A Place for You
By Hal Haralson, Austin, Texas
The 400-acre farm at Loraine, Texas (8 miles north of the town of 700 people) was my home for 18 years. My brother, Dale (18 months younger) and I share many adventures on these rocky slopes.
I outran packs of Indians, leaping from rock to rock and crowned myself "the fastest boy in Mitchell County."
About 200 yards behind the barn was "holy ground." The ground was dry and flat. "Caliche" was the name of the material spread on the county roads in West Texas. This holy ground was caliche.
I was twelve and Dale was ten. After getting home from school (a two-hour bus ride) we did our chores. Then we worked on our cave.
With grubbing hoe, shovel, and post-hole diggers we fashioned a hole in the ground about three feet deep, six feet wide, and six feet long. The roof was covered with sheet iron and cedar posts.
There was a chimney where smoke from our cedar bark cigarettes floated skyward much like the Indians we pursued. We held secret conversations, mostly about girls. We didn`t know much about girls, but pretended we did. This was my first experience of Place in my life.
As I grow older this concept of Place is reinforced by an exchange between Jesus and the disciples. Jesus had begun to talk about dying-about leaving them.
Since they had left their homes and jobs to follow Jesus, this kind of talk made them very nervous. Jesus told them, "I go to prepare a place for you. I will come again and get you, so that where I am you may be also."
A place may be important because of location or because of the people involved in life in that place or because something important happened there in the past.
I witness how the sharing of the experiences involving Place can draw people together.
Keith Miller, fresh out of the Oklahoma oil field in 1963, was invited to lead small group worship at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio. Buckner Fanning (the pastor) told us that Keith, an Episcopalian, was bringing four Episcopal laymen from Kerrville, Texas, to give their witness.
Judy and I decided to go. We had never worshiped in small groups and had never seen an Episcopalian.
Keith used the "Quaker Questions" he had learned from Elton Trueblood while studying at Earlham College (Quaker). We were divided into groups of eight and asked to go around the circle answering the following questions. Everyone answered the first question before going on to the next one:
Where did you live between the ages of seven and twelve and how did you heat your home?
What do you remember as a place of warmth in or near your home?
People talked about tree houses, attic rooms, wood burning stoves, coal stoves, and newborn lambs brought before the fire on a cold night.
I was amazed that the sharing of their special place drew these total strangers so close together.
Browning Ware wrote in his column "Diary of a Modern Pilgrim," of heading west from Beaumont to Crack Springs Ranch in Junction, Texas. For years a small two-room shack had been the place where hunters shared their meals and talked about the deer they had seen that day.
Tallahoskeegee was the name the hunters gave this shack. It was an Indian name. No one knew what it meant. The translation given by the hunters can`t be written on these pages.
The shack was being torn down after forty years. The owner was building a house on this location.
Browning got some weathered boards and a rusty hinge to remind him of his place.
Place does not need to be elaborate. The memories shared are what make a Place.
The late Bill Cody, while director of Laity Lodge, dreamed of a place where people could come and experience closeness to God. That dream became a reality known as the Quiet House. It is an elegant cottage on top of a hill above Laity Lodge. It has become a holy place to many pilgrims over the years. Cody knew the importance of Place.
I have a rusty windmill fan hanging on the barn where I live. It reminds me of a sacred place: the prairie outside Monument, New Mexico. One hundred sixty acres homesteaded by my grandparents one hundred years ago.
Seven children lived in the dugout. The land is still in the family. It is a Place that means roots.
When I announced my retirement, Judy (my wife of forty-six years) said jokingly (I think it was jokingly): "If you are going to be around all the time, I have to have a place where I can get away from you."
That was the beginning of Judy`s dream Place: fifty yards behind our house surrounded by oak trees. The first floor has a stove, refrigerator, sink, toilet, and chairs for three or four people. A ladder goes to the second floor loft where there is a bed and an easy chair for reading. The Little House has windows on three sides and a view for miles to the west. A six-foot fence encloses the atrium. It has a wood burning stove and an outdoor shower.
Judy`s dream became a reality. The Little House is Judy`s Place. We share its quiet each morning for meditation and Bible reading. Judy goes alone and spends the night occasionally. Judy`s dream became a Place where two sixty-five year old people have found more meaning in life.
"I go to prepare a Place for you," doesn`t necessarily mean sometime in the future. We can claim that promise in the here and now.
