Old Dog, Guard Your Church- Nevada, Texas
There’re a lot of towns with strange, geographically inexplicable names here in Texas. There’s also innumerable churches, cathedrals, mosques and religious meeting places on pretty much every street corner, no matter what part you happen to find yourself in. I’m not religious in any of the ways that really matter, but I can respect and admire the beauty of these buildings and what they mean to those who visit. In a small town like this, less than 2 square miles total and easily missed, with a population of less than 1000, it’s easy to understand how you could find 2 churches within a stones throw of each other.
We quietly rolled down the loose gravel roads, the rocks ping ping pinging off the cars underside and disturbing the deep settled stillness and calm of the streets. There weren’t any people to be seen, bikes laid down on the grass outside of houses and birds chirping on chipping white picket fences. We pulled up to a church under construction, tools left in the grass and piled on the sidewalk. That kind of trust is hard to find in bigger cities, and while there was a slightly grumpy dog tied to the yard next door, he was more sleepy than guarding and while eventually he got a big suspicious of our idling car, it was nice to be allowed to linger without purpose in front of that church and imagine what it might look like some day.
~m
