Shelter

So today was a good day, went down to the bowl and pitcher in between math and stone age, decided to go for a climb and to take some pictures and journal. The first picture is what I hiked up onto to look around and take pictures and journal. Pretty cool rock, theres a neat clearing on the top. Anyways, I ended up looking up above the river and seeing some massive houses on the ridge overlooking the river and it directed my thoughts during my journaling time. So of it related to Thoreau and his thoughts on shelter, most of it actually, and then branching off of that and pondering some of my own ?'s on it. After reading Walden;Or, Life In The Woods, I was able to learn a little bit about shelters of old. Typically shelters were unnecessary for about 2/3 of the year, and the other 1/3 was only used as a covering at night. People used to make wigwams out of only the materials around them that functioned just as well as any house nowadays in terms of keeping out wind, holding heat, and they even made modifications to their roofs sometimes to act like an air conditioner. They were intelligent enough though to build their wigwams to be transportable, they took a couple days to build and only hours to set up or take down meaning they kid stay on the move, which was important before they had more conveniences that led to a sedentary lifestyle.

So, the purpose of a house used to be, and still is, at its core, simply to protect us from the elements when necessary. Looking at those massive houses by the river made a lot of things run through my head. Why do they get such huge nice houses, why do i get such a big nice house? What have they or I done to earn it except be born into the right circumstances. Why do we get to live in a luxurious house like that while others live in huts in a savage way just as those who used wigwams. We are no better or any more deserving of this house then they, in some instances we are less deserving. Thoreau said "While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it is not easy to create noblemen and kings." He goes on to say "If the civilized mans pursuits are no worthier than the savages, if he is employed the greater part of his life in obtaining gross necessaries and comforts merely, why should he have a better dwelling than the former?" Seriously, this guy hit it right on the head. We have created palaces, and the majority of those who inhabit them are not noble, just, good, or deserving of what they have. So why should we live better then the other? Things nowadays are so unnecessary, everything has got to be bigger, fancier, flashier...but why? If the functionality is just the same as the last, what does it matter? Just because its bigger fancier and flashier does not necessarily make it better.

Today all day I felt that I am blessed beyond what I deserve, and convicted that part of the reason why is so I can learn to take what is above and beyond what is necessary and learn to pour it out as blessings to others. Those who are less fortunate than I are just as deserving of the things I have. There is no greater feeling than helping to provide for those who have less than myself.