Valleys of Death – Gardens of the Dead

Greetings Dear Reader,

As I resume my journey to the place of my birth I am taking a road less traveled. There is no way to take an interstate to the next stop on our route. We have said goodbye to the dying and now our rural rout passes so many churches with their own collections of the dead. Small and large gatherings of tilted stones mark those deemed worthy of being buried in church graveyards. My Daughter is astounded at the number of churches here. Without having read my BLOG yesterday she asked me, “Papa, if there are so many churches how come there are so many people still in need?”


I could tell that it pained her to realize the depth of need that goes unmet by those who claim to follow Christ. It put her in light of true meaning of following Christ and the responsibility associated with it. She is begging to grasp that the body of Christ, the church is supposed to care for people body and soul.


So many of these individual churches attempt to care for the soul in the way they see fit. Few, however, care for the body except to give it a hole in the ground once it is a worthless shell. It is so sad that the place in our nation known for its relationship to the Bible does no better at living out true religion. If I am to follow Christ wholly I cannot see the hundreds of churches I pass and not wonder why they do not unite as THE BODY of CHRIST and combat the social ills that plague our nation.


What I mean by this is that I am to care for the needs of others no matter what my personal feelings are and no matter if that person ever listens to the message of Christ or not. My agenda is to follow Christ and obey him. If my agenda is to convert them to Christ then I muddy the purity of the message. It is love for love’s sake not to get something from them. Surely the churches wish to leave something more to the physical world than gardens of the dead.


Wishing you joy in the journey,


Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a home owner. He brings new and old things out of his treasure store."