Many people today say we need a revival in America. What is Revival? Do we understand what it means, know anything about the history of revival and of the changes a revival might bring to our lives, the lives of America’s churches, and to our nation? I thought I’d look at this term “revival” for my blog this month, do some research, and give some understandings about what a revival is and what we might expect to see in a revival.
By definition a Revival is an awakening in a church, community or nation; it is a supernatural work of God as the Spirit of God turns the hearts of a people back to Himself. Revival, throughout the ages, has been the one force that turns the tide of a declining, diminishing belief in God. A revival is needed when holy things are discredited, when people begin to love darkness more than light, when the light of truth grows dim, and when there is a general departing from the worship of God. Are we in need of revival now? Many would say “yes.”
A new survey found that although 74% of people in America believe in God, a much smaller majority, about 25%, are affiliated with a church or religious group. This is the highest level of non-religiosity in American history, alarming for America’s churches. Within the results of this study, percentages showed that for most surveyed their idea of faith lined up very little with the principles and tenets of the Word of God. As an old evangelist once said, “They’ve got something else figured out.” Why? Most studies point to Biblical illiteracy as the primary negative issue affecting believer’s faith. Without a solid grounding in God’s Word, believers become susceptible to spiritual error and indifference, to spiritual stagnation, and moral compromise. Scott Roberts wrote: “Most church goers don’t know who God is today, and the authority of God is relativized, marginalized, or selectively interpreted to suit personal preferences or cultural norms. This erosion of biblical authority undermines the foundation of the Christian faith…This diminished understanding of God’s sovereignty, holiness, and character has profound implications for the American church’s spirituality and mission…Ours is a world in desperate need of redemption and transformation.”
Perhaps people have tried to turn things around. Perhaps the churches have tried. But America’s faith is falling into a sad estate. In a Revival, God intervenes. “Revival is an invasion from heaven that brings a conscious awareness of God” [Stephen F. Oxford]. “Revival is when God gets so sick and tired of being misrepresented that He shows up Himself” [Leonard Ravenhill]. “Revival is a divine disruption. It is a time when God intervenes in our affairs and interrupts our activities. It is a time when God makes our comfort-zone Christianity feel uncomfortable. [Tom Palmer]. “When is revival needed? When carelessness and unconcern keep the people asleep…A revival does two things. First, it returns the Church from their backsliding and second, it causes the conversion of men and women; and it always includes the conviction of sin on the part of the Church. What a spell the devil seems to cast over the Church today!” [Billy Sunday].
Although we would love to believe we can initiate revival, and although we can and should pray and hunger for revival, it is God who brings revival, as He wills and when He wills. The Lord brings it in His love and mercy. T. S. Randal wrote: “Revival is the King of Heaven visiting His people in all His regal splendor and glory.” “Revival is the sovereign act of God in which He pours forth His Holy Spirit upon His people in a special way, whereby Christians are quickened, backsliders are restored, churches are set on fire spiritually, sinners are remarkably converted, and society is reformed” [R. B. Jones]. Isn’t that what our hearts yearn for? For God to be real and vital to us again? “Revival is God’s invasion into the lives of one or more of His people in order to awaken them for kingdom ministry” [Malcolm McDow]. “A true revival means nothing less than a revolution, casting out the spirit of worldliness, making God’s love triumph in the heart” [Andrew Murray].
Churches often hold revivals, and we often think of a revival in those terms, as a meeting when a minister or evangelist visits in order to draw church members to a stronger place in the Lord and to lead the lost to salvation. But a true national revival is far more than this. True revival is “a sovereign, sudden, selected, sensational operation of the Spirit of God, descending in the midst of prayer, which produces purity and reaches the perishing” [Ken Connelly]. Most of us today have never experienced a true and mighty revival or experienced the mighty works of God [Judges 2:10].
Revivals are not new, even if we haven’t experienced them. We can read about revivals occurring throughout history, and Bible scholars tell us there are sixteen different revivals described in the Bible. In America two great revivals have impacted our nation. The First Great Awakening was a series of religious revivals that occurred in the American colonies in the 1730s and 1740s. Leaders prominent in this revival era were Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, and John Wesley. These men were fiery orators, anointed of God to turn and change the hearts of men and lead America in the direction of God’s desire. A characteristic of revivals is that the words spoken are strong ones, like these of George Whitfield: “People want to recommend themselves to God by their sincerity; they think, ‘If we do all we can, if we are but sincere, Jesus Christ will have mercy on us.’ But pray what is there in our sincerity to recommend us to God? … therefore, if you depend on your sincerity for your salvation, your sincerity will damn you.” They often strongly judged the church of their day for their weak leadership: “Congregations are lifeless because dead men preach to them.” It’s no surprise that revival ministers were seldom popular with the church hierarchy.
The Second Great Awakening occurred from 1790 to 1840 and on into the 1900s. During this longer awakening period, meetings were held in small towns and large cities throughout the country and the ‘camp meeting’ initiated in that period. This Awakening produced a great increase in souls won to the Lord, revival in the churches and in the establishment of many new churches. It spread religion and a deep faith in God through revival meetings and reform movements throughout the eastern U.S. and into Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee. Its ministers and evangelists shook the foundations of a formal, complacent church in America with impassioned and anointed preaching. This Awakening was longer and stronger than the first, and the fingers of this revival were also seen in England, Wales, and Ireland.
