Morning by morning new mercies I see; all I have needed Thy hand hath provided, great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!”
~Thomas O. Chisholm
This past Monday I had the bittersweet pleasure of returning home to the Mississippi Delta. It was bittersweet because we laid my great aunt, Amelia Turpin Beckham, to rest. She was the last of my grandmother's four siblings to pass. She lived to be 100 years old, born in Shaw, MS in 1913. She, along with my grandmother's other siblings taught our family about faith, family, love, togetherness and what to do in times of uncertainty; turn to God and turn to your family; everything else will come out in the wash. Amelia is survived by her two children, seven grandchildren, seventeen great grandchildren and six great great grandchildren.
As sad as the occasion was to return, I love going to the Delta. I know it sounds strange to most, but to me, the Mississippi Delta is home. Just as people from all over Mississippi love the Gulf Coast, Pinebelt or other parts of our beautiful state, I love the endless rows of cotton and beans, the heat, the smells and the "flatlands". My mother is a fanatic for red clay dirt, rolling hills and pine needless from when she grew up in Quitman on the boarders of Clarke County. (She is a Shirley, if you’re wondering.)
Instilled in him from his mother, daddy taught us to understand family is not simply belonging to a group of people; it is belonging to a place. From the time I was a little boy my daddy always taught me about HIS home, the Delta. When we would take trips out of town whether near or far, he would always build the excitement for when we returned home. Even now when I return to the Delta, when I hit the bridge over the Yazoo River just north of Yazoo City or come around the last hill from highway 82 just outside of Greenwood, when I see that flat dirt and miles and miles of fields, I know that I am home. My emotions get a mix of the excitement of Christmas morning, family gatherings and holding on to a loved one that you haven’t seen in a long, long time.
As I drove through the small Delta towns I have known all my life and relived many of the experiences of my childhood, I thought a lot about how things have changed in the few years that I have been away. Mississippi, and the Delta, is a very unique place. For all the change and progress we have made, we have also remained magically the same. There is a romance to a place like Mississippi that you don’t find anywhere else. We’ve held on to who we are, we cherish our foundation, we cherish our memories, we love our families, we love our churches, we lift up our heroes – both big name and small town, we nurture our children and we leave lasting legacies.
It was very interesting and gratifying that in my great aunt’s eulogy the minister said that if he had one word to use to describe Mrs. Amelia, it would be faithfulness. She was faithful to her God. She was faithful to her family and she was faithful to her friends. Aunt Amelia saw many things change in the course of 100 years but the thing that remained the same was that she was faithful to her values and faithful to her family, friends and community.
As I look at my own life and the two boys Rebekah and I will soon be raising to be gentlemen and valuable members of society, I have to take a long look at what am I faithful to? What is my legacy? What things am I purposefully teaching them? What am I teaching them that I don’t know I am teaching them? Will they love their family the way I love mine? Will they love their church? Will they love their community? Will they take after their grandmother (Gin Gin) and love the red clay dirt, rolling hills and pine needles? I have to make a conscious decision to be faithful to them in what I teach them and demonstrate to them so that they will get the most out of life. I want them to get the most out of their experiences, their friendships and their community.
What about you? If you were to make it to 100 years, what will be said at your eulogy? What is your legacy? Is faithful the word that would be used to describe you? I hope so. I hope that it will be said of each of you reading this article that you were great men and women of faith, devoted to your church, devoted to your family, devoted to your community and devoted to the betterment of your fellow man.
Just as the farmers in the Delta plant seeds and then remain diligently faithful to them to nurture them and see that those plants grow to their full potential so that another will get the full benefit from all the crop yields, I hope you too are planting seeds of faithfulness in our community and being diligent in the nurture of others. I know that if you are, our community will see bumper crop yields time and time again.
---* This article was originally printed in the Sunday, May 26, 2013 issue of The Chronicle's "Planting Seeds" column.
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