Whenever I visit the south, I feel as if I have landed on foreign soil. There is something otherworldly about this place. It is as if life everywhere else runs at 70 mph but in the south, life's maximum speed limit has been reduced to 45mph. My type-A, "lead, follow or get out of the way" personality is not common in the south. I learn to exchange pleasantries and assume that any transaction will take three times as long as it does anywhere else. As my husband is fond of saying, "It is what it is" and what it is a slow paced and gracious way of living.
Introductions are quite a lovely ritual in the south and go something like this…
"Hey Mary, I want you to meet Anita." Mary leans in, smiles graciously, and takes me by the hand in a friendly grasp. She speaks in a soft drawl that covers the conversation like warm praline syrup covers a waffle. "It's so naaa-ice to meet you Anita. Where are ya'll from?" The question is delivered with a smile and a look that seems to indicate that nothing in the world is more important to Mary at that moment than learning more about me.
There is an elegance in interaction that is not overt or overpowering. It is just a part of who southerners are. The social graces are evident everywhere. This causes me to mourn the loss of courtesy and manners, things that what we have lost elsewhere in this country. We are much too busy and too self-important to make others feel so welcome as they do down south.
Newsflash-southern gentlemen truly do exist. They will walk you down the unfamiliar church corridor to Sunday school and offer you coffee. There is no expectation in the offer that you will pour own coffee, it is poured and prepared for you and handed to you with a flourish. No wonder the women in the south are so feminine-they are constantly being reminded of how precious they are to their men. Ah feminism, you have done us an injustice!
The landscape is lush and beautiful. The magnolia trees are embarrassingly extravagant with their waxy leaves and huge blossoms. They seem to shout, "Betcha' don't have anything this gorgeous at your home Yankee!"
The most beautiful thing of all in Mississippi is that God is alive and well there and referred to often-in public! My nephew graduated from High School and there was, gasp, an opening prayer. The Valedictorian talked about God and His direction for the lives of the students. The choir sang two songs that were focused on God, one was from a Psalm. There was a closing prayer given by a student. It was wonderful and the most wonderful thing was that this is a pubic school. God is an active part of the lives and the community in this town, not an optional add-on as He often is elsewhere. It makes me sad to think that there was a time when the places where we all live now were like this town of Mississippi, not ashamed of God, and able to publicly declare His name and His glory.
When you have a community where God is not put in a box you find that it affects everyone who lives there, Christians and non-Christians alike. Children are more respectful; people are more considerate and polite. Contrary to what the ACLU and others would have you think, God in a community is a very, very, good thing!
My trip to Mississippi was a reminder that it is not acceptable at all for me or for anyone else who follows Christ to sit idly by and allow others to take away our freedom of religion and our freedom to express that religion in pubic. Read the news and you quickly see that tolerance and freedom of expression is being offered more and more to every other religion but the intolerance and prejudice against Christianity continues to gain momentum.
It is time we all asked ourselves what have we voted for on a community and national level? What have we supported and what have we ignored, thinking that someone else would speak for us. God calls us to be intelligent and to be doers and speakers of The Word. Are we allowing ourselves and our faith to be compromised because of our silence?
Father, let me never fear men more than You. Remind me that the only measuring tool I need is Your Word and not the measuring tools of the World. Prompt me when it is my turn to stand up and speak for my faith and my Lord.
"Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in Him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved praise from men more than praise from God."
John 12:42-43 (NIV)