Leaders in this Second Great Awakening included James McGready, Charles Finney, Dwight L. Moody, Edward Everett, Hudson Taylor, John Hyde, Billy Sunday, J. Frank Norris, Jack Hyles, and others. D. L. Moody’s words reflect the message of that time: “A great many people place their faith in men, and they pin their faith to other people’s doctrines and creeds…They believe what the church believes, but they do not know what the church believes….All the churches in the world can’t save a soul. It is not to have faith in this church or that church, this doctrine or that doctrine, this man or that man, but it is to have faith in the man Christ Jesus at the right hand of God. That is the only faith that will ever save a soul.”
The revival meetings during this time were not much like the church services we sit in today. Whether in the big city meeting rooms or the camp meeting outdoor settings where they were held, the Spirit dropped down in power and might touching people in dramatic ways. The conviction of God fell on many, washing over them, filling them, dropping them to their knees, causing many to fall out on the floor under the power of the anointing of God. People were brought under conviction for their sins, their indifference to God, and responded, often with weeping and shaking, to God’s call on their hearts. Many people heard about the power and working of God in the meetings and were skeptical, but when they went to the revival meetings they saw and felt the outpouring of the Holy Spirit’s power. Sometimes over 10,000 people were converted.
Charles Finney himself tells of going to one of these meetings, skeptical as a well-educated man and a believer, determined to stay strong and not yield to any of the “nervous excitability” he’d heard about and the fervent emotionalism. But as soon as he entered the meeting he was hit by the supernatural power that he purposed to resist. He even ran away from the spirit of God trying to impact him, but even on the route home was overcome by conviction and the emotions of his heart. He said God impacted him in such a way “people thought him deranged” and yet that converted Charles Finney went on to become a great evangelist and minister. He led revivals, led multitudes to the Lord and taught ministers. His direct, informal, and personal style offended many formal preachers of the day who felt he destroyed the dignity of the pulpit and might not appeal to the more educated in their congregations. They were soon proved wrong. Finney wrote: “Revival is a renewed conviction of sin and repentance, followed by an intense desire to live in obedience to God. It is giving up one’s will to God in deep humility…. and if the presence of God is in the church, the church will draw the world in. If the presence of God is not in the church, the world will draw the church out.” Many said Finney changed American religion. Every minister and evangelist in the Great Awakening seemed to have a different style of ministry, as led by the Lord, but each brought God to the nation.
Billy Sunday was another impacted and changed by the revival meetings of the Second Great Awakening. He played baseball for the Chicago White Sox but at a big revival meeting in Chicago he got saved and left baseball to become a pastor and evangelist. God used him greatly to preach to over 100,000 people with a compelling simplicity and anointing that brought thousands to the Lord. Clergymen disliked his informal style and undoubtedly envied how God used him to bring change to so many. His sermons were filled with warmth, humor, and conviction. “The trouble with many men,” he preached, “is they have got just enough religion to make them miserable. If there is not joy in religion, you have got a leak in your religion.”…Billy Sunday often used baseball terms and actions on the stage: “The devil says I’m out, but the Lord says I’m safe.” He preached salvation in a direct way people could respond to and with the anointing on his words: “Conversion is a complete surrender to Jesus. It’s a willingness to do what He wants you to do.”
Living in Appalachia, I love the stories of the circuit rider evangelists who traveled on horseback during the Great Awakening to bring the gospel to those in the mountains and backwoods. Francis Asbury was one of those, traveling thousands of miles by horseback and carriage into the mountain frontier. He preached, held meetings, led multitudes to the Lord, and helped to start churches and schools. He rode an average of 6,000 miles each year. “True religion is the life and power of faith, and not a set of principles or a form of worship,” he wrote. He also said, “My soul is more at rest from the tempter when I am busily employed.”
Dramatic miracles, changed lives, and healings occurred regularly throughout the Second Great Awakening. Many of those things the church has decided have no place in our beliefs today showed up regularly in the revival meetings. A young woman crippled from childhood, was completely healed in one meeting, with healing and deliverance miracles reported often. Even John Wesley’s own brother Charles experienced deliverance from a lung inflammation during a meeting. Animated singing, mighty moves of God’s spirit and power, weeping, and testimonies filled every service. James McGready wrote of one of his meetings: “The mighty power of God came amongst us like a shower from the everlasting hills –God’s people were quickened and comforted: yea, some of them were filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory…many fell to the ground, lay powerless, groaning, praying and crying for mercy …precious souls were brought to feel the pardoning love of Jesus.”
People didn’t even want to go home and stayed on and on, not wanting to leave the anointing at these sites. A presbyterian pastor wrote: “No person seemed to wish to go home—hunger and sleep seemed to affect nobody—eternal things were the best concern… Sober professors, who had been communicants for many years, now lay prostrate on the ground crying out.” What incredible stories. How long has it been since you’ve been in a service so anointed that you didn’t want to leave, forgot to look at your watch?
