Wanderers and settlers
14/08/14 05:15
I have been thinking about settlers and wanderers. Much of what we call the Old Testament are stories about our people as wanderers. One of the most ancient stories of our people begins, “A wandering Aramean was my father. He went down to Egypt and sojourned there, he and just a handful of his brothers at first, but soon they became a great nation, mighty and many.” (Deuteronomy 26:10) This version of our origin story from Deuteronomy, is actually more ancient than the more detailed stories that we read in Genesis. It has never been a problem for our people because the stories line up. If you imagine that one of the descendants of Joseph first told the Deuteronomy text, it is accurate to describe Joseph - and in fact all of his brothers and his parents, grandparents and great grandparents as wanderers. And our people kept wandering for a long time after the time in Egypt. Moses led the people as we wandered in the desert for 40 years. Joshua is celebrated as the one who brought us into the promised land, but even as we became settlers, there was a fair amount of wandering that occurred.
On my father’s side of our family The generation of his grandparents would have called themselves settlers and they would have been called settlers by the indigenous Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Siouan people who had lived in the Spirit Lake region of North Dakota before it was opened to homesteading. But by the third generation, our family had moved west again. If you trace the movement of our people from Germany to Russia to Pennsylvania to Dakota Territory to Montana we roamed around quite a bit.
On my Mother’s side of the family, they seemed a little bit more settled, often living for three or four generations in a location, but there is a fair amount of wandering between England and Fort Benton, Montana. And when our mother and father married they made their home in a new town. We grew up with our grandparents in two different directions from the place we called home.
Now, just one generation later, my brothers and sisters are spread from Oregon to South Dakota. Three of my siblings live relatively close to our home place these days, but our house and the buildings at the airport and the shop where our father sold farm machinery and feeds all belong to others. I can go into any business on main street and not be recognized. I have lived in Billings, Chicago, North Dakota, Idaho and South Dakota since I left there. The 19 years we have lived in our South Dakota home is the longest I’ve ever stayed put in my life.
I guess we are more wanderers than settlers.
Even the grandchildren of my cousin (on my mother’s side) who live in the house of their great grandmother and great grandfather, are seasoned wanderers. They have now come to roost in the place where our family has lived for many generations, but they were born in Belize where my cousin and his wife ended up after journeying from the farm to Oregon, California and finally going to Belize to “settle,” but really forming their life around the construction and operation of a sailboat - hardly a “settled” lifestyle. Now their grandchildren have grown up on the farm, the oldest has been there half of her life, the others larger percentages.
And some of our talk, while we were there, centered on the “launching” of their daughter, who has completed high school and who will be moving to Billings soon to pursue her education and discover the next phase of her life.
50 years ago our parents bought a small vacation property on the edge of the town where we lived. It is the only piece of land our family owns int he county of my birth. But the land and the cabins are a bit of a conundrum for our generation. Susan and I have found a camper that we can pull with our pickup to be a better vacation home than one with a fixed address. We are drawn to the places where our children and grandchildren live and our children live a day’s drive or more away in two different directions. My other brothers and sisters have all spent some time at the river place, but not enough to justify continuing to own it. Still, it seems a bit strange to think of selling it. Sometimes it feels like a place of stability - a “home” to which we can return from the wanderings of our lives. Sometimes it seems like an anchor, holding us back when we are in the mood to go sailing on life’s other adventures.
I guess we need more time to figure out what is the right thing to do. But the truth is that none of us can imagine our children or grandchildren as choosing the river place as their home. We expect them to be scattered around the world pursuing their lives in many different places.
Maybe we are just wanderers at heart, born to explore and find new places.
Once, when a group of us were discussing the conflict between the modern nation of Israel and Palestine, one of our teachers admonished us, “It is a mistake to talk of Israel as a place. Israel is a people, not a place. Israel is the name God gave to our grandfather Jacob and all of his descendants. We can never be reduced to a piece of real estate.”
