I have never lived in a town of more than a couple of thousand people. 

I like rural life, and while I love to travel to cities and appreciate the conveniences of larger towns, I have chosen to live my life in small, familiar places. 

A little more than a year ago, a major tornado ripped through our little community and left destruction in its wake.

City hall gone.

Fire station gone.

Businesses gone.

Offices gone.

Church buildings gone.

Homes gone.

All gone in a moment.

As deep as the scars of the physical destruction have been, the damage has not all been visible- a breaking took place that has both divided and bonded our community in ways we cannot yet fully understand and may never fully know.

I have been reading Wendell Berry’s fiction as a treat to myself following the end of grad school, and in A Place on Earth, he describes the valley that flooded outside his fictional community of Port William, Kentucky- how the local landmarks were rearranged and erased and how nothing was ever the same- except that it was all still exactly the same.

Small places- maybe all places- are like that. 

Always both foreign and familiar.

Never seeming to change, yet never staying quite the same.

I took a drive to pray, to reflect, to give thanks, and to allow myself to feel the weight that this year especially has brought.

To discern what needs to be remembered and what is better forgotten.

To pause and pray at church graveyards and cemeteries.

To consider what has passed on and what remains behind.

I love the holiday season and the hope of a new and better year ahead, but it was a lovely day to be quiet and still before we leave the old behind and stretch forth to embrace the new.

I am grateful for this life, this pace, and this place.

And the December sunset over Sharon was not a bad nightcap- even if it did happen at 4:45 PM.