Indiana, August, Sunday Morning

It seems an injustice to me that everyone could not see what I see in this moment. An August, Indiana, Sunday morning. Perhaps I have seen many of them, perhaps I have not. For this one seems so new, so fresh that it could never have been before. Like a new born baby of sorts, even in the middle of a nearly timeless and ageless land.

The air is cool in the morning in Indiana but only the early risers know that. The sun soon answers the call of the corn and bares down hard on their leaves and the people too. The corn returns to the sun, its yellow fruit, but the people hide in the shade of the maple and the oak.

One thinks of the country as quiet and peaceful and that is so. There are few man-made sounds except for a churning mower in a pasture or the occasional faint grumblings of a distant airplane. But if you listen, and only if you do, the air is filled with sounds. For those with ears to hear, there are sounds upon sounds. All of them competing for possession of the air. The princely locust seems to rule the air. A source of amazement for me since my youth, for I have never found one. As hard as I try to find the source of the raspy chatter it resounds from everywhere and nowhere. A creature with his audio capabilities ought to be of human size and yet he remains unseen. He does not rule the air, though he is the most aggressive. Another unlikely competitor is the quiet yet persistent turtle dove calling to his mate. She in the distance, returning her lover's call. In their voices there is a sense of stately love and pride that belongs to a place such as this.

There is one other sound that cannot be missed, it is the least conspicuous and yet the most dominant of all. It is the gentle rustling of the leaves from the morning breeze. From the trees as the branches bend ever so gently, but mostly from the corn. This plant is king in Indiana. He rules every part of this land; the smell, the sound, the life of the dwellers.

This leads me to the sights of the morning. There is no better time to see the wonders of God than in the early morning light. The light is so gentle. It caresses everything it touches. It gives its lovers the appearance of having its own light. The colors are true and vibrant unencumbered by the violence of noonday light. One might rest his eyes upon the old porch and see the beauty of the furniture that has been lost in time like museum pieces. One might gaze across the road at distant farms, frozen in time as if painted across a canvas, though few have caught the same splendor. The king beckons eye. The fields surround you, as far as the eye can see and as close. The plants on their own are green as new grass but corporately they are golden brown. The breeze pushes and pulls them in unison as the light bathes each until they give an appearance all their own. It is a field, a field of corn. It is an early August morning that even now begins to fade and retreat until another day dawns and someone ventures out prepared to meet the beauty of a moment of time in Indiana.

Originally written by the Preacher in August of 1989, while sitting on the front porch of my childhood home in Indiana. The cornfields surrounded our home on all four sides.

Edited by the Preacher and I in October of 2026.

(photos used are all Indiana cornfields, found on Istockphoto.com)