We're Moving

On the Ides of March, 2007, the Hershberger family is doing something totally out of our character for the past 24 years. We have bought a 12-acre hobby farm and are moving.

Insane, you say? Probably. It is an adventure, the details of which we probably are better off not knowing ahead of time, or we would never do it. I have joked with my friends and colleagues that we are trading city conveniences for peace and quiet, starry nights, fresh veggies, septic system failures, power outages, snow removal, and skunks. And of course, the questions pour forth about my career as a college artist/teacher of piano.

Cindy has dreamed of living in the country since she was a little girl. Our son Brett--whom we affectionately call Nimrod the Mighty Hunter--longs for the country so he can hunt on command. The little girls are excited about our change of life and pose all sorts of questions. Me? How did I come to this decision? It has been a long process of thinking, reading, re-reading, imagining, and overcoming doubts and fears about the future. I have intentionally moved into a mode of thinking about life in general and what really counts: family, place, food, nature, and a more deliberate lifestyle under the watchful and caring eye of God.

How is this possible for one whose livelihood is connected with the resources of the city (music and higher education)? All I can point to is an intangible feeling that my career will benefit from this deliberate change, in forcing me to be more intentional about my performances, about my work as a teacher, and about my work as a professor in the liberal arts tradition. How this will play out is yet to be told, but it is an adventure and challenge that I look forward to embracing.

This is, in part, about becoming rooted in a place. We have adopted Minnesota as our home. This sometimes desolate place up here in the Northern Plains is where we have settled. It is where God has called us to stay. We have become Minnesotans, and that sense of geography and place begins to supercede even our identity as Americans. This is an out-of-the-mainstream mindset for sure. Some might even call it provincial and parochial. Perhaps.

As this all unfolds, I hope to use the blog as a record of our journey. The humor as well as the challenge. The practical as well as the philosophical. More later...