We recently took a trip to visit family in Texas.
What a drive!
The ride there was filled with a lot of interesting sights, historical places, and different people.
There are clearly distinct differences and similarities in various states and regions of our country.
Many things I saw didn’t seem to go together either.
In fact, one dissonant set of places was close to home.
The last leg of our journey included a jaunt up Route 29 in Virginia.
Route 29 is a scenic four-lane highway cutting through the rolling hills of central Virginia.
The scenery includes a lot of cows, rural landscapes and small towns.
Lovingston is one of those towns.
Nestled in the Piedmont, it looks reminiscent of a place that at one time may have bustled with energy from being a rail stop along the way.
I hadn’t been on this road in a while and I saw a situation that made me chuckle and ponder all at the same time.
Just north of the town, there is a sign advertising the Virginia Whiskey Museum.
My curiosity was aroused.
This seemed out of place in the area we were traveling.
As we passed the site, I asked my wife to slow down driving so I could examine it further.
Then is when I really saw something unique!
Using the same driveway entrance was a church.
How odd I thought that was.
Two diametrically opposed activities sharing something together even if it was just a driveway.
The image stuck in my mind after we passed by both places.
I thought about how could a church and whiskey museum possibly be side by side like that.
Isn’t their existence together contradictory?
Then I realized they both served their own purpose and probably peacefully coexisted together.
Maybe both groups had a tolerance of each other and shared the driveway out of necessity for the better good.
Maybe this is an important lesson for all of us, especially in current times.
Tolerance, acceptance, and sharing all seem to be solid traits we need to exhibit.
After we arrived home, I searched my oils to diffuse.
I was on a search for one that reinforced the image of acceptance, tolerance, and trust.