.The Door.

Back Home. It grounds me. Where people simply are who they are. Where you go to Wal-mart for a mini high school reunion and instead of getting home late from being stuck in traffic - you run short on time because you have to catch up with all your relatives you see in town. 

Nothing to prove. No one to impress. Nowhere else to be. You cannot re-create what is found in a Small Town and you can never quite find it in the City. I have learned that living Simple and Small is the Grandest and Largest means to live. Period. 

When you have More you want More, and the Larger you live the Smaller you become. Not because you yourself are small - but because comparing begins to creep in and all of a sudden, trying to become "better than" or having "more than" begins to make us feel "less than." Contentment gives way to Desire and we suddenly feel Inadequate. We stop asking ourselves who we are Becoming and begin asking ourselves how we can Arrive - when in reality, we are already there. 

I was in a taxi cab once. Driven by a man from Ghana. I told him I had been to Ghana and, for whatever reason, I asked him "Are you happy here?" 

"Yes, I am happy here." 

"Were you happy in Ghana?"

"Yes, I was happy. But I needed a village." 

"A village.....what do you mean?"

"In the village you do not need the door." 

He went on to tell me that in the villages, everyone has little. One person has what another person has and so there is no need for the door. "The door is to keep someone out" he said. If everyone has the same thing - there is no need for the door, because everyone shares. He then said in "the town" you begin having more, and so you begin wanting more. You then have to have "the door" to keep people out because they want what you have. 

Amazing.

On this day of Thanks - quickly to be overshadowed by the day of Spending - I am brought back to the simplicity of a small town, the genuine spirit of her people, the community of a village, and the need (or un-need) of The Door.