My wife and I are wrapping up a road trip. I wanted to attend a memorial for one of my aunts. She was a great blessing to my mother. She also tried to teach the town’s geek (me) some social graces. (note “tried”). Once the pandemic cleared enough to have a gathering, the family settled on last weekend in the rural Arkansas area that had been her home before Ohio.
I had this brainstorm. I’ve visited 46 of the nation’s 50 states. Three of the four remaining were almost contiguous–Alabama, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Today, we’re in Tulsa wrapping up a week of travel and vacation.
We’ve been in rural areas and small cities along the way. The church where the memorial service occurred was in the middle of the countryside several miles from a town. We accidentally arrived quite early. There was a man giving food boxes to people in need when we arrived. He let us in to wait. First of about 50 people from the area we met all friendly and helpful. The same everywhere we went.
We were close to Little Rock, so we visited the President Clinton library. We’ve been to a few of these. Always interesting to remember the conflicts and successes and failures of the times. I was struck by the many displays of letters from people in the various conflict areas. They expressed wishes for peace. I thought about how (well, almost) all of us want peace.
We can choose to see friendliness, smiles, wishes for peace, and live much the better for it.
Faith Venture 
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