There are a few places where my soul feels connected to the blueprint of my DNA. Where I can feel the ground beneath my feet and where I take a deep inhale where even the senses and the smell in the air is exactly where my soul belongs. I often picture the banquet table in the New Earth like this. Where my feet are grounded, my senses are awake, I feel at ease, and I can breathe - and one of these places is Mt. Gretna, Pennsylvania.
Since I was seven-years-old I have grown up visiting this mountain town every summer. It has always felt safe to my heart. A place where my siblings and I could run around playing tag and hide-and-seek through the alley ways until midnight. We had autonomy there. As young as nine-years-old, my step sister and I would walk to a restaurant, use the cash our parents gave us and order a meal. The wifi wasn't great, so our parents would tell us a time we had to be back at the cottage.
Within the town, there are quiet hours at a certain time of night and a tabernacle often holding a concert or church service where you could hear the music playing through the streets of the homes. Most homes have front porches and a lot of roads do not allow cars to drive through- leaving room for people to meander and walk slowly. You can see most people sitting on their front porches sharing a meal or playing games and sometimes an instrument.
It’s a special place and has significant meaning in our family of origin.
My grandfather “Papa” as I liked to call him, (or "PawPaw," if you're from the south like I was), was one of the kindest-hearted men that I had the privilege of knowing- and he grew up in a cottage here. He would walk me every summer to the well that he would “walk uphill in the snow every winter” to fill his house with water. I grew up seeing him sitting outside on his front patio in the morning with his crossword and newspaper. He would have peanuts on his table “to feed the squirrels,” of which he often did. No phone, just the newspaper, a cup of coffee, and the sound of birds and squirrels. There is simplicity that my papa learned from this town, and I am thankful he shared this place with us.
When he would see my siblings and I laughing, walking around the village, or enjoying an ice cream at the local ice cream shop- a smile would come across his face. To me, that smile meant “I’m glad they enjoy this special place as much as I did as a kid.” It was simplicity in its finest- and it still is.
It was the first place I jumped from a high dive in a lake. It was the first place I remember running freely playing child-like games without any fear. It welcomes play. We as a family play games on the front porch, make homemade meals, share about our day, and read good books.
One of my favorite memories for my heart was when I was nine-years-old. My step-sister Hannah was two years younger than me and loved reading. I was free-spirited and could be a bit wild when I was young. However, there was also a big part of my heart that was also introverted and had a longing to become a reader. I just didn't know where to start.
There was a little library in the town that my step-sister and I could walk to. When we did that summer, I picked up Charlotte’s Web. Hannah and I then found a rock in front of our cottage and read. In that moment, I remember my heart getting lost in a book for the first time- and I also found a friend in my now sibling. We would then for many years following that summer make it a point to walk to the library together. Though not biological sisters, Hannah and I became sisters that summer.
Since I was young, I also loved visiting the Amish in Lancaster, PA (I actually wanted to become Amish for about three years, my mom can vouch for this- so can the bonnet I would wear around town LOL). My young heart believed there was a chance LOL. My young heart was also drawn to open land, slowness, and less noise.
Not much has changed within the towns from seven-years-old to thirty- and that, that is special. I still roll my windows down when going through the back roads of the Amish town and breathe in the open land. My Papa often called Mt. Gretna - and the back roads with rolling hills, farm land, barns, and luscious trees - “God’s country.”
I go speechless most of the time when driving through the landscape. My young heart comes alive and I remember. I remember being seven, nine, thirteen, mid-twenties… going through this town. My Papa is now in Heaven. And I have a feeling the beauty he called “God’s country” is exactly and abundantly more what we will experience around that Wooden Banquet Table in the New Earth.
My soul exhales in rejoicing for the beauty available now to my heart, and also the beauty that entails this slowness, open land, people around the table, no fear, and child-like play, to come.
Beautiful Mt. Gretna, thank you for all that you offered my young heart- and all that you remain to offer us.
Go in courage dear friends.
Courage to roll the windows down, breathe in the farm-land air, slow down, and lean into child-like play without fear. May you also have the courage to believe in the goodness of God’s True Country to Come.
Songs: Good Days: Brand New: Ben Rector, Good Ole' Days: Macklemore & Kesha, Talking to Jesus: Elevation Worship, Maverick City, & Brandon Lake
