Here's a video of Ackley park in Elk City, OK, featuring the aquatic center. Elk City has many nice parks and a good Route 66 museum complex. I think it is important especially for small towns to have unique attractions that give people places to congregate and enjoy being together, as well as places that highlight the unique and or historical aspects of the community. Parks and museums like this help defend communities from becoming so overrun with the "Applebee's/McDonald's/Wal-mart" corporate monoculturalism that makes everything look the same, taste the same, and where nobody can remember their own history.
I think the interesting thing about Ackley Park in Elk City is despite the fact that it has great playground equipment, a beautiful wooden horse carousel, a very nice swimming pool, and many other features, most people come simply to enjoy the duck pond and the ducks and geese themselves. Everyday there are people who come to the park to feed the ducks or just to watch them. They might participate in some of the other activities, but no matter what, it seems that most people take the time to reflect over the water and enjoy watching or feeding the ducks and geese that live there.
In today's culture places like this are not only important to the secular community but also to the church. The church should grasp the importance of community gathering places. It seems to me that the church and the culture in rural areas can be very divided, and there is very few places where the two meet. In "monocultural" rural or suburbian towns that do not offer many places for people to come together, most people will spend their leisure time watching television, and the only time "church people" come into a social interaction with other people are at high school sporting events or at church and at both places they basically interact with the same people. Communities need places and activities where the "church people" and the rest of the culture can come together and create relationships in which true Christians will be able to share the importance of Christ in a personal and meaningful way to a non-believer with whom they have built a relationship.
Christians should be encouraged to be involved in their local city councils and community organizations in order to promote and develop activities and places where people can come together.
By the way, the music on the video is "Truckin' Down" by Rick Hudson, a good friend of mine and very very talented musician.
2 comments:
Perhaps the most effective way to reach the "lost" in Elk City would be to tape religious pamphlets to ducks... Well but they might not let you get close enough to let you read them.... and geese are really just mean... and the tape probably would just fall off (it doesn't stick to feathers well, I tried earlier today to verify). I think that leaves us with only one option... Staple one word in large font to each bird and then teach them to always swim in a certain pattern so that each bird builds on the previous and eventually it forms a sentence. Similar to the concept of those road signs where they're like 10 miles... (read 100 yards apart) to see the... world's largest Prairie Dog.
As a side note, if you're ever driving in Kansas on I-70 and see those signs, don't waste your time. The prairie dog is made of wood. I was highly disappointed. Although the did have a 5 legged cow. Some tribes in China think that's unlucky. I just though I was watching Darwinism in action. That cow was impossible to tip over.
The magician Lance Burton who performs at the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas has trained ducks that he can make do all kinds of neat things. The could be pretty useful. I could see standing at the edge of the pond talking to someone...
"Have you ever considered you life and your relationship with God?"
and those could be kind of like key words for the ducks to swim in a formation that spelled "REPENT".
Or maybe if someone was getting belligerent with you, you could 'sic' the ducks on them and then tell them God must be mad at them.
That could probably be pretty effective.
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