I loved reading the miracle stories from the Great Awakening. In the brush arbor revivals, people came from long distances, setting up tents and sheds, and brush arbors for preaching platforms. The people often stayed for a week or more, hearing preaching every day. At one Kentucky meeting like this, a huge storm was moving in. The people knew it would end the meeting and possibly tear down the arbors and stages erected, so they all began to pray fervently for the storm to pass them by. As the huge storm, with its wind, rain, lightning, and thunder grew near, it suddenly separated, moving over and around the revival area entirely and then passing on. I imagine a lot of rejoicing happened then! … In Wales, the spirit of God moved into a small town one night, shaking plates and dishes on the walls of homes and causing the people to run out into the streets in the dark in their nightclothes, dropping to the ground on their knees under conviction…. I read, too, that when the Spirit of God was moving strongly in New York, that when the big ships came into the harbor, the Spirit swept over the boat, causing those onboard ship to fall to their knees under the anointing and conviction of God.
This was a time when people had given up on miracles, when many no longer believed in God or the power of God, and yet God showed men and women in this time who He was. If He did this again in another mighty revival, would you be a scoffer or a believer? Would you be open and eager to embrace all that God might do, or distance yourself from any revival meetings, fearful that your beliefs might be challenged? The Bible says ‘If we are faithless, He remains true and faithful to His Word, for He cannot deny himself.” [II Timothy 2:13]
Some people are a little reluctant to come under the conviction and power of God. But in a revival, God does what He will, not what we decide. He shows us all the ways our God is too small, our faith too narrow and limited. Tim Keller wrote: “Revival isn’t something human beings do… real revival is the intensification of the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit begins to do His work, He brings repentance and assurance … it wakes up sleepy Christians.”
Revivals bring good, needed change. They blow new life into Christians individually and into the church. Henry Blackaby wrote: “Revival is a divinely initiated work in which God’s people pray, repent of their sins, and return to holy, Spirit-filled, obedient, loving relationship with God.”
Some people say revivals don’t last, but they do have long-lasting results. There are many lasting results of true, God-anointed revivals. Thousands are brought to know the Lord in revival. Churches are changed and church leaders are renewed. There is a change in the moral fiber of a nation and in the communities where a revival flourishes. A heart for missions and change grows out of the roots of revivals. The Great Awakening led to many social movements, like the Haystack Movement, the American Bible Society, The Salvation Army, the YMCA, greater women’s rights, prison reform, the Temperance Movement, and many other mission movements.
Revivals bring a change to worship from the very formal, ritualistic pattern to a freer, more evangelical state, where God’s Spirit can move and work. Revivals beautify the church, recover the gospel, bring back the anointing and the sense of God’s presence in every service. “Revival is a divinely initiated work in which God’s people pray, repent of their sin, and return to a holy, Spirit-filled, obedient, loving relationship with God” [Henry Blackaby]… “Revival is a time of renewed spiritual health brought about by the touch of God” [Philip A. Jones]. And surely we all need that. Perhaps we should all pray, Lord, ‘revive us again’ like the old hymn. Revive us according to your ways and your loving kindness [Ps 119:37; 88] “An old-fashioned revival is the medicine for these times” [E. M. Bounds].
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Note: All photos my own, from royalty free sites, or used only as a part of my author repurposed storyboards shown only for educational and illustrative purposes, acc to the Fair Use Copyright law, Section 107 of the Copyright Act.
I live in the city of Knoxville, Tennessee, a short distance from the Smoky Mountains. In my part of the world, we experience the four seasons… a warm but pleasant summer, a pretty, colorful fall, a cold and sometimes snowy winter, and a lovely spring, rich with flowers and new growth. “Hurricane” is a word we’ve heard often enough here in Tennessee and my Appalachian area, but generally to our way of thinking it relates to the coastal areas of the United States. When those harsh tropical storms blow into the panhandle or up the east coast areas of the southeast United States, we watch the reports, remembering those we know and love who live in those areas that might be affected, praying for them, checking on them. Sometimes as the rains and winds from hurricanes and tropical storms blow inland, we get a lot more wind and rain than normal, occasionally flooding, Sometimes, trees are felled by wind or too much rain in the soil. But we rarely if ever see any really destructive weather damage.
In the past. Knoxville and East Tennessee has received a little wollop from Hurricanes like Hugo, Opal, Frances, and Ivan that packed enough wind to topple trees and power lines. Sometimes low-lying roads and trails in the valley here around Knoxville and in the Smokies get flooded and the roads closed, but Hurricane Helene sent our region a sweep of frightening damage and destruction most of us, even those of us who grew up here like me, have never seen before.
As Hurricane Helene moved closer to the gulf coast and the Panhandle last week, the reports began to predict that the cone, and the storm, would roll up through the southeast, bringing us a lot of rain and wind. It was Florida though and some of lower Georgia that were told to prepare, to batten down the hatches, to possibly evacuate in especially vulnerable areas. Most of us around the Appalachian area, so much further north, didn’t even race out to the store to get bread, milk, and some groceries, to get extra water, to fill the bathtub, to make preparations for possible power outs or problems as with the occasional winter snowstorms we get.
