Suburban Sprawl

Suburban Sprawl and Good Enough

I live in a neighborhood of quarter acre lots surrounded by ranch land.   Softly rolling hills, dancing grass dotted with mesquite and cattle abruptly give way to brick homes and curving sidewalks.  As a matter of fact, right in front of our little community resides a herd of Texas Longhorn cattle.  This time of year I’ve enjoyed watching the calves romp around on the rocky ground after their mommas when I drive by. 

When we were shopping for our home a year and a half ago we had shifted gears.  We had been saving money and making some very deliberate changes in order to buy land.  When we found out we were expecting our fourth precious baby we changed perspectives and headed in a different direction. 

I couldn’t convince my husband to buy the land sans house and live in an RV for a while and we couldn’t convince my children that having land would be a better option than them each having a bedroom.  That’s not to say it was completely up to those two factors but after prayer and taking a good look at what we needed we decided to put the land search on hold and bought a 5 bedroom house in a subdivision. 

All around us they are breaking ground for new subdivisions.  Huge machines are tearing up the ground making way for more houses and less scenery.  Ranchers are selling their sprawling acreage for top dollar to builders and developers. 

If I were to rewind three years you’d find me in a suburban neighborhood yearning for a change.  We lived in a very congested area where everything was seemingly the same from one street to the next.  Same houses, same style homes inside and out. 

I guess that is the main thing that disturbs me about the suburban sprawl.  There are a lot of good people looking for a good place to live or raise a family.  They are looking for a nice suburban house at a good price.  There’s just nothing remarkable about any of it.  It all looks the same to me. 

As I look around when I’m driving I see field after field turned over, trees uprooted and the land leveled to give way to the spread of houses with granite countertops, lawns of Bermuda grass and a shot for a lot of people at the ideal suburban setting.  Safe neighborhoods, good neighbors, a place where their kids can ride their bikes on the sidewalk and they have a decent commute to work.

There’s nothing wrong with all of that.  I can tell you though, it hurts my heart a bit. 

From one city to the next around here all you see are the same stores, most even laid out in the same order, from shopping center to shopping center.  There’s a Target next to the Ross across the street from the Lowe’s.  In the parking lot there’s access to a Chick Fil A and a Chipotle. 

There is no character or uniqueness about them. 

There is no character or uniqueness in what we expect of ourselves in this culture today, either.  We have become so “connected” and so commercial everyone loves Target and Chick Fil A a jokes about pseudo addictions to their wares. 

We are no longer like our ancestors making and growing what we need to survive and carving out our home in the landscape. 

The suburban sprawl brings people who want familiarity and convenience.  It is uncommon these days and in my area for a person to seek out the local history, small businesses or the character of their surroundings.  I’m guessing that it’s mostly because of our connectedness via social media and technology that we are so much more “together”.  There isn’t really any pride in where you come from because one city and it’s chain businesses just runs right into the next.  If you live in North Texas, an area experience and extreme amount of growth, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  What’s the difference between Hurst, Euless, Bedford other than their names? 

I took my kids to a local heritage museum the other day.  It was full of family donations of pictures, antiques and artifacts.  The gentleman who ran the establishment voluntarily knew so much about the area and the people living in it.  We learned a lot.

What I began to realize is that in my former, congested suburban home that we sold 3 years ago, there was no local heritage museum.  There was no way to know, without sufficient digging, to understand the history of the area and it lacked a culture and community of its own.  The city had the same Target, Walmart, Chick Fil A and big home improvement stores that everyone else has.  It, commercially, is a parade of chain business after chain business.  There is no character, nothing special or different.

It makes me wonder if we’ve all been trained, in the suburbs or the city, to be so homogonous. 

I have friends who dare not eat at a restaurant they’ve never heard of nor shop small businesses or boutiques.  I can’t image the expertly made chicken fried steak or mile high pies I would’ve missed if I didn’t try the locally owned and run restaurants wherever i’m at. 

As a part of my Texas Deb endeavors I’ve started showing my face and sharing my salsa at some local, mostly rural, vendor fairs.  I have been absolutely astonished at the quality and creativity of other makers and even the determination and keen minds of the direct sales folks.  I have enjoyed seeing so many sharing what they love to do and offering what they make for sale with pride of craftsmanship.  People filling the needs or wants of other people, putting a face and a name to what you buy. 

