(Note: I wrote this last Thursday morning, so ‘yesterday’ refers to last Wednesday, June 16.)
Yesterday morning I left the house at 5:00 A.M. and headed to northwest Texas. In that part of the state, land is measured in sections (640 acres) rather than acres, and folks speak of counties rather than towns. “I’m from Motley County” is the most accurate description, as the vast majority of area within the county is not associated with any town or city. This is Texas west of I-35, which is nearly as foreign to most of the other half of the state as it would be to someone from Chicago.
The population of Motley County is around 1200, though the area of the county is nearly as large (990 square miles) as the state of Rhode Island (1214 square miles). Still, Motley is nowhere close to being the largest county in Texas! My wife and I spent three years in Matador, which is the county seat of Motley County. We loved our time there (even though it was a 2 hour drive to the hospital where our babies were born).
The purpose of yesterday’s trip was a funeral—a friend’s father passed away. The funeral was in the Flomot cemetery just north of Flomot. Flomot is a community of 180 between the North Pease River and Quitaque Creek. According to Wikipedia, in 1930 it was the home of “two cotton gins, two grocery stores, several restaurants, and a service station.” There was even a school there. Hard to imagine today; all that’s left is one cotton gin.
A funeral on the open plains of West Texas is quite an experience. Not a tree in the cemetery or anywhere around. All you can see is sky. The clouds looked really close yesterday. In between speakers, the only thing to be heard was the wind and an occasional bird. I had forgotten how quiet it is up there.
The Church of Christ preacher from Matador did a fine job. Though we have theological differences, he has always struck me as a true man of God. Just hearing him pray, or read Scripture from his worn King James Bible, makes more of an impression on me than most men’s sermons.
Two years ago, I described a funeral that had a great impact on me. Though in the mountains of West Virginia, it was similar to yesterday’s. I described a certain longing I felt then, and I wondered what it was for. Was it for the mountains of West Virginia, the home of my ancestors? Or was it for something else? Something greater?
Yesterday, in the cotton fields and grass-covered rolling plains of West Texas, I felt the same longing. It is hard to describe, but is akin to homesickness. It’s a desire to be from somewhere, a part of that somewhere, and to stay at that somewhere. Wendell Berry would say it’s a desire for community. Maybe so. A community like the one the preacher described yesterday:
Where there will be no more parting. No more tears. No more upturned earth. No more hearses. No more black dresses. Where the very hand that was nailed to the cross will touch your face.
That’s the place I’m longing for.