Thinking Back
November 26th, 2007 by Northern Farmer
“They’s a lot of changes. They’s as much difference in people now as they is in day and night. People don’t care for people no more like they used to. Used t’be if anybody got sick in the community, why people’d go see about ‘em, not just pass by. If you lived in our community, even if you was seven or eight mile away, when we heard you’uz sick, we’d go see about you. If you had a crop, we’d go an’ see about it. See about crops, take care of your animals, get you out of the rut while you’uz sick, we’d go see about you. Then when you get up, maybe I might get sick, an’ then you’d help, come in with wagon an’ mules, gather corn, haul hay…anything I’d need t’do would be done for me, just like you’d do it for yourself. An’ nowdays you can get sick an people ain’t gonna see about you t’ask how y’are, let alone do anything for you. You’d freeze t’death ‘cause they ain’t gonna get you no wood.â€
“An’ y’go t’church, Lord, have mercy! Oh, they went t’church all th’time. They went an’ wore their overalls, their ever’day shoes. You go to town to this church here with a pair of overalls now, an’ see what they say. Oh, they’d laugh at you. We’d go t’church, maybe several of them come home with us. I’ve seen it when we had so many people go home with us that the steers couldn’t pull ‘em up th’hill, an’ part of ‘em would have to walkup th’hill. An’ I’ve seen it when we couldn’t all get in th’wagon. They’d go an’ spend th’night, the th’next day we’d all go back t’church t’gether. Go to a meeting an’ see five or six ol’ steer wagons tied around up in th’woods, y’know. There’s more people then, seem like, that went to church than they do nowdays. Nowdays you can go to church, an’ if you ain’t got no money t’pitch in, you may as well stay home. They don’t care whether you die or not if you ain’t got something t’throw in th’ dadblamed pot. Back in them days, they wasn’t no pot t’pass around or nothin’. If a man had anything t’give the preacher, they’d give him something t’eat.â€
“Believe me, we was happier then than we are now. You knowed what you had was your’n, an’ nowdays ever’thing is moving on so fast you don’t have time to enjoy what you have got because you’ll see somethin’ th’other man’s got an’ you’ll be a’wantin’ it, an’ be a’studying now just how in th’world am I gonna get a’hold of that now.Y’see so much stuff-I think that’s confusin’ people more than anything. Th’world’s goin s’fast. Y’see a’many things you want an’ you want to keep up with th’other fellow. We don’t enjoy life like we used to when things were hard.â€
That’s a excerpt from a post I wrote over two years ago, and it’s still on my mind all the time. Its from the Foxfire Books, written by high school students chronicling life in the Appalachia’s years gone by. I’ll never forget coming across this because it struck me reading the words of folks that lived it. It’s apparent that those folks weren’t yoked with religion, they were happy worshiping God. They’d get together, they’d help each other out whenever needed, they just loved one another, something very much lost in today’s church. Oh, we can go to church and smile and say all the right things to all the people but where’s that childlike love that I can see in those paragraphs above?
And from these testimonies of days gone by a hunger started in me that hasn’t been quenched to this day. If anything it started out as a small spark and now is a consuming flame. I want what they had! I don’t want this modern way where everyone is basically on their own. Run back to your own little life after a church service, hunker down and stay away from everyone till the next service. These people lived the way they were supposed to live! Poor folks, but some really happy folks. I can just get down and moan, what we’ve lost, its a tragedy of huge proportions.
Hardly anything makes me happier than imagining the life they had, a tough life for sure, but they had something very, very few folks today have. They had life! Lord did they have life! And those church services would bust loose, the Holy Ghost just filling them to the brim! Simple folks that connected with an awesome God! Where is that today? Oh we get our little tickles and goosebumps in church, but the fact is, everyone is still basically for themselves. People are always so busy, or so they say. But them folks years ago more than likely worked harder, worked longer than most nowadays. But, they didn’t crawl into their own little hole and hide from the world around them. They’d work all day farming, in a sawmill, logging, whatever, and those services would go seven days a week till the wee hours of the morning. And even the preachers would be working or farming full time in many cases and still preach all the time. They sacrificed allot but the sacrifice led them closer to the Lord and the spin off from that is loving their neighbors. Sometimes I think that loving your neighbor nowadays means not fighting with them and that’s about it. Yup, didn’t confront anyone today so that means I love my neighbors, eh.
Nowadays a person almost feels guilty suggesting visiting or a special church service or something along them lines. Might interfere with someone’s personal time. I firmly believe 99% of Christians today in this country have not even the slightest idea of what we’ve lost in this modern race to madness.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Great post Tom! Thems some powerful words!
November 28th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Hey Tom , gettin some good snows up this way. Confession time. I believe I do know what we have lost but with that all said, I am more guilty than I want to admit to bein lost in todays world. Pressure to do more, have more, make more, be better, be the best gets me by the throat at times. Ya get all caught up and ya forget what is important. Ya, I’m one of those 99%. Sure not proud of it and am tryin to change but it is hard when your the lone ranger. Just you and your family. People think your some kind of cult or a weirdo or something. But I keep on pluggin away at it and every day, month and year I think I gain a little on that style of life. I have some neighbors I don’t even know their names. I mostly blame them but when I think about it now and am honest with myself I don’t believe I have made a big effort either. Sad but true. Ya ain’t goin to change people overnight but a little at a time some people are changin. just my $.02. Talk to ya again soon.
Guy
November 28th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Russ,
Thanks!
Guy,
I figure your in that 1% cause you are doing something about it. That’s where many people get it all wrong figuring just because they ain’t 100% out of that system that they failed, or are failing, wrong! That’s just like somebody just got born again and some folks figure, (and usually those folks are just the religious snob type), they figure that that person has to be perfect from now on. Even though the snobs are as far from perfect as you can get. The brand new born again person is still stumbling, still cussing but trying to cut back, still doing many of the things that he or she was doing before getting born again. But, the person is on a gradual change that will forever change their lives! See what I’m getting at.
I always try to write that I’m as far away as a person can get as far as all this too. But we’re running the race to get there, that’s what a person gotta do! That’s why your on my blog role my friend! Your running the race!