Oh Georgia, You Are The 13th

Oh Georgia. You were not what I anticipated. You were the 13th Colony established. Lucky or Unlucky? This explains your destiny, be Love or be the curse. Your secrets from Jekyll are being exposed and revoked.

We stayed the night in Newnan, Georgia with the hopes to minimize Atlanta traffic drive time. That plan worked out swimmingly, what didn’t work out as planned was downtown Atlanta.

As we drove in Saturday afternoon, we started noticing boarded windows on several buildings. As we got closer to the Capitol, whole blocks worth of buildings were boarded up. We circled the Capitol a few times to find parking. With all the one way streets, it took us all over the downtown area. With all the trash and boarded windows, we almost overlooked all of the street people.

I’ve been to many large city downtowns and you will inevitably run into some street people, but this was next level. I told Kristi, this reminds me of San Francisco.

We finally found a parking spot near the Highway next to the Liberty Bell monument. What was odd, the entire Capitol complex was fenced off along with several monuments and gardens. The only thing not fenced in was the Liberty Bell replica.

We got there a little early and sat in the car waiting for the “evening sacrifice” time. If the droves of street people didn’t make Kristi feel a little uneasy, there were several groups of men that looked like they were looking for trouble. Kristi said she and the kiddos would stay in the car as I walked around the capitol fence to pray. I agreed.

I got out and grabbed my bag, staff and shofar, put my glasses on and pulled my hat down. I could hear what sounded like several people talking constantly. It sounded like the same person but in different places. As I walked up to cross the street, each intersection had a countdown, “do not cross”, and “you may cross” message speakered out loud. It was a little confusing, the street I was crossing was really close to another intersection which I could hear the message from that crossing. These messages were constant. Good luck to the visually impaired navigating that area.

I finally made it to the sidewalk around the capitol. At each corner there were large gates leading to the building. The capitol yard was very nice, it was the only thing that didn’t have trash and street people all around it. I take off praying and walking with intent and purpose around the building.

Several of the homeless had to do a double take at me. I guess they don’t see a guy walking with a big stick and a “snake” wrapped around it. As I turned the corner, I noticed one homeless man started towards me to ask for help but when he saw I wasn’t “normal” he turned and crossed the street to get away from me. I guess if you are more “peculiar” than them they don’t want anything to do with you. LOL.

I pray a wall of fire around the Capitol, navigate the “Siren” crosswalk voice and make my way back to the Liberty Bell. Kristi and the kiddos join me as I’m setting up.

The bell is surrounded by the 13 original Colony flags, Liberty Plaza flag and Old Glory. Also on a short wall, blocking the bell from the crazy intersections, are three names of signers of The Declaration Of Independence: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall and George Walton. I faced the three names as I decreed and commissioned. As I was decreeing, it was like everything that could make noise, did. The crazy intersection, a group of guys down the way, cars passing by on the streets next to us and the loudest racing rod deciding it needed to downshift and get on the Highway right then. I guess that is to be expected here in “little Hollywood”. It felt like “they” were trying to drown out the decree of the KING.

On top of all that, I was still feeling horrible as my whole body was hurting and achy. It was definitely the enemy overplaying its hand. We knew this was right where we needed to be. I finished up, took our pictures and we made our way out of downtown.

But wait, there’s more!

We decided to grab our late lunch on the outskirts of Atlanta. I type Chick-fil-a in the GPS and find the closest one before we hit the countryside. We pulled in and had a hard time finding a parking spot. The line for drive thru was almost around the lot. We go in and I make eye contact with a very large armed security guard off to my left. He smiles and nods at me, I do likewise. The building is packed out. I walk Kristi and the kids up to the counter and scan the seating. Again we made eye contact, it was like he was watching us. I find an open table and take the kiddos to sit while Kristi orders. As Kristi takes a seat, she leans over and asks if that is an armed guard? I told her he was watching us. We both looked around and now notice that you could tell that we weren’t from these parts… We grabbed our to go order, and walked out the door next to him. He smiled, said have a great day and I returned the sentiments. As we were loading into the car, I scanned the lot and noticed he was at the door making sure we were good, getting to our car.

Oh Georgia.

Columbia, South Carolina here we come.

Shalom