Sugar Bend Farm

Travels and entanglements

7:17 AM, 2008-Feb-5 .. 1 comments .. Link

We went to Tennessee last week for my husband to get with his sister on some things at his dad's house that he wanted before they sold the house and items in the house. We were only gone from Tuesday to Thursday. Within a short time after we left Tuesday, our electricity went out due to high winds.

I know this because my daughter was staying in town with friends and coming by to check on the dogs and discovered the electricity out. Wednesday I called the electric company and they gave an estimated date of getting the electricity back on; three days later! So my daughter and a friend got coolers and filled them up and took the contents of our freezers to a friends house to keep so we wouldn't lose our meat! Thank God we didn't.

Anyway, while we were in Tennessee we drove out to visit The Farm which isn't to far from where my husband grew up. We visited the store and purchased some things there. I got some TVP, ground and chunk. My husband got some sushi rice and other items to make sushi. We got a couple of tee shirts and I got a tote to add to my collection that I use when going grocery shopping. I started carrying my own bags to town when shopping so as not to use plastic bag. That's just my personal little thing.

Anyway, we enjoyed our visit and talking with the ladies in the Farm Store. It had been years since either of us had been there, so it was interesting. After that, on the way back to my husband's home town, we passed through the Amish community that is there to show my daughter. She had never been through there before. My older daughter was only two when we moved there years ago, so she remembers seeing the horse and buggies passing our house and seeing them in town.

I have always been facinated by the Amish, and their way of life. I wouldn't want to live completely that way, but I admire them for staying true to their beliefs in the world we live in today. There is such beauty in the simplicity of their lives. I would love to take photo's of them, the children, their homes, laundry on the line... it was so calming to drive through and see them out working together, and see the clothes drying on the line. You don't see clothes on lines that much anymore. I suppose we are all to busy to hang our clothes on lines to dry. I think we have lost so much because of it. It brought back memories of my own childhood playing among the hanging clothes on my grandmother's clothes line. The sheets blowing in the breeze! Life has changed so much for so many of us...The simplicity of living; sometimes it just seems like everything has gotten so complicated. I long for the simplicity of living. It doesn't mean it was easy, but slower paced and more simple. All the modern conveniences seem to have done the opposite, made our lives more complicated and taken our time away from us, instead of freeing us up to enjoy our life.

Sometimes I feel so entangled in this life. Like there are to many ropes tied around me connecting me to things in this life. I think that must be the ploy of the enemy. To cause us to become distracted by the things in this life, or as the Bible calls them; "the cares of life". If we are entangled with the business of life on this earth, then we will have no time for the Lord or for working in His vineyard/field. I know that is what is happening in my life, and I am working toward simplicity in order to get my priorities back on track. I am just a traveler in this world. This isn't my home, I am just passing through this life on my way to my eternal home. So I need to let that be reflected in my life. The Bible warns us not to get entangled or entrapped by the things in this life, we are just pilgrams passing through a foreign land, on our way home. We are not to concern ourselves with the cares of this world. I know it is hard not to do that. That is why I want to rid myself and my family of all of this excess baggage (stuff) we have.

Well, I can feel this post starting to ramble, revealing my inner dialogue, and mental notes instead of a well thought out post. So I will spare you anymore.

Thought for Today
~Henry David Thoreau~

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.