{"id":79,"date":"2010-03-10T08:46:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-10T08:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/the-prettiest-small-town-in-the-south.html"},"modified":"2010-03-10T08:46:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-10T08:46:00","slug":"the-prettiest-small-town-in-the-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/the-prettiest-small-town-in-the-south.html","title":{"rendered":"The Prettiest Small Town in the South…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Today, I am headed to Edenton, North Carolina, for a visit and a bookreading. It’s my hometown, although I haven’t lived there in over two decades. Still, its streets and buildings and stories and, most of all, people, shaped me, and I am grateful for the gifts of that place. So in honor of Edenton, I’m publishing the only poem I’ve ever written that I think holds its own, a memory of a day when I was eight or nine:<\/p>\n

Grave-rubbing<\/p>\n

On a sunny Saturday afternoon<\/p>\n

We took white paper and a Crayola box,<\/p>\n

Skipped across the sidewalk cracks<\/p>\n

Where stubs of defiant green poked through<\/p>\n

And, breathless, slowed, with shirts and hair untucked<\/p>\n

To walk, suppressing giggles.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Prickling sweat along my spine<\/p>\n

Gave reason to halt beneath a cedar tree<\/p>\n

At that day\u2019s stone-symbol of eternal rest<\/p>\n

With buttercups and invading weeds.<\/p>\n

Giddy, we squatted to read the chiseled words,<\/p>\n

\u201cFred Gray, Loving Husband, Son.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

We used our hands to dust the granite slab<\/p>\n

Still, gray smudged the edges of our crisp white paper,<\/p>\n

Used Black, Scarlet, White, Grass-Green and Yellow<\/p>\n

To transform his name with bold bright stripes<\/p>\n

Humming softly as we worked,<\/p>\n

Dreaming masterpieces from the grave.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

But there the lady stood with hand on hip<\/p>\n

Her hair pulled back into a small blonde bun<\/p>\n

Throwing reprimands across the song-filled air<\/p>\n

Crying \u201cRespect!\u201d as wide-eyed we scrambled,<\/p>\n

Grabbed the crayons but left the paper.<\/p>\n

We sauntered once we reached the sunny streets<\/p>\n

And brushed the dry leaves from our hair. <\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, I am headed to Edenton, North Carolina, for a visit and a bookreading. It’s my hometown, although I haven’t lived there in over two decades. Still, its streets and buildings and stories and, most of all, people, shaped me, and I am grateful for the gifts of that place. So in honor of Edenton,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Prettiest Small Town in the South... - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2010\/03\/the-prettiest-small-town-in-the-south.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Prettiest Small Town in the South... - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today, I am headed to Edenton, North Carolina, for a visit and a bookreading. 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Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}