There are days when it feels like Rocky Mount is under judgment, its name dragged low. The wrongdoing has left marks, and it would be easy to declare the whole city unredeemable.
Wendell Berry draws the line more carefully:
“There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.”
Desecration can be repaired. Scars can be tended. Sacredness endures. Rocky Mount is not lost, it is waiting for justice and full restoration of our reputation and new leadership.
Advocates like Keith Harris have taken the time to gather the facts, to steady us with clear summaries of the financial disaster. His work reminds us that even in discouragement, there are those who will not look away, who believe telling the truth matters.
The question is whether we will believe enough to tend the city back to wholeness. And maybe, in the end, the story of Rocky Mount will not be about its wounds but about the people who never gave up on its healing.
We demand justice and are praying for the City of Rocky Mount, NC to live to the other side of this scandal, and deliver a healing to this sacred place.
Stepheny Forgue Houghtlin grew up in Evanston, IL. and is a graduate of the University of Kentucky. She is an author of two novels: The Greening of a Heart and Facing East. She lives, writes and gardens in NC. Visit her: Stephenyhoughtlin.com
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2 thoughts on “Never Giving Up on Rocky Mount”
There should be a criminal investigation into all of this!!
Main Street Rocky Mount 
There should be a criminal investigation into all of this!!
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Amen!
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