Roads of Life

I grew up near a country road. It was called the Old County House Road. Of the gravel variety, it looped from US Highway 70 back around to rejoin 70 again. We knew every family who lived on that road. Sometimes, as early as my 5th year, my mother would send me walking on an errand to Dewey Manning’s General Store for foodstuffs (Usually, a pound of sliced cheese or sliced boloney.) McCall Lane joined the County House Road as it turned back south toward Highway 70. It was a lonely walk of a quarter mile. In those days there was nothing to fear. Everybody knew everybody.

The original D.T. McCall farm linked up with the County House Road by way of Old Highway 70. That was the route my father always took on his A-Model John Deere tractor. I was half-grown before he ever let me take the tractor on that trip alone. I couldn’t count the times I rode on a flat-bed hay wagon behind that old John Deere on our way home. My father would let the old tractor “roll.” The wagon, free of the weight of a load, (except for me) bounced all over that gravel road. It would knock the breath right out of you. Experience finally taught me to sit on my hands (excellent shock absorbers) or ride standing up. In summertime the dust was almost unbearable. Country boys learn to be tough.Much could, and has been, written of the roads we travel in life. John Denver sang, “Country Road take me home.” Willie Nelson longed to be “On the Road Again.” Paul McCartney sang of “The Long and Winding Road.” Author M. Scott Peak wrote of “The Road Less Traveled.”

Recently, I met with a young man who was facing a number of complicated family issues. What should he do? How should he proceed?

“Well, you can take the high road, or you can take the low road,” I said. “The high road is not always the easy road. Sometimes it is the harder road, but it is the best road.” I was pleased to see him take the high road.

We must all choose the roads we take. In the Disney Classic, “Alice in Wonderland, Alice found herself at a fork in the road. To the cheshire cat perched in a tree, she asked, “which road should I take?”

“Well,” replied the cat. “That depends on where you are going.”

“But I don’t know where I am going,” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which road you take,” purred the cat.

The Good Book tells of two roads. One is a broad road with a wide gate. The other is a narrow road with a strait gate. Each leads to vastly different destinations.

In the western classic, “Dances with Wolves,” Sioux medicine man, Kicking Bird, counsels lieutenant John Dunbar with these words: “Of all the trails in life, there is one which matters most. It is the trail of a true human being. I think you are on this trail, and it is good to see.”

Sometimes, I think we as a culture are becoming less human. Made in the image of God, the further from Him we stray, the less human we become.

I grew up attending a little country church. For years the great songs of the church were drummed into my head. What I once thought, as a boy, was a curse, ultimately became a blessing. As I thought about roads while putting this column together, an old song titled Glory Road came to mind. One of my granddaughters often speaks of a song “getting stuck in her head.” Well, Glory Road got stuck in my head. After a few days, all the verses and the words to the chorus returned.

The chorus ends like this: “It’s good to be on this road to Glory land.”

Indeed!