Hurricane Helene streaked into the coast, a large, fierce storm, but soon downgraded as it began to move inland, except that the storm was wide and filled with ongoing rain and wind, especially heavy, heavy rain. It had actually been raining somewhat heavily around many Appalachian areas of Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina a couple of days before Helene even moved in, which didn’t help things as Helene’s rains progressed our way and it rained and rained, and then rained and rained some more. Swollen rivers began to overflow their banks. Flood reports began to come in from many areas. And the ongoing rains didn’t stop. In many areas felled trees and flooding began to create power outages, storm damage, and unexpected worries. Those unexpected problems escalated as Helene began to linger on and on over our area.
We began to hear reports that conditions were really bad in many areas, that roads were closed, farmlands and homes inundated with water, and even towns along the rivers flooding and the waters raging. People were stupefied. It was so unexpected, and much of it came more rapidly than anyone envisioned, too. Evacuations began as the turbulent floodwaters crept into businesses, people’s homes, and over more and more of the towns and lands around the Tennessee and North Carolina mountain areas, all so familiar to us. Festivals in the Smokies—like one where we were scheduled to sign books—cancelled, businesses shut their doors, roads were closing because they’d become impassable. People began to be warned of more imminent danger to come, too, from the ongoing rain, floodwaters, felled trees, and more.
Many of us, like J.L. and I were stunned and shocked, as footage began to show up on internet sites, Facebook, and the news channels of whole towns being flooded, roads being washed away, homes underwater to their roofs. We simply don’t see sights like these in our region and it was hard to look at the images and realize how close to our home they were. Farmers began to see their entire fields, barns and outbuildings being covered with water, often too swiftly and unexpectedly to get their equipment and animals out safely. What had been predicted to be a heavy storm quickly turned into a nightmare.
By Saturday, more and more unprecedented catastrophes were being recorded. Here in our part of Knoxville, we were blessedly safe, the rains dissipating some, everything soggy but with little damage reported near us. But almost every road in the Smoky Mountains closed and streams and rivers there had turned into a torrent, flooding over walls into the streets of Gatlinburg and Sevierville, flooding side roads and hiking trails, washing out sections of the Appalachian Trail. Signs were posted asking people not to come to the Smokies at all and soon we began to learn the flooding and problems there were larger than we knew.
Western North Carolina especially got pummeled with Hurricane Helene. Flooding seemed to be everywhere. Trees felled in many areas, and power outages increased. Large sections of towns along streams and rivers like Waynesville, Sylva, and Asheville were soon awash in flood waters. Towns, large and small, like Hartford and Hot Springs between Tennessee and North Carolina, were soon flooded, streets torn away by the water, buildings collapsing and rolling downstream. In Erwin and Unicoi County, in the Tri-Cities area of East Tennessee, the Nolichucky River went crazy, breaching its banks and turning into a wild rampaging river, grabbing homes and barns in its teeth and swirling them downriver to crash them into bridges. Buildings were soon submerged in floodwaters. Fifty-four people were stranded on the Unicoi County Hospital roof and efforts to rescue them by boat and helicopter failed. They spent seven hours in fear on the roof watching the roaring flood waters all around before they could finally be rescued.
Area dams in these areas were pushed to capacity, with water cresting over the dams and flowing around the sides of the dams. A number of flash flood warnings were put out that dams were close to imminent failure and affected residents warned to evacuate like at the Nolichucky Dam. The Waterville Dam, just over the state line in North Carolina, sent out warnings, too, as did the Lake Lure Dam in Rutherford County, North Carolina. Other dams around the TN and NC area began to send water spilling through all their gates, because of the critical need to handle the water buildups, but this brought flooding to many areas along the rivers below.
The dams held, blessedly, but the waters rushing down the river and the streams continued to bring more and more damage and chaos. The small tourist town of Chimney Rock was completely destroyed by the flooding, the town a rubble of ruined buildings with roads torn apart, trees felled, and bridges destroyed. The pictures were heartbreaking to see. Water roared through the main roads of Maggie Valley and flooded nearby Waynesville, North Carolina. The town of Asheville was soon flooding in many areas, too, like around Tunnel Road, and the historic Biltmore Village was soon almost submerged with flood waters from the Swannanoa River. The waters also flooded the town of Marshall and other nearby areas. The floodings spread down to Hendersonville and into South Carolina towns like Greenville and Spartanburg. People began to be trapped on rooftops and in upper stories of homes and buildings. Mud and rain filled the roads with power-outages everywhere. Deaths were being reported, not only in Florida where Hurricane Helene first hit, but in Georgia, South Carolina, into North Carolina, and Tennessee.
On Saturday, a huge section of Interstate 40 between Tennessee and North Carolina, heading toward Asheville, totally collapsed, closing the interstate. Soon other major roads were closed, like I-26 not far from Johnson City, where whole sections washed out from flooding. Continuing road closures soon left Asheville virtually stranded with no safe way to come or go and with much of the city without power, cell service, or safe water. It was incredible to see this major city brought nearly to a standstill with rescue operations continuing all around the city and the nearby North Carolina area.
I saw videos of farmers weeping over their horses and animals lost, of their crops destroyed. Having just traveled all through Georgia, I saw, as one farmer said, the cotton and peanut crops ready to harvest, and remember the huge tracts of pecan groves, many now destroyed. Dairy farmers who use machines, now with power out, can’t milk the cows and they are suffering, and the farmers sorrows and losses will impact the availability and prices in our grocery stores to come. This makes me realize how much more a part of each other we are than we realize.
