mississississippissippi

my best friend and i spend a relaxing four day weekend in mississippi together! it was a lovely weekend filled with talking, driving, porchsitting, and plenty of "coffee of a mornin'" but as the typical american college students we are it was more like "coffee of an all day long."



we saw some pretty amazing period homes. of course they have many 30,000 freakin square foot "homes" that were perfectly period--the original furniture, beds, clothes, bedspreads, curtains you name it. it was interesting and haunting to walk into such a detailed picture of history.

but the most interesting homes didnt have that kind of story. one of the homes with a long, pretentious name was intended to be the picture of oppulence. intended to be a house like nothing else in the world. intended to be a pictoral manifestation of the millions of dollars rich southerners were making while standing on the backs of those toiling beneath them. but the war struck. they hastily finished the basement areas of their (literally) 30,000 square foot unfinished structure where they would wait out the "short" war with their 8 kids in their 6 room (10.000 ft) basement. oh what a sacrifice. though friendly with the union troups, their growing plantations were burned and the multimillionaire lost everything but the unfinished shell of a home. the bricks stand today-a skeleton of the quite monumental home. paintcans more than a hundred years old litter the temporary floor boards. hammers and other tools lie under a century of dust. the result is memorable. a tangible reminder--to me at least-- that pride comes before a fall. not only to mr. nutt the homeowner ( if you would call him that )but to an entire generation of people. a country getting too rich.



in florida i read about a plant that every 25 years is nearly devestated by the hurricanes (that become particularly devestating in 25 year cycles). but that the plants life cycle is about 25 years because it grows so big that nothing can grow beneath it. if it were not for the "devestating" hurricanes the plant would overwhelm the ecosystem and those growing beneath it would die. does God do this to his people? when we start to get a little too big for our britches that are bursting with our pride does he come to prune us? to me it seems that slavery is a symptom of people with too much pride and too much money. one would have to be tremendously proud to take another person and enslave him. to tell another man he is property no better than the dogs and horses. today our pride is manifested in different ways but will God need to move again shortly to remind us that we dont have it all under control?