Remember that John Mellencamp song, “Small Town”? It came out in 1985 and some of the lyrics are:
Well I was born in a small town
And I live in a small town
Probably die in a small town…
The point of the song is that there is a comfort and a familiarity and even a charm about his small town that makes him want to stay:
And I can breathe in a small town
Gonna die in this small town
And that’s probably where they’ll bury me.
It got me to thinking, don’t we all live in a small town? The people we grew up with, the experiences we’ve had, the limits we’ve learned, the memories we cherish, the judgments we’ve made – they are all still there – in the small town in our mind – where we still live.
Our habits of thought are comfortable and familiar. We like them. We believe in them. In fact, were we to suddenly have to give them all up, we would feel anchorless and fearful. That is why, in the Manual for Teachers, Jesus explains that most of us are given “a slowly-evolving training program.” (OrEd.Mn.9.1) We are also taught that how much time we spend in this training program before being born again, before we remember who we are and the innocent child we are, is up to us. We can choose to be buried in our small town, or we can choose to be born again into someplace really spectacular.
(originally appeared in Miracles Weekly #286, May 11, 2021)