# 42: I’m on the road again!  Currently I am parked in a rather dumpy campground just outside of Montgomery, Alabama.  If you are ever looking for a place to park your camper near Montgomery, do not choose one named after this city, oh well live and learn.  I left Dade City, Florida a couple of weeks or so ago; my first stop was in the Florida Panhandle where I attended a couple of study groups.  The next stop was in Livingston, Louisiana, just a bit east of Baton Rouge.  While there Peter drove me to Vicksburg, Mississippi where we toured the Civil War battlefield.  Well, I had better get this posting started because Wednesday I plan to explore downtown Montgomery and Sunday I head for Atlanta!

But even in passing, war should be honored as the school of experience which compelled a race of arrogant individualists to submit themselves to highly concentrated authority — a chief executive. Old-fashioned war did select the innately great men for leadership, but modern war no longer does this. To discover leaders society must now turn to the conquests of peace: industry, science, and social achievement.  The Urantia Book (786.12) (70:2.21)

                                        Vicksburg, Monument to Black Regiments

This posting will be a bit different, even though I attended study group meetings, most of them have been photographed before; therefore the photographs in this posting will all be from the visit to the Vicksburg National Military Park.

Before leaving Dade City I had attended a meeting at Share and Bill’s in Brandon.  One portion of this meeting was topical in nature, combining elements of Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Each of us was asked to select a small gift bag that had candy and a quotation from the Urantia Book describing one of the Father’s gifts to us.  Each of us then discussed this gift as it applied to us.  The bag I selected at random contained a quotation about the gift of revelation (coincidence?), giving me an opportunity to share my spiritual experience with the group.  This experience is briefly described in Wandering Urantian #39, as well as my YouTube posting “The Urantia Book and Perfection Hunger,” there is a link to this on the blog page.

Speaking of YouTube postings, I will have another ready soon.  It is titled “Hymn to the Father” and is a celebration with joy and feeling.  By coincidence (again?) it was written on the 108^th anniversary of my mother’s birth.

                                Battery DeGolyer, looking toward Grant’s Headquarters

As soon as I was parked in the Florida panhandle I went to Meda’s study group at the Capstone House in Panama City.  The group may not have been as large as other times when I have visited, but there was a new reader who asked good questions and that always makes the meeting much more enjoyable.  I gave the presentation to the group and they seemed to appreciate it.

The meeting in Gulf Breeze was about as far west of my parking place as the Panama City was east; each was about an hour and a half drive one way.  Perhaps next year I can make better plans.  I gave the presentation to this group, but had not been able to inform them ahead of time of my plans.  Still they appeared to appreciate it.  This group read from Paper 159, The Decapolis Tour, which includes the sermon on forgiveness.

Next stop was in Livingston, Louisiana; there always seems to be something interesting to do here or interesting people to meet.  I gave the presentation to Virginia and Charles; she suggested I make it into a workshop.  I have had thoughts along that line, we’ll see.

                                          Interior of the ironclad USS Cairo Gunboat

Peter offered to take me on a tour of plantation houses or the Vicksburg battlefield.  To me the choice was a no brainer, I can visit historic plantation houses in Charleston any time, but to visit the actual location of one of the most important battles of the Civil War is something special.  I had no idea how far it would be, over three hours each way, but the trip was certainly worth it.  The weather was somewhat cooler than I expected and the promised sunshine did not appear until late afternoon; fortunately Peter had an extra jacket I could wear under my light one.

The visitor’s center has an excellent presentation of the battle as well as a movie describing the events.  After the movie we drove along the road through the battlefield.  This road, which is several miles long, winds through the battlefield and is lined with 1330 monuments dedicated to various units and officers.  All these monuments were paid for by private donations.  The vast majority, if not all, of these monuments are dedicated to Union forces, since these are just outside of the city of Vicksburg.  We saw some of the Confederate monuments when we left the park and entered the city where the defending soldiers had been during the siege. 

I wondered about the soldiers fighting through the heavy woods, but the park website says at the time of the war the area had been cleared for farming and to supply the armies with needed wood.  The current woods were planted as a conservation project.  It also says that the battle lines were marked in the early 1900’s by actual survivors of the battle, giving these positions authenticity. 

The ironclad battleship Cairo was named after the Ohio town on the Mississippi River and had been sunk during the Civil War; over a hundred years later it was found, brought to the surface and restored.  The above photograph was taken in the interior looking toward the stern, with the paddlewheel visible in the center.  There is also a museum containing interesting artifacts that had been recovered along with the ship.

The sun did come out before we left, allowing me to photograph the cemetery in sunshine.  A cemetery on a cloudy day is doubly sad.

Vicksburg National Cemetery

If freewill man is endowed with the powers of creativity in the inner man, then must we recognize that freewill creativity embraces the potential of freewill destructivity. And when creativity is turned to destructivity, you are face to face with the devastation of evil and sin — oppression, war, and destruction…. All conflict is evil in that it inhibits the creative function of the inner life — it is a species of civil war in the personality.  The Urantia Book (1220.10) (111:4.11)