I’ve recently made tracks from my northern existence to the land of the South. This was not a planned exodus, where I had dotted all my “i”s and crossed all my “t”s. I had not a modern mindset to have cable connected already at my new residence, so the Cable Company can seamlessly continue its monthly extractions from my livelihood.

My haphazard escape was more like a proverbial cry for help than a conscious life-upgrade. The machinery of the State bankrupted me financially and spit me out as a “non-essential” being during Covid. There was no place for my concerns about the healthcare system I served. It was was functioning. But, to whose benefit was not clear? In that sense, the Great Divorce was a win/win.

The South has similar Matrix-like apparati peering through the seams of our existence. A distinct people I know mostly from trying to read, “The Mind of the South,” by W.J. Cash, neighbors here don’t treat me like moron whose one duty is to the State, no matter how corrupt its become.

I’ve secretly believed, deep down, that I am not a moron. But that is how so-called “educated people” treat those who do not adopt and live the political Orthodoxy of the State where I come from. I am a free human being in the South. I am not an automaton as I mentioned in a journal entry with that name.

The challenge now is how to be a human being worthy of Southerner’s idea of honor? There’s a great deal more personal autonomy here, I notice. There’s no tyrannical Big Brother cracking whips at my non-complaint behavior and politically-incorrect speech. Except I hear its rumbling and threatening from Richmond.

Have Southerners forgotten the image of God in which we are made? It’s the Almighty that guarantees our freedom and secures our rights after all. No amount of courage, personal honor, or family loyalty holds a culture together without that glue.

Perhaps honoring God is how I become a person worthy of honor that southerners so cherish? Or not. I know daily from experience, no matter how much concentrated effort I bestow or what good I intend- I am by myself a small thing. A biological blip that appears on earth for a time, the Bible cautions affectionately.

So then, actually, without God I am non-essential. What a bitter pill!

Godlessness is how slavery happens and tyranny emerges in our selves and in our nation. We forget God. So, to be person worthy of honor, I must be a blip that honors God.

I can be a blip that honors God probably for five minutes then forget. But, it must be possible because it’s for His glory that we exist.

I am not certain what Southern people mean when they say: “Bless your heart!” It can sound like: “Are you crazy??” wrapped in warm speech so the person on the receiving end of that expression can compose their dignity.

I am still trying to compose myself and find my dignity after my Great Escape. But, I’ll take that Southern red pill over the politically-correct taskmaster’s whip any day.

Bless their hearts!