7/18/2025
We come from pioneer stock who turned their faces westward and set out to find homes and build new lives.
For some reason that I don’t know, they stopped in what would eventually become Nacogdoches County, Texas.
I wonder what they were looking for. What made them go when so many stayed? There were very very few people around then.
What made them want to blend with the piney woods among the Nacogdoche Caddoan people there? Very different cultures.
The first of my line came from the Scottish Highlands. His name was Muckle. The way we understand it, he got caught in a roundup from the English to the south and send to work on a plantation in the Northeast part of Ireland. H
e was taken from there to work on the Maryland Plantation. He got away and started west. Maybe he just started walking.
I don’t have the paperwork on front of me, but that was sometime in on about 1640. Maybe 180 or 90 years later, David Muckleroy arrived in Texas with his family.
At what point through the generations and travel did those ancestors of mine realize that they had turned toward home?
Today is the last day of Cru25. We will begin the journey home first thing in the morning. Back to Muckleroy Base Camp. That’s quickly becoming the place where I feel most comfortable.
It was designed for that.
Because we all need a place where we are known and loved, without requirement or condition, free of stress, worry, and anxiety. A place where we can rest, recover, dream, and plan… in an atmosphere of well-being, acceptance, and grace.
The new fall semester starts in about a month. I long to immerse myself in the work of Faculty Commons. It will be the first time I will be fully focused on that work. I have a lot of work to do to set that up within this next month.
I am also looking forward to spending the rest of the summer with Ben and Sadie at Base Camp before they head out again for another semester of college.
I really miss our girl Daisy. She’s a mess and gets locked in so tightly sometimes to Chuck the cat or an armadillo, or lately turtles moving from one stock tank to another that she doesn’t hear when I calm her. But I really like good dogs. And she is great.
I’m looking forward to the fall and winter lamb show season with Rece and Junior. And Macie will be playing basketball and Trey football.
And Will has one year left of college. Such an exciting time.
So, yes, tomorrow, we turn toward home.
But it’s called Base Camp for a reason. Because our real home is not on this earth. Our real home is in Heaven.
And the way we want Base Camp to be is only found in Heaven.
Everything here will be filled with broken. Broken hopes. Broken promises. Broken dreams.
But one day the broken will be fixed. There will be no more tears. No more scared. No more confusion or tension.
There’s that old song that encourages us to turn our eyes toward heaven.
One day we will truly be home.