#54 - Our last day of transience - July 26, 2012

I missed daily entries for about 2 weeks. Entry #44 to #55 is out of order, but they will all be posted on the same day. So if you are confused, check the date and that’s probably why.


Thursday. The last day of our transience. I went to the bank today and got the bank checks we needed to close with. Katrina worked on cleaning and painting the basement floor today. 2 coats of primer, followed by 2 coats of paint, and then epoxy. Today the primer was done.

Some thoughts now on the nature of freedom and contracts, with some possible dalliance into the nature of God’s commandments and their restrictive and freeing nature. It’s not written well, I’m a little rambly today, so my apologies in advance.

The week before I left Oregon, around February 1, I packed up as much of my bedroom as I could. I stuffed 3 suitcases full of clothing, and have lived out of a suitcase or 1 dresser drawer ever since. I have lived in 3 hotel rooms, a room at a friend’s house, and a rented house. Katrina and the kids have been about the same. Transition every month or so, packing up all of our worldly possessions and moving somewhere new.

We have not had a mortgage for most of that time. And we have also not known where we would be sleeping a month away, either. It has been surreal. I personally have never been this transient. Even as a missionary, I moved once every 4 months. As a young, single guy without a job that required a commute, and where moving was expected to take a little time, and you were given the time you needed to do it.

We ended up in our longest-stay hotel for 3 months, but every day we were in there, we expected to be out within 30 days from that day.

Despite the freedom from a housing contract or utility bills, we did not feel free. We felt trapped. Would the company extend our hotel situation? If they didn’t, where would we stay? Would the hotel have space for us? Would we be able to find a house that would rent to us? Would the rental house have enough beds? We did not want to go to a 6-month lease, because we expected to buy a house in 3-8 weeks. Knowing what we know now, we would certainly have moved right into a 3-bedroom house and lived there with our weird sleeping situation until we closed on a house, and saved a couple different moves. That would have been odd, but we would have had a measure of permanence.

So I no longer feel tied to a mortgage. I feel freed by a mortgage. I know where I will sleep. I know where I will eat. I know where my kids will play, and where my wife’s friends will come to. Yes, we are in debt for this home. And we are obligated to pay the mortgage.

But we also have an obligation to find a place for us to sleep and eat. The mortgage is not an obligation. The obligation we have is to provide food and shelter for our children. Paying the mortgage satisfies that obligation. And that is the freeing part.

As an aside, I do believe the well-thought rules are much the same. Moving your physical framework from geography to geography is difficult. Moving your moral framework from philosophy to philosophy is also difficult. Whether it is a specific religion a person adheres to or a humanistic/moralistic set of guidelines, these rules by which we govern our lives give us freedom by limiting our choices. And we are not free because we can’t do certain things. We are free because we choose to not do certain things.