Living in "Wilderness Disorder"

Driving through the country, seeing farms and hobby farms in peaceful surroundings, I often wonder about those who have chosen to live away from all the conveniences of city life.

Why do they do it?!

A bit of insight came in a book I am currently reading. In "What the Heart Already Knows," Phyllis Tickle writes about the decision she and her husband made to move themselves and their seven children into the country to live, even though it meant that her husband had to drive 20 miles into town to work.

She writes: I look around me at the hardness of our way of life: at the difficulty of growing and preserving what could more easily be bought; at the silliness of being 20 miles from the city where Sam practices medicine and in which at least some of my professional assignments must be completed; at the vulnerability of being, during much of each day, miles from any human help. But, even acknowledging all of that, I know... that we can live no other way.

I still feel..., after all these years that same wash of pride and grandeur when I see a huge city or stand among skyscrapers. No rush of glory comes for me here, not among these low sheds and two-rail fences. There is little about rural living that is inspiring. 

But sitting here at my desk off the kitchen, watching at least three dozen pinfeathers as they run around on my clean floor, I know that it is the disorder of it all that which makes the difference. In the city... I observe life. Here, I am life, one among equals. I matter less to myself out here...