God's Country
Jan 5, 2020
The pioneer women, those that packed their dowries into trunks and trekked to sod houses on quarter sections of townships they'd be responsible for turning into towns. In lieu of society, they had children. Civilization was preserved in Bible readings at the hearth, and the flat prairie accommodated the simple geometries of their world. All were straight lines and right angles, and the cross, rather than the crucifix, became the emblem of their faith. The men obliged and built churches and schoolhouses, donated their time and money to the infrastructure and institutions that subdued the wilderness and established God's dominion. Today we call it God's country because no wilderness remains. The section lines of the surveyors and cartographers who followed the armies have all been dutifully inscribed in the landscape, crosses and interstices, plats and parcels, crops of taxable grain, tithes and offerings.
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