Lessons from a Chimney

     I was walking one morning while visiting my brother’s family in the mountains of North Carolina, when I noticed an old stone chimney standing in the midst of the brush beside the road.  It got me thinking.

     It appeared the fireplace side faced the road, just a few feet away from it.  “Why would the fireplace face that way?” I wondered.  “That would have put the house right in the middle of the road.”  Moments later I felt silly as I realized this house had stood long before the paved road on which I now walked ever existed.

     So what happened to the house?  Likely it burned.  Did the fire start in that very fireplace, a result of a wife’s effort to cook the game brought in by her husband, or just to keep the house warm on a cold, winter’s night?

     What happened to the family who lived there?  Did they escape and build another house nearby, perhaps leaving descendants who still live in the area?  It’s possible they all perished in the fire.  After all, there were no fire alarms in the house to awaken them at the first sign of smoke, no phones to call 911, bringing a fire truck racing to the rescue, its siren blaring as it tried to get there as quickly as possible to save some remnant of the home.

     More likely neighbors came running when they smelled smoke or saw it billowing over the treetops, bringing buckets to bail water from the nearby creek to throw on the fire and try to keep it from spreading.  Perhaps heroic men ran inside the burning house, risking their own lives to try to save a sleeping child.

     But it was too late, at least to save the house.  The family, if they survived, would have to start again from scratch, cutting trees down in the woods with an ax or a hand saw and building a new home.  No insurance money would come in the mail to reimburse them for their losses, though perhaps a group of friends or neighbors may have rallied together to help them through this time of hardship.

     This family would have lived by the sweat of their brows, growing their own food and storing it up for the winter in root cellars or canning jars, smoking meat from the animals they hunted down, or perhaps, if they could afford it, a hog butchered in the fall.  They probably sent their children out to pick berries on summer days, dodging snakes, bears, Indians and other dangers, known or unknown.  Did they lose their food supply in the fire too?  What, then, did they eat?  After all, there would be no food stamps from the government.

     Or possibly they had already moved out of their home long before it burned, maybe migrating west in a covered wagon in search of new opportunities. 

     Life was much harder then.  Harder, but simpler.  There were no cell phones ringing.  No soccer practice or piano lessons to rush to after school.  No Facebook to catch up on each day.  They simply didn’t have time for such frivolity.  A house didn’t need to be big and beautiful with a lush lawn and fancy cars parked in the garage; it only needed to serve as a shelter for the family who lived there. 

     Was it better, or worse, than the lives we live now?  I could argue either way.  There was much more dependence on one’s family, church and community.  People probably found more satisfaction in their work.  There was joy in simple things.  Divorce was nearly unheard of, as it was almost impossible for either a man or a woman to raise a family on their own.  A person who became widowed usually quickly remarried anyone who was available and willing, without regard for whether they were “in love,” or whether that person would make them happy for the rest of their life.  They just needed a companion to help them survive and care for their family.

     They had to be strong.  They had to work hard, day in and day out.   Medical care and sanitation weren’t nearly as advanced, so most people were much more familiar with the sting of death than we are today.  But as a people, they survived.  Survived to carry on the human race, to move forward and leave behind a heritage that we now enjoy.

     I’m sure this old chimney has quite a story to tell, a story I will probably never hear because it is lost to history.  But it represents the lives of generations past, people who helped make us who we are today.  A past that we, too, will someday be a part of.   

     Our forerunners left behind a legacy of hard work and perseverance, of depending on God and on each other.  Which leaves me to wonder, what is the legacy that we are leaving behind for generations to come?