Corn Cathedrals
Musings During a Heartland Drive
Traversing across the Midwest of the United States is often described as a long journey through the “fly over people”. Cities have “drive around people” – partitioned by roads of deliberate development. Our globe has “travel above” countries where one would not alight without humanitarian or commercial purpose.
Yet when tuned to the spirit of life, we may imagine a richness, a diversity, a complexity where only literature and Hollywood dare take illustrative, tentative steps. Traveling deeper within – both landscape and soul – the metaphors of meaning begin to grow. This is true when one ventures off any familiar path – and for some this becomes a voyage THROUGH and AMONG the “over, around, and above” parts of life.
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Take cornstalks in their peak of season, and see them as gothic columns, the roads through them both as solemn and as celebratory any cathedral aisle. Here, life unfolds and generations remembered in what have suddenly become living monuments – immersing the traveler in testaments to what may seem a different life, but all on an intertwined journey we are destined to share.
A constant companion on such journeys is the earth, the farm, the crops in their season mirroring the stages of life. White rolling fields, winter vistas revealed, barns of many shapes and styles holding, waiting, sustaining life through the chill of the year. As the air warms freshets of water find lower ground, rivers rise, stubs of a harvest past begin to signal a new season to begin.
Expectant soil waits as fields are seeded and fed – awaiting growth, tending, and a blanket of green replaces views of landscapes and fields as another generation finds . Each illuminated by a close sun, or darkened by a fast moving storm, or heavy in the stillness of time – waiting.
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Rows of corn at their height, at the tallest making living aisles almost as souls lined medieval cathedrals for millennia waiting for a joyful breath of spirit, an assurance of the goodness in life. Each seeks a harvest of hope amidst the predictability of the unpredictable.
Living stalks to the eyes limit, broken only by road – as farm and church are obscured by the lushness of growth. Tall corn creating mazes in season, lining routes to challenge the uninitiated, but always a pathway of life. To the inner eye, a creation of directions toward God – who knows every turn of the fields and kernel on the ear, every fleeting season, every exuberant celebration and every profound mourning.
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Into this world will come the harvest, and the county fair in its season – each celebration different yet alike – with its glittering mobile midway – moving from town to town – tempting the stars of Friday night lights looking for a hand to hold and lead away into the dusk.
The tracker pull. The log roll. The newest country music hopeful to crown each night from rented scaffolds. Tents smelling of fried food and beer. The livestock groomed and snorting in their pens. The permanent buildings hosting political dignitaries, the 4 H, and the baked pride of every kitchen waiting a colored ribbon yet belonging in spirit to the finest Parisienne Patisserie.
A festive fleeting landscape decorated by reminders of the harvest. They rise in the fields, row after row, these columns of a living nave. Cathedrals in their own right, built by and belonging to the ages. Each given by one generation to be cared for by the next.
Churches not of mortar and stone waiting for life to fill, but already living from seedling to sprout, stalk to harvest, they stand as if in pews singing their hymns in the wind. At last, even as buildings fade, these generations too, wait for a harvest. All become frail – if they are so blessed – as their song becomes dry and crackling in the wind. Waiting. Ready.
Ready for it to begin all over again – from winter’s bitter blanket covering another season of waiting – to Friday night lights lending new faces to the midway’s fleeting dazzle, discovering old ways through new mazes, each seeking hands to hold – and hearts to love – in living cathedrals of life.
Finis
D. S. Lamoureux, 2019
Dedicated to the author’s dear friend, Carol –
– Counselor and companion through the “over, around, and above” parts of life.
Somewhere between Prospect, Ohio, & Shreveport, Indiana
It took the author years to appreciate the distinctive character of each parts of our country – replete with history and a shared but sometime illusive cultural identity. As a wise farmer once said: “The Midwest is like oatmeal, it may appear bland at first, but is wonderfully fulfilling in its own way. Just give it some time – and a little brown sugar…”