*I am a wanderer like my parents. We wandered over the earth, over Tennessee, I went to sea, and now I am in the middle of the three places I was raised, born in Athens, moved to Jefferson City and then to Crab Orchard, and this is who I am. I am a part of these people, my people. I am like them, and they like me. We are God fearing, country folk, opinionated, stubborn, hard-working, strong-willed, and passionate. We have lots of preachers, teachers, and drunks. Storytellers, clannish, people of the earth. We are mountain folk, tied to the hollows, creeks, rocks and rivers, trees and mountains. We’re common sensers, writers, dreamers, neighborly, givers, raise and bury, hunt, fish, gather, hoard, live sparsely and grandly on the land. God, Christ Lord, the Holy Spirit are ours. They’re sewn in our ancestors, woven in our families, invited to our tables, funerals, gatherings. They are the most honored guests in all our comings and goings. We are what you call God’s people, He, They are our guides, our tear gatherers, our hellfire and heaven bounders, we give our dead to Them, pledge our babies to Them, and eventually our souls go to Them to await our new bodies. We think this is normal, see no odds in this, and call it faith. We are wanderers, and by faith, we know we will eventually wander with Them around Glory. They’re with us all our lives, like our ancient ones, who we know not now, but know we will know then, as we will be known; wanders. *On reading Genesis 12-14
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