A Trip Down Boone's Lick Road
How a trip through a small town in Missouri allowed me to contemplate how much the world has changed.
I lost another friend this past week, and I’m still processing it, wondering what I would say to you this week. That’s when this article popped into my mind from a few years ago.
During a three-week stretch in 2014, I attended three funerals, and each one was beautifully different — varying in faith tradition, length, and ways in which families shared memories of their loved one.
But each memorial also contained one similarity, captured by this verse from one of the memorial programs:
There is work still waiting for you,
So you must not idly stand;
Do it now, while life remaineth–
You shall rest in Jesus’ land.
As I left the third funeral, I contemplated this notion of unfinished work. It makes perfect sense to leave a memorial service motivated to finish a project, especially one that will outlast us.
During this time, I was reading a devotional book by Pamela Sonnenmoser called Praise & Paraphrase. Pamela was a friend, and sadly, her funeral was one of the three I attended.
In one of her devotions, she talks about the process a twice-baked potato goes through. It is cooked for an hour, then removed from the oven, cut open and its insides are scraped out and crushed. A few ingredients are added and then everything is put back into its shell. Finally, it has to go back into the oven.
Here’s what Pamela concluded:
“I want to be like a twice-baked potato; perfected by the process God requires, having all of myself removed and having the extra things that come from the Holy Spirit added. I want to be yielded by His refining fire again and again. I long to be ready to serve the glory of God.”
Pamela lived this. And now, because she finished the work God gave her on earth, she is able to speak to us from beyond the grave. And that’s a beautiful thing.
But this admonition to avoid idleness goes beyond finishing the work before us.
If you were to ask me what I desire more of, I would tell you a slower pace — one that allows for more contemplation, more reading, more fishing, more nature photos, more bonfires and more baseball games on the radio. My soul is fed as I intentionally avoid the highways of life in favor of the byways.
A few years ago, while traveling across Missouri, I pulled off the interstate to visit a winery. As I left there, I decided to take a detour through the small town nearby called High Hill, population 195. As I puttered down Boone’s Lick Road (which has an amazing history), I saw a police car (pictured above) that looked like it came straight out of Mayberry. How could I not pull over and shoot that photo?
It reminded me of a simpler time — one my parents grew up in. By simpler, I mean a time of less distraction — a time in which you didn’t have to pull off the interstate to search for a slower pace because interstates didn’t exist. My parents were twenty when President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 that created the interstate system we know today.
Ultimately, my trip down Boone’s Lick Road allowed me to pause and contemplate how much the world has changed since my parents were teens. And in a small way, I was paying respect to who they were, who they had become and everything they have done for me.
It also allowed me to contemplate a couple of other things. I want to finish the work God has given me before my time on earth is finished, and I also want to make sure I’m stopping long enough to visit Mayberry once in a while.
Here are some tidbits you might find interesting this week:
“I have never been drawn to luxury. I love the simple things; coffee shops, books, and people who try to understand.” —R. YS Perez
Here’s something worth pondering as winter draws to a close: Sitting Still by S. E. Reid.
I used the word “haunt” in a conversation (as in, “I’d like to show you my old haunts”) with a younger friend a while back and she stopped me, saying she liked that word. Now I want to use it more often.
What keepsake or reminder of a loved one’s life have you kept to remind you of them? Why does it resonate with you? What might your family keep of yours someday to remember you? These are the questions James Magruder asks in this essay: Balancing the Checkbook of Your Life.
Saw this meme and thought it was kind of funny (and true): “How introverts make friends: 10% - They Don’t. 90% - An extrovert found them, liked them and adopted them.”
When Lee isn’t writing essays, devotional books, or Christian fiction, he is a freelance editor, as well as a freelance journalist who has written hundreds of articles for various newspapers and magazines. He’s also a fan of NASCAR, baseball, tennis, books, movies and coffee shops.
Excellent contemplative article. I'm cleaning out a closet (of course I'm writing a book at the same time and get the pull to clean the closet too). Anyhow, I found letters from family members who passed away years ago. I read one or two before my husband reminded me we only had so many hours that day to complete the task. But I saved them so I can reread the words written to me years ago.
I remember Pamela Sonnenmoser from the CLASS writers conferences. Because she completed a book before her passing, she left a legacy for us who are still here. That reminds me of Isaiah 30:8, "Now go and write down these words. Write them in a book. They will stand until the end of time as a witness" (NLT).
May we all have the same desire to complete our God-given assignments to leave those legacies behind, while still finding time to pause in Mayberry. Thanks for the encouragement. :)