Grass

“The grass is always greener on the other side”--a common observation on the phenomenon of human desire well known by restless teenagers and cheating spouses. The former, seeing greener grass in every town or city except their own, give birth to an oft repeated dream as graduation approaches: to “get out of this place” when school is complete.

But what if the problem is not with the perceived but rather the perceiver? The question comes into sharp focus when I think about my own experiences in life: that new phone, book, camera, car, or experience, which I thought would quench an itching desire, quickly browns and I am once again looking across the fence to greener pastures.

This website is a chance to rethink and re-look at the small town of Quarryville; to try to perceive green where I once saw brown; to see beauty where routine and familiarity tends not to see anything; to see if reality can be found here in addition to “over there”. It will be a place where culture, history, philosophy, theology, and maybe a bit of criticism can interact engagingly and constructively. It will seek the vintage Quarryville to the tune of definition number 4 below:

vintage adj

1601

1 of wine: of, relating to, or produced in a particular vintage

2 : of old, recognized, and enduring interest, importance, or quality: classic

3 a : dating from the past: old

b : outmoded, old-fashioned

4 : of the best and most characteristic — used with a proper noun 〈vintage Shaw: a wise and winning comedy —Time〉

By no means, however, am I advocating a kind-of small town tribalism. I think that it is important to travel: to experience and learn about the wider world and its diversity. I myself have been blessed with the opportunity to travel broadly a couple times and am thankful for it. The claim that small towns generally exhibit a close-minded isolationism tends to be true, I think, precisely because many have been there their whole lives and have never interacted with someone who thinks or lives differently. And so I think it is important to travel, read and interact widely that we might achieve a mature understanding of the world. That doesn’t mean, however, that we need to dispose and disregard our own provenance and culture. A proper response is I think, the goal of this website: to engage and encourage the good where it may be found: where you are.