Meditations on What Matters

Sturbridge, Massachusetts

Step Away

One of my favorite places to spend the day is Old Sturbridge Village. An outdoor living museum, OSV replicates a rural New England community set in the 1830s.

While the history and architecture are interesting enough, what I love most about the village is simply the feeling of peace and calm that comes with stepping away from our busy, loud world into a slower and quieter way of life.

I relish the opportunity to tuck my phone away and walk with eyes up enjoying life as it once was, as I wish it still could be. My kids are free to run without fear of cars or busy streets. They love seeing the animals up close and watching those who work here explain how things are made or used to be done.

You Have Everything You Need

A couple weekends ago we had a perfect 70 something degree day and spent the whole afternoon walking around the village. As we moved through each house and building, I was struck over and over again by how simply people once lived.

I’m not saying life was easy; it looks like a lot of work! But as you walk through the village from the church to the meeting house, past the general store and shoe maker, down to the school, the potter, and on to the farms and farmhouses, you begin to see how these old rural communities had everything needed without needing much at all.

Life then seemed to grow a great deal more around relationships and community and far less around material things. The work that kept people busy was also the work that kept them alive (farming, making your own food right down to bread and butter). The objects filling people’s homes, while perhaps beautiful, were primarily functional. There was so much less “stuff” but seemingly so much more peace and calm in the living.

Stepping back helps me remember that stuff can’t really fix my problems or make me happy as promised. I have everything I need. Oddly, what really makes me happy is stepping away from all the stuff and just enjoying a quieter, slower way of life for a few minutes.

There’s Another Way

I’m reminded too that even though I wasn’t born in this lovely 1800s world, I still have a lot of say over how I choose to live now. If anything, the advancements of today should give me all the more freedom and opportunity to create a good and happy life for myself and my family — but it’s up to me to choose the right things.

I can choose to chase after material things, be ever on my phone looking down or any other vice. Or I can look up and chase after all the good and wholesome things right at my fingertips. No one said I can’t still make my own bread or live with less stuff; that’s entirely up to me — far more now than it ever was to anyone in 1830.

I named this post “Meditations on What Matters” — so what matters?

People and relationships. Community. Contentment. Hard work. Healthy living (working with your hands, growing and making your own food, being physically active). The land and outdoors . . . just to name a few.

I can cultivate each and every one of these things in my own life right where I am. Is is harder in the world we live in now? Yes, in many ways I think so. But ultimately, it’s up to me to choose. So thank you, OSV, for reminding me of what was AND of what still can be. There’s a lot of good out there and I intend to get after it.

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FIELD NOTES

Old Sturbridge Village

1 Old Sturbridge Village Road Sturbridge, MA 01566

Regular daytime admission: Adult $28, Children $14, Parking is free.

Visit osv.org to view detailed pricing (memberships, special rates, etc.) and hours.

From the Website:

Old Sturbridge Village, the largest outdoor history museum in the Northeast, depicts a rural New England town of the 1830s. Step inside more than 40 original buildings, and explore homes, meetinghouses, a district school, country store, bank, working farm, three water-powered mills, and trade shops — all situated on more than 200 scenic acres. Talk with authentically costumed historians and see heritage breed farm animals.