Saturday Song, Simon and Garfunkel, "My Little Town"

I'm sure that many older folks can identify with this song. Canada and America were once populated by farmers and ramchers. The countryside bustled with agriculture and small towns were meeting places where people bought supplies. Industries moved in and farmers often took side jobs in town.

Big cities and changing demographics changed all that. Jobs migrated to big cities and young people followed them. Hamlets, like the one I live in, are becoming ghost towns due to this trend.

Simon and Garfunkel came together in 1975 to record this poignent song of the decline of small town life. Hear the song here.

Cities have always had a bad reputation in the Bible. They inevitably became centres of debautchery and immorality as people became less accountable to one another.

Two notibly wicked cities show just how perverted folks can become. Jude 1:7 (KJV) explains, "Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

The places in which Christ preached and performed miracles were even worse than those cities. Mark 6:11 (KJV) quotes Jesus as saying to his disciples, "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city."

Even today, I notice that people in highly-populated areas are generally more immoral than country folks. What do you think? Have you noticed that too?

On Monday, I'll post about the gift of faith and what it means to us.