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FROM THE BACKWOODS PEW
Life’s Railway It was a hot day. Maybe hot isn’t the right word. Water boils at 212° F, if my science memory still works. That would be somewhere beyond hot, and the farmer’s pond looked like it was boiling. The thermometer at the local bank had withdrawn into
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the shade of the lobby and even the birds refused to fly! Yet there we were, driving across a farmer’s field to cruise a tract of timber. The sale was to Antill be the next day; and due to various events, we had not
found time to get the fieldwork done until this day. Thus, my partner and I stepped out of the truck into a stifling August heat wave. It takes good timber to make someone do this, or a really good buffet with country cooking close by. Both were present in this case. The timber was well above average: loblolly pine, tall and straight. But underneath
AUGUST 2021 l Southern Loggin’ Times
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grew an assortment of vines, saplings, and bushes that seemed impenetrable. With the heat of the day pressing upon us, we knew it would be a long, hot struggle in the brush. Once in the woods, the brush would not allow visibility beyond a few feet, and no breeze could move through it. A two-hour job pushed into five, and thoughts of the buffet were replaced with hopes of seeing our loved ones again. It was in the midst of this dense jungle that we came upon what we thought, at first, had to be a mirage. It was a railroad. Honest! A narrow-gauge set of rails went right through the dense brush under those massive pines. Once we accepted this oddity, we marked our spot and began to push through the bushes to see where they went. Our hope was that they would “spit-us-out” at the truck. But instead, they brought us to the next mirage, a pushcart. It was right there in the middle of that dense jungle. The pushcart had trees growing up through it, as did the tracks. Incredible, the railway at one time had to be wide open to allow such passage. What had happened? Thus says the Lord: “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls.”—Jeremiah 6:16 God’s people had turned away from following him, so God called to them through his prophet Jeremiah, asking them to return to him. The path they were on was one of destruction, a path that was leading them away from him, and away from his love. While we can marvel at their wanton abandon-
