DAY #158
Took a trip back to Valdosta, GA, not for pleasure but business, I needed to do laundry.
After finishing up with the laundry, did a bit of driving around the city before heading back to camp. I was surprised how big it is. Valdosta has over 56,000 people living in the city, and at least twice that in the metropolitan area. The city is home to a State University and not far out of town, Mosby AFB. The downtown area was interesting to drive through. It was rather substantial in size, and dotted with a large number of old/historic buildings. In its prime, this was the big city for the region.
(Hey, where’s the photos?)
Since, I started out from the campground so late, plus it took almost an hour and half to get there, I didn’t have much time after laundry to do a proper exploration of the city, more like a snapshot. I’d like to come back.
It was a nice ride back to the park with the sun to my back (for once). For a do-nothing day, it had turned out to be pretty good.
It was dusk when I got back into the Refuge and just before getting in, I got to see a wild boar, running in the ditch along the road. Perhaps not first choice on anyone’s list of must-see animals, but nevertheless kind of cool.
Driving back, the roads were smooth and the traffic light. The trees provided a soothing mosaic of colors and textures. I turned the music to mellow and let it all come together to take me to a place where my thoughts could run free.
In my mind, God came before us and offered this deal; if we follow his commandments through this life, then we will have everlasting life in a land where sin doesn’t exist. Pretty sweet deal. What God demanded from us was simple and direct. All of our questions could/can be answered by those simple commandments.
Then along came man to create religion (I do understand I’m taking some liberties).
Man, (over time) has proceeded in the name of religion to , institutionalize, politicize, and industrialize the message from God. Man has taken what was meant to be all including and turned it into a complex, exclusive, divisive type of litmus test.
Religions at odds with one another, our version is better than your version, etc. Religions that put as much belief in idols and dogma than in the worship of God. Religions that operate more as a business than as a house of God.
Thinking about all this as the miles rolled along, I came to a belief that we as a people have lost our way. We’re not walking with God, as much as we’re walking with man. We need to find our way back to God, to that simple message.
It really is, just that simple…
The Journey. 