Saturday, August 16, 2014

The gold standard atop Mount Zion


Lucas County has two Zion cemeteries, which can lead to confusion. One, simply Zion, is located atop a hill in Pleasant Township, east of Williamson, overlooking the Cedar Creek valley. It takes its name from the now-vanished Zion Methodist Episcopal Church, once located north of the cemetery lane.

The other is Mount Zion, named for the equally vanished Mount Zion Primitive Baptist Church that it once contained, located atop a bluff bordering White Breast Creek north of Oakley, or what's left of Oakley.

A tombstone errand took me to the latter Friday, tunneling in through the trees along the lane that commences just north of the White Breast Creek bridge. This lane, once a road that continued west, now turns, climbs and circles the site of the old church.


That was where I discovered gold --- blooming in tall spikes surrounded by intense green.


And lichen, too, gilding a tombstone.

The old hymn tells us that neither silver nor gold hath obtained our redemption, and that's probably true on many levels. But this kind of gold can redeem at least a few minutes.

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