40th

 

The deed for our cabin here on the lake is dated June 11, 1968. I spent most of today reflecting on the forty years that we have been here. This place has been a great blessing for me, as well as for many other people. It has always been a place of peaceful refuge for me. Today has been bliss.
I remember how cold it was that week in mid-June when I moved in to clean the place and make it ours. It snowed over on a nearby mountain.
For many years it was a kids' place. I brought them by the carload from a nearby high school. Then my nephews and nieces became teens and brought their friends. I was still emotionally a teenager myself. An old priest from Ireland sat on the porch one day and mumbled, "Tir Na Noge." I asked what it meant. "Land of the Young."
Then as I finally began to grow up in my late thirties, I invited adult friends and their families. We had small retreats here. My mother and sister and her family came more often. In recent years Saturdays and Sundays in the summer are often full of family and their friends. Hospitality. Everyone is welcome.
The cabin was originally a two bedroom bungalow. Much later we closed in the carport and the front porch and built front and side decks. Later still we built an upstairs whose front room has a spectacular view of the lake.
The view is one of the best in the entire county. This picture I took from the side deck this morning while I was eating breakfast. The little blur below the fuschia is a humming bird, one of several who frequent the feeders.
Peace, contentment, hospitality, refuge, stillness, reflection, prayer, contemplation, beauty, bliss, ananda (that joy in existence without which the universe would fall apart.)