The border is a mess, and I don’t have solutions. And the evolving demographic makeup of the state is on an unalterable path.
The parallel suggestion of a state book could prove more unwelcoming. If Texas wants to be welcoming - to expand its domain as a tech hub - there will naturally be an influx of people who might or might not appreciate the northern mockingbird and the bluebonnet. A single Texas interstate spans nearly 900 miles - which makes a “my way or the highway” approach preposterous and logistically untenable. Selecting a state text - even one crucial to so many - is just putting up another statue to suggest there is one path in a state that speaks out both sides of its mouth as far as being welcoming. I think it’s as authentic a way of looking at the world as anything.” Reverse faults, older rocks on top of younger rocks. And I think it’s an accurate way to see the world. “What was cool about growing up in my household is that my father was drilling for oil and gas and he’d get these cross sections in a day,” he said. The son of a geologist, he also has a different familial perspective on wonder. He’s a writer of fiction and nonfiction, but a writer nevertheless by trade. We should feel wonder all day, every day.Įarlier this year, I talked to Rick Bass, a writer who has penned many texts that could be candidates for a Texas state book. Which tells me the state should consider adopting a geology text as the state book. The number that grabbed my attention, though, is the response to the “frequency of feeling wonder about the universe.” Forty-eight percent weekly. Forty-two percent said they attended church weekly. Sixty-nine percent - still a formidable number - expressed an absolute certain belief in God. The poll then offers some slight erosion. Texas - like the states it lazily mimicked with this measure - remains overwhelmingly Christian: 77 percent according to a Pew Research Center “religious landscape” poll. Is that where you want a revered text when your grandchildren are our age? Consider the statue of some forgotten slave trader in England that was toppled and shoved into a river. It doesn’t require more, certainly not by ruffians whose work is more helpful and harmful than mine but just as transient. To make it a totem for an entity like a state fences the infinite and cheapens it. This Bible contains boundlessness within its pages and thoughts and words handed down, but shouldn’t we recognize the vulnerability of printed text? The simple thought of inking the infinite creates vulnerability. You’d never pack your heirloom plates for a visit to its buffet. Your great-grandmother’s porcelain means more to you than the cheap ware at the all-you-can-eat place (we’ll call it Gilded Ranch to avoid further complaints). If one really cared about the Bible, why subject it to such abuse? We’ve simply put the Bible in a place where it rests vulnerable to assault, be it now or years from now. For what potential gain, I wonder, is this latest one, initiated by a state rep in Brownwood? But culture wars have produced endless skirmishes. When people discuss a need to create space between church and state, it’s not necessarily to protect the state. Now it’s a text for a place that prides itself on independent thought and action? It’s filled with stories, thoughts and belief systems that have endured across centuries. One that has nothing to do with the Texas portrayed in “Coronado’s Children” or “Lonesome Dove.”ĭo other states have state books? Not many.Īs books go, the Bible’s canonization is fairly formidable. Despite its fierce trailblazing self-regard as a state that embodies independence, Texas has chosen to follow the leader and not be a bellwether in establishing an official state book.
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