On Battling the streets of Vicksburg

 I have walked the Battlefields of Vicksburg MS.  Whether those battles be from civil war days or the days of my youth.

In the fall of 1985, I lived briefly in Vicksburg MS.  I was serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. During the weeks I would walk the streets knocking on doors and speaking to people.  Searching for those who were searching for Christ.  Most of the time my search failed.  Not many people were searching for Christ.  Even though their lives were largely unfulfilled they where not dissatisfied enough to seek a change.

On the weekends or on Preparation Day, I would drive the single-lane road that covered the Vicksburg Battlefield Park. Men battled there for lives that were largely unsatisfying and unfulfilled.  In those times the Generals thought nothing of losing 50,000 American lives in one day. These men may have come from both Boston and Memphis, yet still, they were American lives.

At the close of my mission, I again walked the Battlefields of Vicksburg, this time with my mom.  I had asked her to come and bring me home at the end of my mission. My Mom and I had battled for two decades to create a relationship that was fulfilled and satisfying.  As I look back now as an old man, I think we essentially won that battle.

And again, today I see men and women, American’s, battling in the streets for their largely unsatisfying lives. We still waste far too many American lives. We continue to battle for the unsatisfying, the things that will never feed our bodies and support our souls.

How do I awaken myself and my fellow Americans to seek and find the one who will fill our lives and feed our needs?

Don Williams "Good Ole Boys like me

Jackson Browne, "Lives in the Balance