Life so often brings us surprises we don’t expect, too. We often think we have control over our lives and our world but then find we do not. Life, instead, is full of unexpected twists and turns. We have to all become resilient in this life, able to stand through those dark and unexpected times, to be strong enough to survive and overcome the unexpected. I am a person of great faith and believe strongly in the protection of God and in the power of prayer. But as Julius Caesar wrote, “No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected.” And these unexpected tragedies in our Appalachian area of the world have certainly been that.
How do we handle the sorrows, the unexpected tragedies of life? How we do handle them tells a lot about who we are. Some suggest that it is when the going gets tough that our character is revealed. William Samuel Johnson wrote: “He knows not his own strength who hath not met adversity.” I also like this quote by Doe Zantamata: “It is only in our darkest hours that we may discover the true strength of the brilliant light within ourselves than can never, ever, be dimmed.” I hope that light in you is faith, and that in all situations of unexpected sorrow, tragedy, or calamity that you draw strength from the Lord and gain help from Him, knowing God is always ‘your refuge and strength,’ like Psalm 46 promises, ‘a very present help in trouble, and that though the earth be removed, the mountains be carried into the sea, and though the waters roar and are troubled and the mountains shake, He will be there.’
Perhaps you have been grieved and shocked over the devastation from Hurricane Helene. Undoubtedly, you have watched the news in distress and seen the painful photos of the destruction. Concern is good and prayer is good, and we should all be praying and concerned for those in hurt and need, but we should also reach out and “give” tangibly. Research, pray, and seek for a route to give money and help in some way, through a reputable helping source you know of that will get help directly to those in need. Look for one that is already reaching out to take in supplies, aid, water, and food and be wary of scammers or organizations that keep the major portions of funds received within their organizational structure. Search, pray and ask God “What can I do?” If you know anyone personally that is suffering want or need or loss, then reach out directly to be a help. As Proverbs 3:27 advises, don’t ‘withhold help when it is in your hand to do good to those in need.’ Be a giver; find a way to freely give. In all areas of your life, not just in a calamity, look for ways to give back for all the blessings you enjoy. And “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive—to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love” [Marcus Aurelius]. We have so much to be grateful for every day that we so often take for granted.
Our parents and grandparents often make the comments “When I was a boy …” or “When I was a girl …” remembering earlier times and reminding us of how much things can change in our world in only fifty to sixty years or more. I used to smile at these remembrances of change and still do … but it’s actually remarkable to realize how much our culture and society has changed in so short a time. Only a hundred years ago in the United States, the average family was just beginning to drive Model T automobiles. Most families were only beginning to get telephones then, too, and television or computers hadn’t even been invented. Shopping in those times only involved a limited number of small groceries, a few department stores and family-owned shops.
I think it’s good, sometimes, to look back and think about how life has changed in our world. It helps us to be grateful for new inventions and positive changes, and it also helps us to see ways in which our world might have been better in past. So, my blog post for September offers a look back to help us see changes between “then-and-now” from the 1950s and 1960s to today. Many of you, or your parents or grandparents, may well recall the 50s and 60s, but it’s all too easy to forget those times, too, and how much life has changed since then.
The average home in the 50s-60s was different from those of today. Most suburban homes were smaller, with about two to three bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, kitchen, dining area, a single car garage, and usually a large yard if not in the city. Some people had started to put air-conditioning units in their homes in the 1950s but in others window fans were the norm. Central heating was a little more common but many homes still had furnaces, fireplaces, or wood stoves. Home backyards often had a garden and people mowed their grass with a push-mower.
Appliances we know today were different, too. Most all homes had stoves and refrigerators—and many had a freezer for vegetables from the garden–but microwaves, electric can openers, icemakers, disposals, electric knives, and many other time-saving devices were not yet invented. Homes had washing machines but dryers didn’t become common until after the 1960s. People hung their laundry out to dry on clotheslines in the back yard. In the 1950s, and even into the 1960s, most women could—and did—sew, and often made many of the family’s clothes. Home sewing was actually a billion-dollar industry in the 1950s. People had smaller closets in their homes and fewer clothes then, too.
In every era people dress differently, and men, women, and children, dressed differently in the 50s-60s than today. Many women still didn’t wear pants out in public and wore dresses or skirts instead. In most schools, girls could not wear pants in school at all. On very cold days, they could wear pants under their skirts to school but then removed them and put them in their lockers. It wasn’t until the 1970s that trousers for women became fashionable and acceptable. Boys wore slacks with tuck in button front shirts to school. And when girls and boys got home from school, they changed into play clothes.
For special occasions and always for church, everyone dressed up, which is probably where we got the term “Sunday Best.” It was considered respectful to God to dress in your best for church services. Women wore hats to church in those years, and often gloves—especially at Easter. Skirts generally were no shorter than just above the knee. Men wore neat suits to work in sales and in the professions and they often wore hats. However, men’s hats were removed indoors, especially in church.
