Coffee Shops and Hippies.

One day, Bolivar will thrive.

For now, it stands stereotypically a small town in southwest Missouri. It has an old courthouse sitting as the center of an old square. Across the street is an antique shop with a used bookstore downstairs. It's run by a seamstress who fixes the holes, rips and tears while you wait. She's a quiet woman. She wears glasses, but only when she has to. The rest of the time, they dangle around her neck on a string of beads. Around the corner is everyone's favorite Mexican restaurant. The walls are painted to look like foam, bubbling out and lying about how soft they are.

The town is populated by fast food and a Wal-Mart. There is virtually nothing else. And though, the people walk the sidewalks and students crowd the streets, the people submit to the heavy silence. Every passing by wave is mundane, to say the least. Every smile is empty. "Bolivar is a ghost town," they say. I tend to believe that ghosts are more alive than these people.

There is no room for the poetic. The world of deep meaning and human relation strives to break through the deep, dark veils of superficial feelings and callous greetings. Metaphors are wasted, similes misunderstood.

And tonight, back on one corner of the old square, a small coffee shop hides an eclectic group of individuals from the engulfing vanity of this damned town. A girl with a face far too friendly for her environment sings happy songs about childhood and the simplicity of life's "Once upon a time"s.

I sit. And I listen. And I wonder. This town will soon be a memory. It will be the skyline in my rear-view mirror. The future will stand before me. Opportunity and uncertainty loom before me, both inviting and threatening. I realize now that I will miss this place. Though it is so fake and nearly dead, it is has made me. Who would I be without my time here? Without the dorms? Without the awkward encounters with townies? Who would I be without Bolivar?

And the Sovereignty of God is incredibly obvious. He is inescapable. He shines through even in the darkest places. Even if it is a small beam piercing the greatest darkness, God will be known. Tonight, he sings to me through a strange hippy girl who has nothing left but her songs.