THE FIFTEEN MILE REACH T, 8-5-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter: THE FIFTEEN MILE REACH T, 8-5-25]

 

Acclaimed Indiana University prof Rebecca Spang [1] went to Harvard as an undergrad to study biology but decided she wanted to study history. Changing departments, though, was not automatic. She had to go through an interview. She told the interviewer that she wanted to study the history of common things, domestic things, the ordinary lives of real people. He said, imperiously, “Miss Spang, this is Harvard; you can’t study home economics here.”

That’s the common understanding of history, isn’t it? It’s about politics and war. And dates. Who was the first president? When was the War of 1812? Who invented gun powder? It’s certainly not about peasant wedding customs.

Our daughter, Katie Kennedy, the author [2] knew better, perhaps because of her mother, an oft-quoted home management expert. [3] Katie knew that politics and war come out of what we live and learn in the commonness of the everyday, within 15 miles of home.

That’s what she discovered when, as a graduate student at the University of Illinois, she studied Russian wedding customs. She wanted to learn how far the Bolshevik Revolution extended beyond the confines of the big cities. It was 15 miles. When you got beyond 15 miles outside the city, the folks still did weddings exactly the way they always had, the new atheistic culture and its anti-religion revolution be damned.

A fifteen-mile reach. It doesn’t have to be a place. Some folks have lived in many different places when growing up. But there is some emotional spot from which you never get more than 15 miles. The customs inside your head and heart are always within that range. You can study the outer limits of the universe or human behavior, but you do it within your 15-mile limit.

What’s inside your 15-mile range?

John Robert McFarland

1] Professor Spang is an authority on the history of France, the 18^th century, restaurants, and money.

2] Katie’s most recent book, Did You Hear What Happened in Salem? is ready for pre-order now. It will be out in Sept.

3] Helen is most frequently quoted for saying: “Men enter assisted living the day they get married.”