By the 1970s hats for men and women faded away in popularity except for baseball caps, which became somewhat of a staple for young men in less formal places and still are today. Bathing suits were more modest than today, and bikinis and shorter skirts for women didn’t kick in until the late 60s and 70s. About the only place you saw a picture of a bra or intimate underwear was in a Sears and Roebuck catalog. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that the first bra commercial aired on television, but with the model fully clothed and only holding up the undergarment. These days, walking by a Victoria’s Secret store reminds us that our society doesn’t mind showing men or women in intimate apparel or even unclothed on television or in movies.
In the 50s and 60s, most families had one car. Even in 1960, only 15% of families had two cars. Children rode the school bus or walked to school if it was nearby. Many fathers, like mine, rode the city bus to work most days to leave the family car with their wives for errands if she didn’t also work, too. With the economy rising after World War II, and the dollar going further, many families could live on only one income then. Wives with small children were able to stay home and not work if desired, but by the late 1960s into the 1970s, dual-earner couples increased. Today, with our economy less strong, fewer mothers can stay home with their children in their younger years. Since the 1960s, too, more doors have opened to women in more fields, previously closed to them, and traditional concepts about the work roles appropriate for men and women have changed dramatically.
In the fifties and sixties, vacations were simpler for most families than today. Family togetherness was important after World War II and the country’s increasing prosperity allowed many families to take a summer vacation to a beach, resort, campground, or scenic site together or they traveled to visit family in another state to enjoy time with them. Wealthy people have always taken vacations since the earliest of times, but in the 50s-60s, working-class people began to enjoy a taste of travel and vacationing, too. In these years, children also began to enjoy summer opportunities to go to day camps, scout and church camps, and to participate in other away-from-home experiences like band and sports camps. Families also spent more times on weekends and holidays together at the lake, at public swimming pools, at the zoo or nearby parks. Children began to enjoy new pleasures they hadn’t known before, going to movies, bowling, skating, and taking paid lessons in sports, dance, tennis, swimming, piano, baton, or guitar. Not all families could enjoy or afford these treats but more did than before in the 50s-60s, and families lived modestly to save for and enjoy these pleasures.
Children ran and played outdoors a great deal in the 1950s-1960s. Times were safer and children had more liberty in their neighborhoods, especially in rural and suburban ones. Kids rode their bikes or skateboards, played hopscotch, croquet, badminton, roller-skated, and enjoyed baseball or softball in the backyards or fields. They giggled with hula hoops, drew hopscotch boards on the street or driveway, climbed trees, played pretend cowboy games and outdoor games like red rover and kick-the-can, spread old quilts under the shade trees and played with toys, dolls, and games. Board games became more popular, too, as did puzzles. Teenagers played records and listened to the radio, went to school dances, and watched American Bandstand on television. However, even when the first TVs came into the homes in the 1950s and 1960s, families watched it in far more limited amounts than today. Kids played outdoors much more than today and used their imaginations to come up with all sorts of play activities and adventures.
Eating out was not the norm in the 1950s and 1960s as it is today. There were fewer restaurants, and for the average family, eating out was considered a luxury only for special occasions. Families ate at home together for most all their meals, and the family meal time was a traditional time for sharing and spending time together. Most families ate home-cooked meals at dinner with a meat, vegetables or salad, bread or rolls, and a dessert. People ate mainly fresh, non-processed foods, their vegetables and fruits often from the family garden, a nearby farmer’s market, or the local grocery near their home. Very little junk food was found in the home then like we know it now. People lived healthier, eating better and being more active in their homes and out-of-doors than the bulk of our society today. Only 10% of adults were classified as obese during the 1950s and fewer children. Now over 40% of adults and nearly 20% of children are obese, and far more are overweight. In this area, our world has not improved in its habits and lifestyle.
The moral culture was different in the 1950s and 1960s. This era was more conservative, less materialistic, more value-laden, and more caring. It was a time that linked right and wrong to Biblical values, although not all the cultural norms of the time were right. Some studies call the cultural time of the 50s-60s more “other-directed” than “Inner-directed.” Communities and families were tighter, more in touch. The era valued good morals, manners, a strong work ethic, patriotism, and faith more than our culture today, basing practices for government, school, and home around these values. That strong moral foundation and set of related values permeated all social institutions, from government to military, healthcare, church, and family. Today, studies show we have seen a significant decline in the value of virtues like honesty, kindness, and trustworthiness, plus a marked decline in respect for authority and parents, and less clear lines between good and bad, ethics and evil. These changes have also caused more societal conflict, unrest, anxiety, unhappiness and depression, and more violence.
We have also seen a drop in educational scores since the 1950s-1960s and more problems with discipline in American schools. All research has shown that a reading society is a strong society, yet the value of reading and the number of people engaging in reading has declined significantly since the 50s and 60s. Americans are reading fewer books than in past and our national literacy rates are declining. Technology has contributed in part to this decline. Children and adults consistently look at their phones and other devices and are easily distracted by the immediate response of technology. Additionally, parents don’t read at home and model a love for reading as much as in past, and children are following in the same pathways they see modeled. This and other administrative and governmental problems are eroding the strength and effectiveness of our educational system and creating an increasing percentage of children who cannot read at basic levels. These changes have not been positive ones since the 50s-60s.
