Prayer Booth on the Miracle Highway

I grew up on the outskirts of a small farming community in central Illinois. The soil was about the most fecund that you could ever imagine. I would bet it was about the best in the world. Long ago, the glaciers moved into Illinois and brought with them and then deposited rich loam that could grow about anything you wished to plant.

Our yard had this wonderful soil, plus a deep well of mineral water. Dad would tap into this well with an old gas engine to water our yard and garden. We had beautiful flowers, deeply colored green beans, fresh potatoes, full stalks of corn, rhubarb, and many other fruits and vegetables.

But in my youth, I didn't always appreciate the garden. To me it meant work (weeding and harvesting), which didn't seem like fun. I was fascinated, however, by the blacktop that ran past our house. If you look it up on Google Maps today, it is called "Gilmore Road." I never heard that name when I lived there.

When I was a teen I had a Newfoundland mix dog and a spunky pony. We would often head out together down this rural blacktop. Sometimes we would meet neighbors who lived along this road in more dire circumstances than I lived in. I remember meeting a young boy about my age who also had a pony. We raced them down the road. A few months later I learned that this young man was driving a car along a rural road and collided with a farm implement. He was decapitated.

All of these memories seem to collide in my dreams even to this day.

I dream about riding a horse down this road and coming upon something miraculous.

In one dream there is a structure I call a "prayer booth."

It was a place you could enter and feel something magical. The boy with the pony was there. My Dad watering the garden with well water was there. The beautiful beloved dogs were there.

You could pray there and feel very special and happy. But then you had to exit the prayer booth. And walk home.