If I were a polished country music singer with pretty teeth and lyrics which celebrate my southern culture, I hope my agent would make this photo my album cover. Nevermind my tuner is twitchy and my pitch is pitchy. I would look George Strait handsome holding a six string guitar even though my fingers couldn’t play a chord. My Wrangler jeans worn a little too tight and my belt buckle a little too big would be my stage costume at night, but I would wear swim trunks and hoodies in the light of day. My hat would hold ten gallons of twang and my boots crafted from rattlesnakes with pointy toes and a high heal.

If I was feeling a bit saucy, shiny gold spurs would adorn my boots with metal taps on my souls so I would go click-clack as I crossed the room. I would sing songs about neon moons, lost loves, little towns, mamas, and rodeos. I would have a great big tour bus with little pimento cheese hors d’oeuvres as snacks and a keg of sweet tea in the back. My fans would love my public profile, but loathe my lonely, mundane real road life. It would be the best of times: it’d be the worst of times.

I would sing songs about neon moons, lost loves, little towns, mamas, and rodeos.

Since the good Lord has set my life’s compass on a different path, I do not need to concern myself with looking handsome, wearing tight jeans, or boots that hurt my toes. Swim trunks and hoodies would be the uniform of the day. I am just a simple man, with simple ideas, and simply, when I approach life’s threeway intersection, I sometimes wonder, should I turn left or turn right. The fear of the unknown can shift my go-getter gear into park. For some, the stage of life, even donning the latest fashion, bling and friends in tow can leave a heart begging for Siri to point the way.

Feeling inadequate to decide life’s direction will mine one’s inner core, mostly without their permission. Standing here alone, in the middle of an asphalt vein of indecision, which bleeds through the black, rural dirt of eastern North Carolina, I feel as if the wind, that pushes strong across these fields, could lay my bones flat as a pronunciation that I am powerless to decide in my own strength. If I were a famous stage performer, I would seek advice from my “people” to guide my steps, but deep inside, question their motives.

My prayer is, when my decision is imminent in the midst of a wayward heart, I’ll have the wisdom to reach for that ol’ compass and search for good people to push my go cart along. Like Miranda Lambert once proclaimed about her “her little red wagon”, “the front seat’s broken, and the axel’s draggin’”. At least I’m in good country company. My hope is, the bearing I set would point my ship’s bow to veer a little more right, even if the winds of influence are blowing a bit more left.

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference”

Reinhold Niebuhr