Empty rooms

Goodevening!

Yesterday was a nice day, I had quite a few extra visitors here on the blog, not because I had suddenly grown immensely popular but because I published this address on FB. Today it's back to normal and I'm glad to welcome you to share what sprung into my mind .
This has been a very cold springday. We went for an outing , a busload with people all ages.
Well, perhaps not ALL ages, let's say from 43 and upwards. I don't know how it is where you live, but recent years things have began to change very drasticly. When you go by bus you have plenty of time to study the countryside and the small villages rushing past.
In the early days, people moved along waters to find a place with fresh water and good land. There they would start building, houses, barns and ofcourse the church. Either that or start their lives in the woods where they could start working with timber. All over this country, as in all other country , societies has appeared and grown in this fashion.

When industrialism started to change the way people lived and thought, the familiar picture of small villages and livestock on every field, began to change. People wanted to take part of everything new,
many got rich and wealthy and the differences between rich and poor became obvious. Factories emerged, villages became towns and larger cities, you could travel far, talk by the phone, buy everything in stores and work together with hundreds of others. You didn't own your living quarters anymore. Some decided to bring the new thinking back home, to the village.

Therefor some villages vanished and others found a new way to prosper, mills were built, small businesses started to grow, where we went today there have been glassindustries, fruitfarms and lumbering. Every village had church, school, grocerystores, bakery, butcher, doctor and library. The farmers would provide what the fancy people in town needed. Today we passed one deserted house after the other, one deserted factory or shop after the other, restaurants with faded signs and broken windows. Schools were empty or filled with refugees. Many of these houses, or mansions actually, in some cases, were so beautifully built.
Every little detail on these houses were lovingly and skillfully made. And now, empty rooms, blind windows without curtains and flowers, paint falling off everywhere and rooftiles sliding.

So sad. You can use your own vivid imagination and picture the life once flourishing within those walls, laughter, discussions, pain and agony, anger and happiness, banging doors and playing children.
You can imagine the lake filled with boats and the meddows filled with cows or sheep.
People harvesting or coming home from a long day at the mill or making glass.
It's not so long ago. People are strong, they try again and again, new ideas, new markets, new opportunities and families moving back in, calling for schools, dentalcare and mercantile. Calling for a place to christen their children.

The wonderful church we visited, guided by an old, retired priest, had been built for the needs of greater times, holding over thousand worshippers. Today, there was room for 750 but as the pastor said, an average sunday there would perhaps be 30. Only recent event that actually filled was when a famous artist came visiting with his show soldout. Many countryside-churches has also been reduced to empty rooms, sad to think about. But still, when the church is deserted, people move on and find new places to pray, when houses are deserted, life goes on somewhere else. Any one of these days we'll grow tired of progress and magnificent development, we'll grow tired of working by the thousands, living with thousands and knowing 4-5 by name and face. We will eventually start dreaming of silence, simplicity and hard work and sharing on equal terms and we will fill the houses and churches again.
Until then, I'll keep on pondering and meditating on these deserted, empty rooms.