Wow, my home is messy and claustrophobic. We do our best, but there is nowhere to put everything when one's house contains ten people and all the materials for running a mail-order business. Right now my college stuff - and my sister's - is sitting in a pile in the middle of the living room. Every time I walk through I feel this overwhelming impulse to clean it up. Only I have nowhere to stash it. We have four girls sleeping in bunk beds in the one small room upstairs right now. My presence has, in fact, evicted my youngest sister to the living room couch.

On a larger scale, St. Louis suburbia is also claustrophobic. I have noted this before on my blog. If I leave the house on foot, I can choose between walking amongst sidewalk and houses, or heading out the other direction to stride beside the nearby highway. There are no relaxing grassy spaces within easy reach. One can find no solitude.

People say development and technology are good. We live longer and healthier; we own more things for the same amount of work. But we are more than bodies. I would argue that people nowadays are often mentally and spiritually sick. We exercise ourselves on treadmills and in the gym; we entertain ourselves with flat images on a screen. We work in offices, and we receive in exchange for our services money that never exists beyond the electronic realm.

The truth is that the adventures of the world are hard to see. I'm writing a story about this right now, actually. The further truth is that God is the source of all meaning and adventure in the world, no matter what shape the latter is in. God turns everything topsy-turvy and sends one on a rollercoaster.

- My mom made my dad promise when they got married that they would have no children. They soon became Christians. My mom wrote a book about biblical femininity that has influenced the lives of thousands, and then my parents proceeded to have nine kids.

- Some friends of my parents were influenced by them to become Christians. Because of this, the dad determined years later that he should enter politics. He is now our Rep in Congress.

As I found when I was home from December to August this past year, the escape from claustrophobia comes through one's interactions with God and man. A relationship with God renders work meaningful. Relationships with human beings lend meaning to the claustrophobia of suburbia.

All of which is to say, I would still prefer to live in a wide-open space. :)  ¶ 10:40 AM