Rural Community
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100 Albums – 100 Reflections
Rolling Stone released their The 100 Greatest Country Albums of All Time list a few days ago. And it inspired me. I’m going to write a reflection on each album. My goal is one reflection a week for the next 100 or so weeks (almost two years). I can guarantee you I will miss a Continue reading
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Linoleum Tables – Chapter Finished
I’m in a hotel room about to head down to a conference on rural life and resilience in North Carolina. I haven’t written in 11 days. I worked through that in journaling and contemplation. I think it was imposter syndrome and anxiety of completing something and sending it into the world (the anxiety of releasing Continue reading
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Day 12 – 549 Words
I spent a large portion of today editing video. Hence, the featured photo screen grab. However, before that I was able to celebrate a student defending his Master’s Project and get my 500+ words complete. I’m starting to get to the point where I wonder if this is any good. I’m 25ish pages into this Continue reading
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Day 10 – 508 Words
I haven’t posted on the blog for a few days. It was a mix of being tired and the content I was writing about. Having to write about film and TV depictions of rural life is hard. Particularly, writing about the way both comedy and horror distort rural life, often from the perspective of the Continue reading
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Day 7 – 680 Words and 75,000 People
Write about Mayberry in the morning, make history in the evening. I went to the first home match for Charlotte FC. We lost, but I loved every minute. Daily Word Count – 680 Challenge Total – 4522 Continue reading
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Day 4 – Ash Wednesday – 879 Words
It’s Ash Wednesday. It’s a relatively new observance in my tradition, but I like it. It is both a reminder of mortality and a sign that spring is on its way. I have my windows at home and in my office open. I wrote quite a bit today, and the introduction is coming together. I Continue reading
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Day 3 – 713 Words
This morning I received messages from someone who needed several things from me because of something someone else needed from them. It was an issue that was no fault of my own, and I let the person know I was working on a couple other things first. I prioritized my writing and creative work. I Continue reading
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Sanctified Gossip
The story of the woman at the well from John Chapter 4 is a story I used to find annoying. I think, because it was an overdone story about Jesus being Jesus. It gets overused as a salvation story for a way of life that is no longer feels like an issue. Women, in general, Continue reading
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It bears repeating…
One thing rural communities rely on is repetition. Repetition creates consistency, memory, and tradition. This repetition matters, whether it is football of Fridays in the fall, the festival on the first weekend of May, or knowing who to call when someone in the community dies to get the prayer and meal train going. I’ve learned Continue reading
Jonathan LeMaster-Smith 