Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality. Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present
~ T. S. Eliot1
At about mile marker 329 on I-75 in Northwest Georgia, hovering over the discount-flooring-industrial-complex that is Carpets of Dalton, there’s a billboard that has for years blared “Every tongue will confess / JESUS IS LORD / Even the DEMOCRATS” with a tastefully placed pitchfork doing business as an exclamation point.
Dear reader, after years of near-weekly commutes to Atlanta from Chattanooga, I can describe almost every billboard on that route, but this one stands out. Prior to 2016, it always just said "JESUS" in a giant font. Then it switched to "TRUMP” (with a brief stint after his election as “Help Us Jesus / DRAIN THE SWAMP / Save America!”). It’s been in the current configuration since 2020.
I’ve often wondered who was behind this all-caps proclamation—the font and color scheme has been the same throughout my years in this part of the world, indicating a single owner. Sometimes, I confess, this curiosity has been demeaning (Is this the work of a mentally competent person?). At other times, it’s a sense of bewilderment (Where does the money come from?). At others, I lament that this person is encased in a community where no one who loves them is willing to ask these questions—like a huddle of fearful wagons circled against the world—or worse, that no one who disagrees with them loves them at all.
In moments of greater clarity, I remember being the type of person who would have laughed heartily at this message, and offered a rationale for why it made sense.
I remember distinctly, some some 21 years ago, saying out loud that I didn’t think anyone who voted for the Democratic Party could be a Christian, only to be rebuked by one of our group of friends. At this remove, I mark that moment as a key change in the symphony of my life. If it’s true that we become what we normalize, I’m forever thankful that someone was willing not to normalize my lack of nuance played up for group affirmation.
This is not a conversion story—I would not now say the same things about someone who voted for the Republican Party, for instance. Rather, it’s a reflection on how to hold space for real people to grow and change, even when we disagree. I’m not always good at repentance, but at least my conscience usually bothers me now when I talk too much, or when I say things for the benefit of someone I want to ingratiate myself to, or when I try to cultivate a persona for laughs or esteem.
To live in honesty takes effort. A lot of it. Some days, it’s the hardest thing to do in a culture whose engine is the whirring nexus of personal and professional marketing. Human kind cannot bear very much reality. Maybe that’s why the billboard is there—a projection to keep at bay the nagging sense that life in the world is too heavy; a talisman to ward off doubt or complexity. Private humility takes more courage than public outrage. Public indignation—at the evil all of us sometimes do in the world—that flows from private humility takes more courage still.
Today, driving by this sign for probably the two- or three-hundredth time, I wondered what billboards I’m posting, unaware that this is what I’m doing. I wonder who’ll point them out to me. Real love is a gift of attention and honesty; the “present” that T.S. Eliot points to. Will I receive it?
I hope so. As R.E.M. sang, “We are agents of the free.”2
From “Burnt Norton”
“Orange Crush” on Green (1988).
So good, such a thoughtful wise essay - thank you for writing and sharing!