Friday, January 20, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Ozarks forever
The Lord himself will give his benefits; our land shall yield its increase.
Watch water run uphill! Dig for diamonds! See the famous Ozark mother pig, and root for her!
I was not yet a teenager. Our family fell in love with the Missouri Ozarks early on, and we spent part of every summer there on the beach. Lake of the Ozarks curls in and out of hills and hollars, with hundreds of miles of coastline perfect for motels and resorts and beaches and fish camps, dotted with Ripley-Believe-It-Or-Not museums dedicated to impossibilities and weirdities that boggled my imagination.
When it opened in 1931 it was the largest man-made lake in the United States. And now I’m driving right through the middle of Ozark country, taking the scenic route, leisurely making my way over to Illinois to visit Chris and his family, and to see my sister and brother, and eventually end up in Urbana. I wonder if I’ll remember any of those old places that fascinated us back then … what? 65 years ago?
That was in the 1950’s, the age of prosperity after World War II, before President Eisenhower inaugurated the interstate highway system, designed first and foremost to move army troops and tanks quickly and efficiently through the country when necessary, but mostly used by semis hauling freight, and families heading off for vacations twice as far away as they could have gone before.
Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and justice shall look down from heaven.
Not so long ago, Dad and I brought Chris and Marc through the Ozark mountains down to Eureka Springs, an artists’ colony in the Arkansas Ozarks, to see their annual Passion Play, the story of Jesus’ passion – His trial, suffering and death. We had seen a similar play in Bloomington, Illinois, but this was different – this was outside and featured a cast of hundreds. And besides that, it was in the Ozarks.
Margaret and I spent most of our honeymoon in Eureka Springs. We canoed on Table Rock Lake, another Missouri man-made lake. There are several now, as there are several in Illinois, Texas and Kentucky – pretty much everywhere we spend our time.
Ozark country cuts a wide swath through the Bible belt. Our family was Lutheran, which counts as Christian, of course, but the Baptists and Pentecostals put up small wooden churches every mile or so in the Ozarks. If they burned down, it didn’t cost much to build them again. There would be a sermon every Sunday, and music that made you want to dance. Oh, victory in Jesus, my savior forever!
Jesus appointed twelve that they might be with him and he might send them forth to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.
Jesus knew how much had to be done, how much healing and deliverance the people around him needed, so he found twelve more men (and more women too) to help him with the work. Did they go out more than the one time described in the bible? Maybe they did. Driving in the Ozarks it is not difficult for me to imagine their work, their prayer, their healing. Snake handling is just the tip of the iceberg.
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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