Roads

He leads me to paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Psalms 23:3

“There is more than one way to get to Omaha”

I grew up in Sioux City, Iowa and the above phrase was very familiar to me. Literally, there were 2 highways to Omaha—one in Iowa and one in Nebraska. Conversing on this, there were usually footnotes on where the best places were to stop and have coffee or chili, the best road conditions, the cleanest bathrooms at gas stations, and the fastest routes. As I have gotten older, I have recognized additional meanings to this phrase. There is more than one way to solve a problem. Many people can contribute with their skills to get to the communal goal. It is okay to take different paths for a positive result.

While I was in grade school, there was an uproar in town regarding the city’s libraries and a bookmobile. The city council planned to close several of the small neighborhood libraries and replace them with a used bookmobile. The argument was: it is cheaper to run a bookmobile than pay multiple salaries and do the upkeep on the buildings, and the bookmobile could go to many neighborhoods (poor) where people could not get to a library. If you wanted a specific book, you could call ahead and the bookmobile could provide it to you. The city could have fewer librarians and save on the cost of salaries. The counter argument: the current libraries were used extensively by the neighboring schools that did not have libraries in their buildings, the data showed that the libraries were used by many children and adults, there were more books available in the libraries along with resources than a bookmobile could supply, and the physical libraries were already paid for. The librarians were faithful city employees who would lose their jobs. There was also the cost of buying a used bookmobile. My mother was the head of my school’s PTA and the PTA supported keeping the libraries. We attended many city council meetings, signed petitions to keep the libraries, and looked at the success of bookmobiles in similar communities. Not everybody was happy with the end result, but we all survived. The city closed the little libraries and bought the bookmobile, but because of the communities' interest in solving the extended problems with the schools, a special fund was established to help the schools start their own libraries, there was a commitment to build new bigger regional libraries and a new central library with a much wider set of resources to the community, and library employees from the smaller libraries would not lose their jobs but would work in the bigger regional libraries. Plus, the city recognized these faithful librarians for their service to the community.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for all those who have helped provide our faith community with worship and fellowship opportunities, ongoing Bible studies, Christian education, music, running the day-to-day management of the church, writing devotions, and providing prayer shawls. Thank you for the mission commitments in our community and the world. Help us to remember that there are many roads to Omaha, and there are people with many skills who contribute to your church and the goal to praise you - God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen 

Nancy Hall (reprinted from 2020)