My Sweet, Sweet, South

Not long ago, as a little Christmas gift to myself, I bought the book My South by Robert St. John. First of all, the book is full of fun little one liners that only Southerners can truly appreciate. Things like "My South uses knives and forks, but biscuits and corn bread finish the job." Second of all, you all know I eat this stuff up...

Here's a poem by Christine Carr from the book:

In my South, there is a spirit, a holy spirit that

heals old wounds, melts the heart,

and brings all people together.

It's that spirit that is the source of our progress.

We are moving - we are moving forward, you know.

And now that we are moving and

We've got all this progress and that's great.

But you know, I can still have my front porch,

my sweet tea, and that good home cookin' -

even on a low-carb diet.

We can hold on to the beauty of this

old, old place, as we're moving.

We are moving forward and we are moving forward together.

I love this. One of the things I like the most about the South is that it is a place that sort of stands still in time. We are really good at preserving our culture, which I think is so important. You can't know where you're going until you know where you came from.

With that being said, I also think it's important that we move on. Let's face it, this is an amazing place, but it has a sorted history. It's a well known fact that the South is by no means perfect. We need to let go of as much of our history as we should hold on to, which I think we are doing.

I love my South, and this poem really sums up how I feel about it. Just because we hold on to what is great about our history, doesn't mean we are behind the times. We can live in harmony and sip sweet tea together. We can let go of our hate, but keep our cornbread, and that's my kind of South.