When this blog is posted on June 1, I will be in my hometown of Clatonia, Nebraska leading a workshop and preaching in the tiny little Methodist Church where my grandparents, my father, and my sister and I were baptized and confirmed. I can’t tell you how thrilled and excited I am to be there.

That part of the USA is truly the setting for the opening chapter of my life’s story. Nebraska is located right smack in the middle of the United States, where everything feels wide open and freeing. Whenever I am there, I am reminded that the universe is an awesome place to live, and we are merely a tiny part of the great cycle of life. Just outside the little town of Clatonia with its population of 199 people, my parents, Wilson and Alma Haupt, raised my sister Shirley and me on what I thought was a magical farm filled with the wonders of haystacks, little lambs with wiggling tails, mulberry trees, bull snakes, coyotes, fuzzy caterpillars, and my dog Brownie.

My mother and father were generous, hard-working, wise people. I don’t believe there was a lazy or evil bone in either one of them. My father had such a respect for nature that he never plowed under the 20 acres of original prairie grass that had been there since the days when the Sioux Indians roamed the Plains. Daddy could have planted a high-producing cash crop on those acres, but he said the prairie was there long before we arrived, and he wanted to preserve it so future generations could enjoy it too.

As I grew up, I began to share my parents’ reverence for nature and its cycles. Birth and death were normal parts of life as we watched cows, sheep, chickens give birth and die or be sent to market. At funerals for neighbors and relatives, it was natural for children to be in attendance. After all, we knew everyone dies – Grandpa, my piano teacher, the owner of Johnny’s Café. The meaning of faith and hope were affirmed each year when Daddy planted the fragile winter wheat seeds just before the harsh cold fronts arrived. Then in the spring we watched the miraculous transformation of the fields as they came alive with the brilliant green sprouts of that tough wheat.

It was an amazing life – being a child on that Nebraska farm, being so vulnerable to nature and those wide open spaces. The experience of growing up there has taught me to feel a reverence for nature, to accept and not fight the things that are inevitable, and to appreciate and love life. I’m grateful for all those gifts.

In my June 15 blog, I plan to write what it felt like to be back home, to walk the farm land, to stand in my family’s little church and see the faces of the people of my town. For now, I’m full of joy that I can go home again to that special place that I love.

Dearest Creator, Thank you for being our true home. And thank you for homes that we have loved here on earth. Help us to learn from our histories, whatever they might be. Whenever we return to you, may we feel a deep sense of joy and peace knowing that you love us and have a desire for us to come home to you. Amen.

Joy Carol
www.joycarol.com