Even the Anganu, the aboriginal people of central Australia, who have occupied the same region for more than 10,000 years, are wanderers who move around the land dwelling in temporary structures. They didn’t define their place on earth with boundaries, but rather with paths that they walked and journey they took from one place to another.
At this phase of my life, I’ve pretty much ceased calling myself a Montanan. I’ve invested four decades of my life dwelling in other states. I suppose it might be as accurate to call myself a South Dakotan. That state has been a very good home for us.
But I think of where we might go next. I like taking our camper to new places. In the end I may just be more of a wanderer than a settler.
On my father’s side of our family The generation of his grandparents would have called themselves settlers and they would have been called settlers by the indigenous Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Siouan people who had lived in the Spirit Lake region of North Dakota before it was opened to homesteading. But by the third generation, our family had moved west again. If you trace the movement of our people from Germany to Russia to Pennsylvania to Dakota Territory to Montana we roamed around quite a bit.
On my Mother’s side of the family, they seemed a little bit more settled, often living for three or four generations in a location, but there is a fair amount of wandering between England and Fort Benton, Montana. And when our mother and father married they made their home in a new town. We grew up with our grandparents in two different directions from the place we called home.
Now, just one generation later, my brothers and sisters are spread from Oregon to South Dakota. Three of my siblings live relatively close to our home place these days, but our house and the buildings at the airport and the shop where our father sold farm machinery and feeds all belong to others. I can go into any business on main street and not be recognized. I have lived in Billings, Chicago, North Dakota, Idaho and South Dakota since I left there. The 19 years we have lived in our South Dakota home is the longest I’ve ever stayed put in my life.
I guess we are more wanderers than settlers.
Even the grandchildren of my cousin (on my mother’s side) who live in the house of their great grandmother and great grandfather, are seasoned wanderers. They have now come to roost in the place where our family has lived for many generations, but they were born in Belize where my cousin and his wife ended up after journeying from the farm to Oregon, California and finally going to Belize to “settle,” but really forming their life around the construction and operation of a sailboat - hardly a “settled” lifestyle. Now their grandchildren have grown up on the farm, the oldest has been there half of her life, the others larger percentages.
And some of our talk, while we were there, centered on the “launching” of their daughter, who has completed high school and who will be moving to Billings soon to pursue her education and discover the next phase of her life.
50 years ago our parents bought a small vacation property on the edge of the town where we lived. It is the only piece of land our family owns int he county of my birth. But the land and the cabins are a bit of a conundrum for our generation. Susan and I have found a camper that we can pull with our pickup to be a better vacation home than one with a fixed address. We are drawn to the places where our children and grandchildren live and our children live a day’s drive or more away in two different directions. My other brothers and sisters have all spent some time at the river place, but not enough to justify continuing to own it. Still, it seems a bit strange to think of selling it. Sometimes it feels like a place of stability - a “home” to which we can return from the wanderings of our lives. Sometimes it seems like an anchor, holding us back when we are in the mood to go sailing on life’s other adventures.
I guess we need more time to figure out what is the right thing to do. But the truth is that none of us can imagine our children or grandchildren as choosing the river place as their home. We expect them to be scattered around the world pursuing their lives in many different places.
Maybe we are just wanderers at heart, born to explore and find new places.
Once, when a group of us were discussing the conflict between the modern nation of Israel and Palestine, one of our teachers admonished us, “It is a mistake to talk of Israel as a place. Israel is a people, not a place. Israel is the name God gave to our grandfather Jacob and all of his descendants. We can never be reduced to a piece of real estate.”
Even the Anganu, the aboriginal people of central Australia, who have occupied the same region for more than 10,000 years, are wanderers who move around the land dwelling in temporary structures. They didn’t define their place on earth with boundaries, but rather with paths that they walked and journey they took from one place to another.
At this phase of my life, I’ve pretty much ceased calling myself a Montanan. I’ve invested four decades of my life dwelling in other states. I suppose it might be as accurate to call myself a South Dakotan. That state has been a very good home for us.
But I think of where we might go next. I like taking our camper to new places. In the end I may just be more of a wanderer than a settler.