Many of you know that I grew up in a small town of less than one thousand people in rural New Mexico.  There wasn’t a lot to do in that town of Cloudcroft.  We had two or three restaurants, a couple of gas stations, some tourist shops, and a putt-putt golf course.  That was it.  No chain restaurants.  No malls.  No theaters.  No bookstores.  No coffee shops.  No parks or zoos.  We didn’t even have a stop light.  Only rarely could we receive a radio station and for years there was no cable or satellite TV service.  It was like living in one of the most out-of-the-way corners on the earth.  But every summer my family would visit my uncle and aunt and cousins who lived in Omaha, Nebraska.  Omaha was everything Cloudcroft was not.  If Cloudcroft was the place where nothing was happening, Omaha was the place where everything was happening.  If Cloudcroft was on the edge of the world, Omaha was at the center of the world.  It was the New York City or Los Angeles of my youth.  My cousins would take us to the Omaha zoo, one of the largest in the country.  We’d watch movies in giant theatres.  We’d attend the enormous Fourth of July parades and fireworks exhibitions.  We’d visit the neighborhood pool and swim and jump off the diving boards.  And we’d eat out in restaurants with large menus and great food.  During those few days I’d feel like I was part of civilization, I was in the loop, I was participating in what was really happening in the rest of the country.  But at the end of the visit, I’d always have to get in the car and head home.  Once back in Cloudcroft, I’d wrestle with a feeling that my cousins were getting it all and I was getting nothing.  My world was so small and theirs was so big.  Stuck in my small town, I was missing out on everything good the world could offer.  If life was a pie, my cousins were getting all the slices and I was getting none.

Fringe: The Fringe Condition of Meekness God Favors