The paperback edition of Old-Fashioned on Purpose launches this week! It has a new cover and we added a sourdough guide & garden planner, too. To celebrate, I’m sharing a few paragraphs from the conclusion of the book. Enjoy this sneak peak and grab your copy here if you don’t have one already!
A turn-of-the-century church and cemetery can be seen nestling in the fields east of our town. They stand as a remnant from Iowa Flats, one of many satellite communities that formed near Chugwater back in the day. Built in 1910, this humble white chapel appears out of nowhere as you drive across a patchwork of wheat fields and native prairie grass.
After passing several abandoned homesteads and wondering if you might have taken the wrong turn, there it is. The steeple pierces the horizon, a silent testament to the vibrant, resolute people who lived on this prairie long before asphalt roads and power poles conquered the land.
The thermometer registered well below zero the day I drove to the church. As I walked inside the unheated sanctuary, my foggy breath mixed with the golden light streaming through wavy glass windows.
Old places like these carry a special sort of energy, almost as if the people who were here before left a bit of themselves behind. Proof of their existence is evident in the scratched floor planks, the railings worn smooth by decades of hands, the patinaed metal shaped by long-ago craftsmen, and the nostalgic scents that linger in the air. The veil of time feels thinner in these places, as history beckons us to reach out and touch it.
As I walked across the creaky wooden floors and sat in one of the cast-iron pews, I thought about the century’s worth of people who have crossed that same threshold. While they might have arrived by wagon and I came by SUV, we’re more alike than we are different. They were homesteaders, townspeople, cowboys, and farmers—some of whom still have descendants living in this area. They had dreams, and goals, and a desire to scratch a life from this unforgiving landscape, just like we do today.
They sat in those same church chairs and balanced plates of potluck food on their knees while they hollered at their children running up and down the aisles, just like we do today.
They gathered in that little sanctuary to sing songs of worship and to grieve their lost loved ones, just like we do today.
They filled the walls of that place with laughter, sadness, lively debate, and whispers of fear and struggle, just like we do today.
They discussed wars and pandemics, calving woes and droughts, just like we do today.
I think this is why I love old things and old places so much. They remind me that I’m not the first, and that I won’t be the last. Thinking of that little church on the prairie through the Spanish flu epidemic, the Great Depression, two World Wars, the Blizzard of ’49, the cyclical droughts, and the swirling tornadoes is strangely reassuring. This sacred space has seen it all, and yet it remains—strong and steady.
We’re not the first generation to face uncertainty and upheaval in our lifetime. It’s an inescapable part of this beautiful, yet messy human experience.
But I wholeheartedly agree with Laura Ingalls Wilder who wrote, “…so many changes have made living and learning easier. But the real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.” Good things always last.
Through each of the chapters in this book, we’ve explored a different way that our rush for progress has led us to places we never intended to go. Time and time again, a desire for ease has led us astray.
And our next challenge looms on the horizon. Wendell Berry imagined that the “next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.” And the age of the human machine is rapidly approaching.
As our society becomes increasingly obsessed with the artificial, I can’t shake the sense that we’re standing on the edge of another precipice.
Will we soon choose to spend more time in virtual reality than the real world?
Will corporations convince us that food developed in test tubes or 3D printers is better than food grown in soil?
Will artificial intelligence shake the foundations of life as we know it?
Only time will tell.
At the turn of the century, it was fashionable for women homesteaders to share reflections from life on the Plains with newspapers and magazines. I seem to be falling into their ranks.
Yet while my predecessors often wrote to convince their eastern counterparts to move west, I’m advocating for a different kind of move—a move toward time-honored ideas that will keep us grounded in a world that spins ever faster. I champion a shift from synthetic, to real; from artificial, to alive; from sedated, to aware; from consumer, to producer; and from mindless, to meaningful.
Because no matter how sophisticated we may become, we’re still flesh and blood. We are biological beings with ancient compositions. We’re not mere imposters in this natural world, we’re a part of it. And when we sink into those truths, everything aligns. The very fibers of our being awaken, and we can then experience what it means to be fully alive.
Old-Fashioned on Purpose is a rallying cry. In my mind’s eye, I picture people like you and me carefully packing these timeless principles in our suitcases and gripping them tightly while we charge headfirst into the unknown. I don’t know what the future holds or how the world will change in the coming decades. But I do know these old-fashioned principles will hold true, just like they always have.
Forever Looking to the Past,
-Jill
P.S. Old-Fashioned on Purpose is available from your local bookstore, or the usual retailers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, etc, etc)
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