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Pilgrimage
to Plato Center
by
Pastor Jack Hayford
The
Illinois landscape stretching before me looked like cinnamon toast
spread with persimmon jelly. Autumn does incredible things to the
already lovely countryside, spreading it with color, which alone
ought to be convincing proof for the existence of a Creator. The
suburban Chicago tollway over which I drove in my rented car, had
concluded with the arrival of the farming country. Now the four-lane
highway narrowed to two, and the sign beside the fork to the left
read, Plato Center.
I
had come to here on purpose, drawn by the memory of a concrete-post
road sign I had driven by twenty-four years before. Anna and I were
young in public ministry, following an itinerary from church to
church throughout the Great Lakes region, ministering to youth.
It was in early spring when our path came to the intersection I
was now approaching in the fall of the year, nearly a quarter-century
later.
"Plato
Center," I remember saying to Anna. "It sounds so distant—so
unreal. Like a remnant of another era." We had needed to drive
on, unable by reason of schedule to turn aside the one mile indicated
to see a town I had never heard of before, but was never to forget:
Plato Center, Illinois.
Now
my business in the Chicago area offered a one-day hiatus.
It was Wednesday, and with no immediate assignment pressing,
I decided to pursue my memory. I wasn't even clear as
to exactly where that road marker had popped up that
springtime long ago. I only remembered it was northern
Illinois ... somewhere on the distant perimeter of Chicago
... to the west.
And
I found it. The town whose name had been engraved on my mind was
now passing beside my car. Two dozen houses … a gas station … schoolhouse
… one store… all sandwiched between the black loam fields on all
sides—many already plowed under, although much late feed corn still
stood dry on the stalks in perfect road-wide rows. And the church
house. Only one. Methodist. With a graveyard across the road.
I
tried the church door, wanting to enter, but no one was around.
I had decided early that day what I would do if and when I found
this town. I would pray … I would pray for America.
It
was Wednesday, when my congregation, half a continent away, would
be joining me around the throne of the Most High God. We would seek
His face again, with repentance and prayer for our sinful nation,
which needs forgiveness for its sinning, deliverance from its perverse
ways, and healing for its wounds realized through blind excursions
into rebellion. I did pray. But it was hard to feel the impact of
sin on our land in Plato Center ... until I walked through the graveyard.
The
lawn, tailored nicely around the monuments and headstones there,
was strewn with painted leaves—crisp and crunchy under my feet.
The engraved names and dates marked the remembrance of people living
in the early 1800s—nearly to the founding of our nation. And Romans
5:21 (KJV) came to mind: "... Sin hath reigned unto death,"
a solemn reminder that sin is both a fact of life and a force in
history. Even in the rustic beauty and seemingly untainted simplicity
of this hidden corner, a message on the need and place of intercession
was present.
My
pilgrimage to Plato Center was a refreshing reprieve from a busy
schedule, and it put my memory of an unvisited site to rest. But
it also reminded me of the call to prayer for our land which we
have incumbent upon us. Intercession will not remove graveyards
from our experience, but it will keep our nation from being buried
in our lifetime. |
Jack
Hayford Ministries
14800 Sherman Way, Van Nuys, CA 91405-2233