All the Comforts of Home...

The house I grew up in was a very different house from the one I now live in. The old South Georgia farmhouse, built of heart pine, must have been close to fifty years old and tilted a little towards Tildy. The pine floors waved at you when you walked in and the cracks in the walls allowed for the free passage of fresh air. There was one bathroom just off the central enclosed dogtrot hall that served as our kitchen, dining room and entry. For those who are not familiar with southern architecture, a dogtrot hall ran through the center of the house and was open, dividing the house into two wings. Its original purpose was to provide ventilation during the long, hot summers as well as a place for the dogs to rest. Most dogs with any sense, however, laid under the porch in the summer heat. All the other rooms, bedrooms and living room, also opened off the hall. High ceilings for the relief of summer heat made winter cold an adventure in survival techniques. A tin roof provided musical accompaniment when it rained. Large rooms gave each of us room to spread out for alone time.
Our lights were single light bulbs hanging down from the ceiling on a cord without shades or fixtures. “Let there be light” took on new meaning when you switched them on as light flooded the nooks and crannies in the room. Electricity had been added long after that old house was first built so there were only the basics.
Heat was provided by two large oil burning heaters, one in the kitchen/dining room/entry/hall and one in the living room. The bedrooms were uniformly icy cold in the winter which made getting dressed for work and school a family affair around the heater. My thirteenth year, I forgot daddy was there and put on some lipstick, a secret of mine, standing in front of the heater. Daddy had a coniption fit and my mother had to calm him down. I had spent a quarter of my allowance to buy some Tangee lipstick that turned a pink coral on my lips, my first purchase of cosmetics. Daddy was not ready for that which was why I kept it a secret. He never noticed I was wearing it (I was really good at making it look natural) until he saw me put it on. Family values were alive and well in that rickety old farm house.
The front room held a suite of furniture, sofa and two chairs, upholstered in a prickly nylon that would live forever. Pride of place was given to the old upright piano purchased by my mother for our piano lessons. Often mama and daddy would sit on the sofa and listen to Gayle and me play our songs for them. The large oil heater took up a corner and kept us warm while we practiced in the winter time. When I was twelve, mama took a mind to have a television set. Daddy didn’t approve so she bought a second hand one with money she saved from her salary. Mama, Gayle and I enjoyed that big old black and white television. Even Daddy would sit and watch Red Skelton and laugh but he drew the line at Ed Sullivan. We watched him anyway. After school, we would watch “Zorro” for thirty minutes but turned it off so it would be cool when Daddy came home. He always checked the tv to see if it was warm because he wanted us to do our homework when we came home. We did, after Zorro.
The large front porch was shaded by walnut trees that provided nuts for winter cracking and eating. It was our favorite place to sit until mosquito season began. Unscreened, it provided a feeding station for the South Georgia Air Force Mosquito Squadron. Spring, fall and some of the winter were the best times for sitting on the old porch. Often when company came, the grownups sat and visited on the porch while watching the children run amok in the sandy yard among the china berry trees. I dressed my old tom cat Goldie in doll clothes and pushed him around in a buggy on that porch. Tubby, our stinky stray Samoyed, sat and listened as I shared all my secrets with him. When my sister and I had a fight over sharing our one bicycle, she pushed me down the stone steps that led up to the porch. The porch, like the hall, was our outdoor family room.
I look around my house now and am overwhelmed at the differences. Phones in every room when we did not have a single one. Chargers for cell phones, Blue tooth, camera and rechargeable batteries snake out from the outlets in our bedroom and away room. Lamps, ceiling fans, sconces and recessed lights provide the light we need. Computer and printer, television and DVD system, speakers hung on the walls for the full appreciation of music, three bathrooms, a zoned heating and cooling system that can keep you comfortable year round... all the comforts of home... We have a lovely house. Friends and visitors tell us it feels like home, comfortable like a well worn shoe. Built like the old farmhouses in the south with a hip roof line covered in tin, it has wood plank walls and poplar floors. It is a home place indeed. But we are surrounded by the technology of our age and sometimes I miss the quiet simplicity of the past. Listening to answering machines and making lists of missed phone calls to return, erasing endless e-mail advertising, swapping incandescent bulbs out for fluorescent ones, changing the filters for air and water... maintaining the technology adds up to a part time job. I enjoy the benefits of technology but question when is enough enough?
I am reading a book “Crossing the Desert- Learning to let go, see clearly, and live simply” by Robert J. Wicks. The fourth century desert fathers and mothers experiences serve as the guide for this book. In the section on Enter Through the Narrow Gates, Mr. Wicks lists some of the gifts of humility. One of them is “a space for pacing ourselves while resisting the lure of speed and new technology.” That is what I want, to place my souls hand on the television set to see if it is hot. Speed, instant communication through texting and e-mail, television entertained, computer driven lives are not an evil until they run us ragged trying to keep up. When we lose the sound of the rhythm of life, the sunrises and sunsets that bracket our days, the gifts of the Spirit that surround us all our lives long because we are consumed with keeping up, then technology becomes a new idol that separates us from God and from God’s faces here on earth. So I will enjoy my e-mail but I don’t check it on vacation. I enjoy watching “Dancing With the Stars” but I don’t stay up til eleven to see who won. I talk on my cell phone ( a lot, Michael says) but I turn it off sometimes and drive in blessed silence. I am trying hard to learn the art of controlling technology, limiting the space it takes up in my life, to make room for living my life. Maybe Daddy was onto something after all...