Monday, September 7, 2009


I have been told that I was born some year too late. Is it a sin to wish you lived in a different time? I suppose it depends how hard you wish, how much it distracts you from enjoying the days that you have been given. Yet I can't help this special little envy. I want to live in a time before all of the technological advances. I want to live in a time when I could smoke my pipe in-doors. I want to live in a world where books, music and thought can be discussed over glasses of dark glasses of beer and when there were places for men that women respected, and places for women that men respected. I think there is a beauty to the separation between the sexes, the mystery grows, we can't harbor the modern illusion that we are all the same. What stupidity. Of course we are the same in many ways, two halves of a whole, but if the two halves of your body tried to act like eachother you wouldn't so much as be able to walk.
I love the idea of cold weather and handwritten letters. I love the idea of answered mail. I love the ideas of days filled with words, read and written, and not filled with wood. I'm thankful for the jobs that I have. Thankful for the gifts that have been put in my life. But if I could pick up the relationships and tuck them away in the images of the movies I've seen about britian in the 1950's I don't imagine that I would hesitate. I'm sick of seeing so much to buy, so much to want, so much to earn. I'm rather ready for a change of pace, and I would give up every single advance that has come since then to get it. But alas, it's the cruelty of the world, just like life. You can't go back to grade school, college, the years when the children were young, or the years when the economy was good.
In just the same way we can't go back to a simpler life, I suppose we can only appreciate the moment that we are in now. Somone will lookback in 60 years and say that they long to live in the world we do. It insults God to look back and wish. The moment I have is never good enough, I always wish for a cleaner one, a fresher one, a simpler one. Those aren't my moments. THESE are my moments.
These are the moments He selecte
d for me. Like two children, each given a special gift by their father, the gifts have been especially selected based on the character and interest of each child. The foolish child looks past the thoughtful gift, and his father's careful love, knowledge and understanding of him personally and wants the other childs gift. Strange isn't it? I still want to smoke my pipe indoors, though.

3 comments:

  1. I don't blame you. Even when I was a kid, men smoked pipes indoors. GREAT POST!

    ReplyDelete
  2. My heart resonates with your words. I so agree with your separate places for men and women to be in and respect. I like that about your Thursday night bible study.
    I think smoking pipes indoors is probably a pretty bad health hazard...
    :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Though there is much to want, we don't have to want it. Though there is much to have, we don't have to have it. The peace we can have in beholding our Saviour, and all the blessings He has given us, does not dimish the more frantic the surroundings. The peace might even be sweeter when there is so much else to behold. The Saviour's wing is most comforting in the storm.

    ReplyDelete