Few people today can look around and not see that we have problems in our world. Of course, every culture and era has societal problems. Although we can all look back and see many progressive and positive changes in our world since the 50s and 60s, we can also look back and see many negative and detrimental changes in our society since that time, too. The question, of course, is whether we can rightly evaluate the areas where we’ve slipped away and turn around and make positive changes to correct the difficulties in our homes, families, educational and political systems, and in our own personal lives a well. Mark Twain once wrote: “We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change places with an easy and blessed facility, and we are wonted to the change and happy in it” often to our detriment. People get settled in their ways, even in wrong ways, and they resist change. President Woodrow Wilson wrote, “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” However, despite the resistance people inherently have to change, we can change and create a better version of ourselves and our world. If we will. Perhaps looking back can help us see where we missed the better path in some area or where we need to take a new and different path to a better future.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” [ Margaret Mead}
I’ve been working on a new novel, with a wildflower-herb farm and shop at its center, and as I have delved into research for the book, I’m been reminded again and again of the benefit of plants on our earth and of our frequent lack of gratitude for them. Plants include all the huge variety of trees, flowers, shrubs, herbs, mosses, grasses, and ferns that make up the plant world. Plants are extremely diverse and complex and there are millions of different species. All plants are made up of similar parts, like roots, stems, and leaves, but the most important thing about plants is that we cannot live on earth without them. Plants make oxygen, and all living things need it to breathe. Plants give us food, shade, and shelter, plus needful products like wood to build our homes, fuel, foods, and products we need and use in our world.
I think we are less schooled today than our ancestors, who lived in a more agriculturally based society, about the aesthetic and health value of plants. As I was reading about early Appalachian culture, for the family farm and shop in my story, I read often of how children were taught from young ages, in the past, about the natural world all around them. They were taught the names of trees, shrubs and flowers, learning which ones they could eat safely, which were poisonous. On walks through the woods, they learned characteristics about mosses and ferns, wildflowers, trees, and plant roots. They also learned to cultivate and grow all types of plants and flowers. My mother grew up in a large farm family and my father’s family gardened, too. I look back and remember with fondness their constant stories about the land, its plants, the trees. They carried such knowledge of the natural world. They knew how to plant and garden, how to care for and respect the beauty around them. I know they passed that love and respect for nature along to me. Even in my busy life, focused around other pursuits more than around gardening, I still appreciate all I see of nature’s beauty and I want to see it protected and reverenced.
On my bookshelves are many books about landscape gardening, plants, flowers, and herbs. I pull them out often to get ideas for gardening and planting in my yard, for understandings about my indoor houseplants, and to identify the trees, plants, and flowers I see when hiking or visiting parks, gardens, and outdoor sites. You can learn a great deal about plants just from books, with their glorious illustrations, and from studying the plants around your neighborhood and area where you live. From books and talking to other gardeners, you can learn there are right and wrong ways to plan landscaping for your yard or property.
Trees are always a healthy addition to begin with. They provide shade and should be planted to “frame” the house in a pleasing manner. Trees should go around the edges of your site and are especially pleasing when arranged in uneven numbers. That rule is good for shrubs and flowers, too. Shrubs and flowers should fill in around a home’s foundations and around the edges of a landscape site. Taller shrubs and plants should be placed to the back of a landscaped flower bed with gradually decreasing sized plants next, ending with some low growing plants or groundcovers at the edges. Large flowering plants like hollyhocks, foxglove, or gladiolus grow best against a wall or fence where they don’t overpower smaller plants in front of them and where they can be staked if needed. Other taller flowers like clumps of coneflowers, daylilies, purple phlox, and black-eyed Susan need a place toward the back of flowerbeds, too, or a wide area to themselves where they can grow tall and spread without overpowering plants beside or in front of them either. The impact and success of every garden lies in its initial design. Every yard needs a nice balance of trees, foundational shrubs, and some beds of plants and flowers to look its best—and not too many in number, type, and color. Kind of like inside your house, a yard needs a plan and a color scheme to look its best. It just takes a little thought, research, and planning to create a pleasant yard or an appealing flowerbed
Unless you take gardening courses or read extensively, the best way to decide on the right tree, shrub, plant, and flower species for your yard is to walk around your neighborhood or in nearby neighborhoods or garden areas to see what’s growing well. Trees and plants filled this world long before we did, with the fittest surviving best among all the other species. Your own climate, soil, and weather conditions dictate what will grow best in your regional area, yard or garden, without excessive cultivation and struggle. Make it easy on yourself and plant the types of trees, shrubs, plants, and flowers you see growing well everywhere you go. In my book story, my characters and farm owners, shop employees, and landscapers will advise their clients in that way, so they won’t set them up for failure in the herbs, perennials, wildflowers, and other indoor or outdoor plants they choose.
I’ve especially enjoyed reading about not only the healthy impact of plants on our world but about the healthy uses for plants, perennials, and herbs for cooking, making teas and herbal and wildflower products. As a quick garden reminder, perennial plants will come back and regrow year after year while annuals die off after temperatures get too cold and generally require you to plant new ones the following year. Trees are perennial plants, although I’m learning that some trees, like people, have longer lifespans than others. The same is true with many perennial flowers and sometimes a harsh, cold winter can harm even hardy perennials, shrubs, and flowering plants. Gardening is never one-hundred percent predictable, just like life.
