#32- Sirens

I grew up in the country. We never had a 'real' farm but had just about every animal at the same or different times as one would have on a farm.

The cow pasture was my playground and the swamp was my backyard; My neighbours were Mennonites or farmers.


I never ever thought I would LIVE in the city, maybe hang out there for a year or so. But here I am, going on 4 years in London (4 years!!) and no reason to leave other than my sentiments. 
As I write this, there are sirens blaring a few streets over. In the country when you hear a siren it is a rare thing indeed, and you usually check in later on your neighbours because who else would sirens be going for?
We live very near a main st in London (Oxford baby) and so it is not uncommon to hear sirens. I imagine my children are used to the sound, just as I was used to hearing coyotes or crickets.
The very thought of THAT makes me want to pack my bags.


Sirens always bother me, as they should I suppose. I notice them most when someone in my home is missing, usually Eric off to work or with friends. Every time I think 'what if he was so close to home/or just leaving home, and something happened? what if those sirens are for him?' And these thoughts are irrational and of course never true. But that doesn't stop one from thinking them. and I can't stop worrying until he is home.


Living in the city feels like a constant reminder that the world is not safe. (Of course that is probably the most negative way of looking at it as most of you are thinking right now.)
Even in the suburbs when I used to work there it never felt safe, maybe crime was low and people were rich and had everything they needed, but a deep sense of insecurity and dissatisfaction was in the air and I felt it constantly.
I mourn the thought that my children might not experience what its like to live in the country, to not know how to work an iphone or prefer roaming the hills over technology any day. To know how to spend a whole evening reading a book or making an igloo. And not because you have to!
The option is there of course that we COULD just pack up and move, work inconveniences aside, nothing is demanding we stay here...
But then...there is our community of friends, our church family, neighbours, that cashier who knows my kids and I and we always share a smile.
There's the daily opportunity of loving a stranger. Of being a light. Of putting yourself out there, taking chances...getting out of your comfort zone, practicing self-control when the world is at your fingertips, truly search out and ground yourself in who you are and what you want for your family rather than having it so easy and taking it for granted...
And not saying that you can't do these things in the country, but from my experience, it's a lot easier not to.
Perhaps God will keep our flighty souls here in London for all our days. Perhaps a few years, we can never know, only be willing to go.
Or stay.
I suppose we can't really leave a place until we desire to stay. Otherwise we have not learned what we needed to while we were there.
I like to think at the end of these hard days, when the new chapter opens in the Kingdom, I'll live in the country with my chickens and my sheep and my cows. And I'll know all my neighbours by name, far and wide.

But for now, I need to be here.
Maybe before the need for sirens.