roots, the roots I never had in my wandering young adult years. To get out and away from the mumming madness of the city. To find a traditional and fairly sane community, far away and far off the beaten path, and there live out the Benedict option if-and-while American culture at large goes down the tubes. Become a part of this community. Contribute by God's grace as best I can to the ongoing breath-of-fresh-air sanity of this remote rural area.

I found all that and more. Best move I ever made. Ten years on in my life and ten years further downhill toward craziness in America at large, I can't imagine living anywhere else.