You don’t get that at Target.  You get trendy dressed headless mannequins, cookies priced five cents more than at Walmart because Target is cleaner, shinier and makes you happier than trudging through a disheveled store with a sticky floor. 

I wonder if that is a symptom of a bigger problem.  I’ve been studying how to work my Texas Deb business and I’ve been listening to some podcasts, reading some great books.  One common theme that has jumped out at me is that God made us all different with special and unique gifts.  If we understand that to be true, and it has to be, it’s absolutely biblical, to what degree are we settling in our daily lives? 

Is everyone a craftsman or businessman?  No.  Of course not.  But how often do we just get tossed about in the waves of the mob? 

Where I’m from I idealized the suburban home and having a family.  As a woman of 41 I can now see, in hindsight, that those were wonderful things to aspire to but I was missing some vital components.  First of all, I don’t think I ever questioned my “why” any more than to say that my heart desired a family and a home sooner rather than later.  Every one of my peers seemed to be buying the same type of suburban houses and having babies, I should too. 

I’ve gotten on a soapbox a lot of times touting my mantra, “Don’t be a jellyfish”.  Mostly that’s because I have been, at many points in my life, a jellyfish.  Tossed about by the waves around me, my soul purpose to feed and breed.  No real plan, only a deep emotional investment in where the next wave might send me. 

For a long time I thought that this is how we live by Faith.  Years later, lessons learned and aged, I know that God intended living by Faith to look different. 

One of the podcasts I listened to today was about people who are in the self help, get it done mode; the doers.  It was also about another crowd that was all about having Faith.  The argument or statement was that we need to have both.  Christy Wright, responsible along with Ramsey Solutions for Business Boutique, whom I am a big fan of, made an amazing point.  A point I had pondered but couldn’t put into words until today.  She said you need to work like everything depends on you and pray as if everything depends on God.  Good stuff.  I love it.  When I first heard it, I was actually physically uncomfortable.  That’s not how I was taught to do things, or at least that’s not how I’ve understood them all these years. The scripture is there, though.  The podcast went on to further discuss how when Jesus heals in the bible there is always a direction, an action to take.  After healing the lame man at the pool in Bethesda, “Go, take your mat and walk.”. 

I’ve often mulled over the words, “Cast your anxiety…” from I Peter 5:7.  “Cast” is an action word, suggesting action on the part of the listener.  That has helped me in a lot of rough moments in my life because I know that there is at least a little bit of ownness on my part.  There is something I have to do or give up in order to be a part of this change or betterment. 

All signs lately, as my heart hurts when I see huge, sprawling ranches up for sale, willingly split into multiple parcels, I worry that the story and the lifestyle of the land will die.  I get heartsick knowing that when once you were able to look out across the rolling hills, speckled with mesquite and cottonwoods, dotted with Oaks and pecans, sparkling with dancing grass that praises the blue-gem sky you’ll only see house after house.  One just like the next with small variations according to taste. 

I worry that the small, locally owned cafes will be ousted by the IHOPS and the local hardware store overrun by the “big box” store. 

More profoundly, I worry that me and you will get tossed along with the wave and forget who we are and where we came from.  More importantly, we’ll forget that we have something unique and God given to offer this world that no one else can. 

I see as a culture and society, we get further and further away from the things in this life that really mean anything. 

We send our kids to school and they get a watered down version of history and morality.  We socialize and there is no real art in hospitality.  A lot of what we strive for depends solely on how much money we spend on each other.  That’s just addressing a few things.

Our culture, while shouting individuality and doing what we feel is anything but supportive of who God made us to be. 

I don’t want my life to look like everyone else’s.  I don’t want to do what everyone else is doing.  Further, I want to see others as stand-alones, not through the lens of how they compare to everyone else. 

I tell my kiddo all the time not to worry too much about what others think.  Follow God and remember that there is and will only every be just one YOU.  You are here once and only once and God has a plan for you so don’t waste your time trying to be someone else.  I’m striving to do this myself.  I’m also struggling to find value and uniqueness that God puts right in front of my face.