Story of Place

Home is place. A place may be a home, or not. What makes that so?

And for how long? Is it temporary like a campsite that gives comfort from the weather and pause for re-energizing strength for the journey to continue? Does that site represent ‘home’ for a day, a night, a week, or longer? Depends on the circumstances, right?

Where the place is makes a difference. When also dictates some parameters. Resources also make a difference. Rivers, mountains, fish and game, oceans, ports, soil for farming, slope for drainage, amount of seasonal moisture or precipitation – so many resources or assets of place that are important to the value or attraction of the site.

And so it has been for recorded history.

I lived in Syracuse, New York for a few years prior to and during college years. I learned that Syracuse was a historic site in the late 1400’s and early 1500’s for the French Canadians and native Indians as they trapped for fur. They discovered salt deposits there. That commodity became a lucrative trading item that built more trade traffic and the city of Syracuse began from such humble origins.

Chicago was settled by Indians in a marshy area adjacent to a river and Lake Michigan. Connectors to other great lakes were identified. Native Indians created the settlements and trade routes for early American settlers. The rest is history, the story of a place named Chicago.

What we do with a place defines it. But its utility in the lives of some and then many cause an explosion of function and growth. Complex societies build on that base and prosper if the people share vision and purpose.

Place has a story. That story usually has logical simple beginnings. What comes in time often obscures the story of origin. It would be helpful to reconnect with it from time to time. It defines our roots whether we are newcomer to the region or one of the long term residents.

I sat in church one day and contemplated that place. I wondered what the church was like when it was new, even as it was first organized and built. I thought about the plat of land the building sat upon. My mind traveled back in time to wonder how the soil was used last, before the church, perhaps before any other building that might have had a place in that exact spot.

I further thought about what was done on that land 100 years earlier, or 200 years, or 300….  You see this was the site of an early Illinois prairie inhabited by native American Indians. And as a result of European settlers that came to the shores of the New World in the late 1400’s and early 1500’s, their burgeoning acculturation of what became America took over a land mass once settled as home by native Indians. The natives were pushed aside and they migrated.

From the east coast and from the northern forests they moved southerly and westerly across the eastern mountain ranges, around the great lakes and down through the flats and marshes of the Midwest, what is now Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota. Down they came to the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Through the area we know today as Chicago.

The migration was a trickle and unwanted at first. But later ‘American’ government policy forced relocation of most Indians, certainly to reservations – a few in their old region, but mostly in far western territories. By 1850 the relocation was so complete that stragglers had to hurry lest they be slaughtered by unfriendly ‘immigrants’.

So, in our place of today’s church building, what human life transpired on this spot? Might it have contained a portion of the story of temporary place for Indians? Most assuredly it was. Pottery shards and arrowheads attest to this. But remember this was marshy land later drained for American agricultural purpose. So hard-land settlement finds are few. What remains of their culture has been destroyed or lost over the centuries.

What else happened here? The story of place continues to tell its story. Millennia happened here. Lush growth of botanicals happened here. So did nature ignited prairie fires to cleanse the soil and allow new growth. Rivers formed here. So did lakes and ponds. Fish and other wildlife happened, too.

More millennia occurred and the raging climate shifted and worsened and eased and worsened again. An endless cycle of climatic change, including the end of the Ice Age. Where our church sits today, ice once suffocated the land more than a mile thick. 5200 feet of ice. The weight. It made the prairie. It made the soil. It crushed the rock to soil. It deposited water and aquifers. It made possible our place.

The story of place. It is ours for now. What seconds or minutes of time are ours in the pantheon of time? What will we do with our time here? Will it be of lasting value for others to build on? And a proud value?

Our place. Our home. Our time. Are we doing well with it?

October 26, 2012