That kind of question gets your attention. I am not saying that some kind of moral obligation exists for everyone to spend their entire lives within ten miles of where they were born. I am instead musing about what is lost when our lives are lived as nomads. What we have learned is that human beings live in community. We need communities of faith, friendships, workplace connections, and family relationships of substance and meaning.
Places matter as well.
The store on that corner, the school over the ridge, the way Pipkin Road bends at this spot, what my room looks like at night, these all come to be part of the way our mental universe is structured. They help to provide the stability that anchors us even as so much else in our lives changes. Jeanie and I have come to see that people and places are not interchangeable parts readily changed out for others. We count it a blessing from God that here in Jackson we are experiencing a depth of community that has eluded us before now. We are aware that community is one of the most important dimensions of human life, and that it is to be disrupted only with the greatest of care.