"Because they wanted to live simply, the couple knew they wanted some sort of alternative housing, but initially weren’t sure exactly what. They bought 10 acres of mountain property overlooking Glacier National Park.
“We’d stayed in small cabins out in Yukon territory, cooking all our food above a wood stove and watching the Northern Lights,” Sean Busby says. “It showed us we could live simply and on our own terms, and that’s somewhat spearheaded our whole thinking of how we were living.”
They’d both stayed in yurts before – the moveable housing structures are popular in backcountry skiing and snowboarding cultures. During a trip to Kyrgyzstan a few years ago, Sean Busby saw villages where people’s sole source of income was building yurts (there, called gers)."
https://www.yahoo.com/realestate/off-gr ... 23614.html
This article title attracted my attention, having visited yurts / gers on The Roof of the World, and various other Central Asian countries.
I stayed in a ger [pronounced "gare" in the Gobi Desert. I wouldn't say they are too comfortable for using as a permanent house. However, it's interesting to see how this husband and wife fixed one up to be liveable, even in freezing northern Montana !
What's further of interest is included in the article. Some North Americans, including big businessmen, are feeling a call to divest themselves of all the material trappings they accumulated. Instead, they are attempting to search for deeper meaning in life. I doubt any have stumbled upon Orthodoxy or monasticism as a calling. But maybe this could be a "market" for the adept among us to try to contact to present some truths of Orthodoxy to them ? Perhaps they could save their souls, instead of blabbing only about "saving the environment" [ so sick of hearing that phrase ! ].
They could fill that immense void they have detected in their lives with the saving grace of the Church, instead of 'getting back to Mother Nature", which won't do much to fill up that immense canyon of emptiness.
At least such people have been willing to make some sacrifices to find a higher truth. Maybe some will be candidates for monasticism or lay members of the Church ? Once they could be persuaded to attend a Liturgy, perhaps their souls might be open to this spiritual dimension, rather than the stereotypical 'back to nature' catch-all solution presented by the secular world for all one's personal ills.
The fact is, that most average people brought up in North America are too encumbered by so many layers of delusions, lies, false ideals, false perceptions of life, all foisted on them by the surrounding society. This more independent person who has already seen through the curtain might be able to appreciate the beauty of Orthodoxy in a way that the common person is not yet able to.
