March 22, 2024
I can’t begin to explain why Waylon’s Dukes of Hazzard song is on repeat in my mind, except maybe because of what happened two Thursdays ago.
I would like to say that it was wild and record speeds were reached as I got away just in time straightening a curve coming onto 601 leaving Homeschool co-op, but it just wasn’t that exciting. Wild, maybe, because it’s something that happens so infrequently nowadays anywhere else but the South.
I was driving home from my mama’s, and there was an older gentleman in his yard. He saw me as I passed and threw his hand up. Being the southern girl that I am, I waved back.
It seems like a simple thing, but we wave down here. We wave to our neighbors. We wave to one another because it’s an essential part of our southern charm.
We wave because we are friendly. We wave because it's how we were taught to be. We wave because there's a church on every corner, sometimes right across the street. We learned in Sunday School with the likes of Pam Clyburn, Frances Moreland, Becky Lowery, and Anne Marie Green. Women who led our little hearts to Jesus. It's a simple thing, this love that we have for one another.
It's a simple thing, how the old guy in his yard and I shared the briefest of connections. That, for a moment, we were just a friendly pair of strangers, respectfully wishing each other hello. Our personal politics didn't matter. Our religion, or lack thereof, wasn’t a dividing factor. Our preference in sexual partners wasn’t even a thought. We were just two strangers engaged in a greeting ritual that seems completely foreign in today’s current divisive climate.
As I type this, I keep thinking about how the “enemy comes to kill and destroy,” and it brings me to another classic Waylon song called, "Luckenbach, Texas."
“This successful life we’re living, got us feuding like the Hatfields and Mccoys ... maybe it's time we got back to the basics of love.”
Just seems a little silly, is all, hating somebody because they have a difference of opinion. We’re humans and Americans. We're all cut from the same cloth. We bleed the same color. We want the same things; freedom and access to basic human rights. I celebrate the 4th of July just like the rest of ‘em. I head down to Charlesboro for the annual parade and park in the same spot with my great aunts, Glenda and Naomi. The kids wave flags and eat firecracker popsicles while we watch the tractors cruise by and I feel this enormous sense of pride.
We’ve made our neighbors strangers due to something some news station told us was true or how we interpret somebody’s Facebook page. We say things like, "America First!" In our own little American Christian bubbles, we fail to see the point of our entire belief system.
It's Jesus, first. Neighbors and enemies, second. I'll be the first to admit that the "loving your enemy," part isn't always the easiest, but when I put Jesus first, everything else seems to fall into its correct place.
"Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing. For whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit; let him turn away from evil and do good; let him seek peace and pursue it." 1 Peter 3:8-11
Let him seek peace.
I figured it out now. I know why I’ve had that particular song on my mind. It’s that part about being, “just a good ol’ boy, never meaning no harm.”
And we could argue. Arguing is easy. We could argue about anything. We could argue that good ol’ boys have caused harm in America’s past and we could find deserved discourse about the infamous emblem on the General and how it doesn’t jive with today’s standards. I’m not saying we should discount the many real problems Americans face. I’m just wondering what would happen if we sought peace instead. If we pursued connection, no matter how simple and no matter how seemingly insignificant. Could we try to find more common ground?
Let’s “meet in the middle, ‘neath that old Georgia pine.” Sorry, Waylon. Diamond Rio had some good things to say too.
It truly is a simple thing.