Keeper of the Springs (Ingrid Trobisch)

Image by Brenda @ It's A Beautiful Life

"It is in the shelter of each other that the people live."

IRISH PROVERB

We're into our second week of the 'pressing my books into service' series. This is my little contribution here in blogland as a way to help create community in isolation. If you are arriving in this series mid-stream, you can find the earlier posts by clicking HERE or on the Tab above, just under the heading: Pressing My Books Into Service.

In a few weeks I look forward to celebrating another birthday. How that year has flown, and now as the coronavirus disease reaches every continent and nearly every country, I do feel the breathiness of my own mortality. I'm not afraid, but just as I take more care with the water supply during drought times, counting each drop as dear, so too I hold these hours, days, and weeks more precious. I want to live these days more joyfully and more generously even in isolation. There's a wee story Ingrid Trobisch tells in her book Keeper of the Springs that, to me, speaks of joyful living:

"... The surrounding estate of green fields has been divided now. But each plot of two to three acres is studded by huge ancient trees with sprawling branches. When I purchased the home from Mrs. Crighton, my childhood teacher, she said, "I will sell you my house if you promise to do one thing every morning."

"What's that?" I asked.

"Stop whatever you're doing at ten o'clock....go sit on the front porch or backyard swing and just listen to the birds."

And now, I hope you enjoy today's further selection from Keeper of the Springs.

March 31
KEEPER OF THE SPRINGS

Making Home the Place For which You're Longing

by Ingrid Trobisch with Marlee Alex

"Haus Geborgenheit means Place of Shelter in German. It is the name I've given my nearly eighty-year-old farmhouse in Springfield, Missouri. And Shelter is the theme around which I've worked, written, and raised five children under the umbrella of a lifelong love with their father.

Families come in all shapes: un-coupled, married without children, single parent, blended, extended, and the traditional nuclear family. Regardless of the configuration, there will always be those individuals who are the home-keepers: tending the needs of the people they love and making home 'Shelter', the place to which those people keep coming back.

On my property in Missouri, just a short walk beyond the back door, springs bubble up within the shelter of a large cave that is open, front and back. The cave forms an earthen bridge, under which the springs become a stream. In the early twentieth century, this place gave the area its address: Natural Bridge. It was used as refrigeration for a family of ten on the original farmstead. I often go there to cool off on humid summer afternoons. The bridge shelters the legacy of a family growing up long before my time as well as my own memories and dreams. It nurtures my soul and my sense of place in this world.

Every person is a kind of bridge to the future, unalterably linked to the past through family. Each of us shelter springs of our own ancestral legacy, spiritual heritage, and personal value which eventually flow on to those who come after us. Whatever one's age and from whatever kind of family, people thrive in Shelter or Geborgenheit."

The author goes on to say that readers should look beyond hectic days and explore what this might mean to us. Perhaps, with so many of us in isolation, we might wish to ponder what gives our families a sense of Shelter and how we can be 'keepers of the springs of the heart' for others, for ourselves, in this troubling season.

 * * *

I pray you grace for all you face and walk through today.
I wish you a beautiful day. And...
I'll meet you at 10:00 -- front porch or backyard swing?

💙

Heart Hugs,

Brenda

xox