I   had a place, mortgage free, on the eastern slope of Piney Mountain, a house at the southern-most tip of the Massanutten Mountains that split the Shenandoah Valley all the way from Front Royal to Elkton, Virginia.  Facing northeast, I saw the morning sun lift majestically over the Blue Ridge Mountains and as evening fell, shadows mute the gentle old Appalachian hills with mist and mystery.  The house was a solidly built chalet that I named “L’Abri”, meaning shelter.  I borrowed the name from its counterpart in Switzerland, a place that gained a measure of fame because the man who lived there, Francis Schaeffer, wrote a best-seller book called The God Who Is There.  Perhaps intuitively I knew that our Lord would be there too and would be my companion in this sheltered place among the towering old pine, maple, oak, and tulip poplar trees.  Living there nine years, I came to commune with Him often and found Him to be more resolutely the Director of my life. 

The house must have been built on an ancient deer path because they often traversed through my property, sometimes in families of five to eight.  Scenes reminiscent of Arbreux, my other place in the woods of Shenandoah County, repeated themselves.  Pileated woodpeckers came to drill for food on ancient pines.  Again I saw wild turkeys on the front lawn and once I saw an opossum climb my neighbor’s tree to invade a squirrel’s nest.  Rabbits, chipmunks, groundhogs, raccoons, and bears were also co-owners of the place, their ancestor’s protagonists and no doubt food for the native Indians who had a prior claim to these hills.

  Living there long enough, I realized the energy needed to be a proper steward of the place could not be sustained. So I moved on to this village of retirees with a prayer that I could continue an active life and demonstrate the courage to confront another passage.  I look back with immense gratitude for the wise counsel and benefactors through the transition.  So I have special cause this year to raise thanksgivings for the joy and lessons learned living there, for the friends I made there, and the measure of good health that enabled me to stay there for my allotted time.+ Ω