If you have space in your yard or garden, pollinators are a lovely option to consider. Native plants in pollinator gardens attract bees, birds, butterflies or other pollinators that carry the pollen between flowers causing fertilization, good fruits and viable seeds. This creates a healthier and more robust ecosystem. Unfortunately, worldwide there is evidence that pollinating bees, and animals have suffered from pesticides, invasive species, and environmental pollution so working to plant pollinators will help combat these losses. Some good pollinators to consider are: asters, black-eyed Susans, blanket flowers or gaillardias, ironweeds or vernonia, goldenrod, bee balm, orange milkweed, lavender, joe pye weed, red columbine, coreopsis or tickseed, coneflowers, wild purple geranium, pink swamp roses, sunflowers and many more. These native plants can also be used in making herbal products, oils, lotions, potpourri, wreaths, and soaps. Many are also edible, too, and good for baked goods. If you have a large space in your yard or on your property, you can create a pollinator garden of plants in big patches or clumps, planning a diversity of types so some bloom in spring, others in summer or fall. Many pollinators are herbaceous perennials and once established will return again and again. But please don’t use pesticides or chemicals on these plants.
Herbs are especially easy to grow both inside and outdoors in the right location and climate. Actually, herbs are some of the easiest plants for beginners to grow. They can be grown in the garden in rows, in raised garden containers or in the house in a spot with plenty of sunshine. I enjoyed learning that herbs don’t mind being communal and that different herbs will grow happily in the same container, three to a 14-inch-wide container or five to an 18-inch container. I also liked the idea of planting a row of different herbs in a long window box containers. Once established, you can just pinch off leaves as needed for cooking or for making soaps or herbal products.
Most herbs stay where you plant them without becoming overly invasive and spreading but be watchful for MINT. Whether SWEET MINT or PEPPERMINT – this herb has pretty leaves, is super easy to grow, great for its spearmint flavor and minty smell and good for beverages or iced tea, but be warned it will spread in the yard or garden. However, it can be happily grown in pots or containers by itself. I remember planting starts of mint that Mama gave me on the side of my house, and it spread like crazy, soon even coming up in the crack between the patio and sliding doors. I thought we’d never get rid of that mint. Lesson learned but the leaves were lovely in iced tea.
While researching for my book, I’ve especially enjoyed reading about the easy teas you can make with herbs and flowers. I’ve also enjoyed learning how many herbs and flowers are edible. Edible flowers and herbs are always best when picked fresh out of your garden, and untreated with pesticides or chemicals. They are best when picked fresh in the morning and they will often keep in a plastic container in the refrigerator for days so you can get out a few to toss in a salad or special dish. Be sure you know the flowers that are safe to eat, however, as many are poisonous like foxgloves, oleander, and poppies. One edible flower you’re probably familiar with from childhood is Honeysuckle. You can enjoy the nectar or use the petals for a tea. Cornflowers have a spicy clove-like taste and hibiscus have a citrus-flavor in herbal teas and are a good addition to fruit salads. Wild violets and pansies make lovely teas, too, and can be used in salads or even jams and jellies. Many of the edible flowers I read about I was already familiar with for foods like dill for seasoning vegetables, elderberry for making wine or teas, basil for soups or pasta, or chives with their oniony flavor for salads or other dishes. It’s really fun to pick up books or to do some research on the internet to learn herbs, flowers, wildflowers, and perennials you can use in cooking, jams, jellies, salads, or sprinkle on foods for garnishes.
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“The Mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.” – Henry Ward Beecher
As kittens, geese, or other animals learn and imprint from their mothers, we learn from the mothers who raise us. Our mothers, whether they realize it or not, are our teachers. They model the way we should live and think. They teach us what is important not only by their words but by their example. For most of us, our mother’s voice, words of love, encouragement, caution, and concerns, are ever in the background of our minds. A mother’s teaching, especially if it is good, strong, and true, can have a powerful impact on a life. George Washington said, “All I am I owe my mother. I attribute all my successes in life to the moral, intelligent and physical education I received from her.” Others have also written beautiful words about their mothers. John Wesley said: “My mother was the source from which I derived the guiding principles of life.” I doubt either of their mothers, caught up in the busyness of their days, the demands of childrearing and life, realized they were making such an impact on their sons, but the inescapable fact is: Mothers teach us and they make a difference in our lives.
As little children we lean to and look up to our mothers, loving to hold our mother’s hand and to listen to her read to us, bringing her little bouquets of flowers from the yard, writing her love-notes, and sharing with her all the thoughts and happenings of our day. As we grow older and more independent, we naturally pull away, establishing our own identity, detaching, and seeing with time our mothers in a less idealistic way. Oddly, as we age, and I think especially after we lose our mothers, we look back and see them more idealistically again, realizing all they gave to us, all they gave up to raise us, all the good and worthwhile teachings they planted into our lives and nurtured. We acknowledge even more then how they shaped us, in part, to be what we are today. We are more ready to sing their praises and give them honor for it.
As I grew older, I thanked my mother on many occasions for the lessons she taught me, the love she gave freely, and for the good, virtuous, loving example of her life she ever modeled before me. It was often my mother who was there, standing beside me in the darkest times. Washington Irving wrote: “A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity.” I’m blessed to look back and remember my mother was always there for me in good times and bad, and was also my friend.
Title: CELEBRATING THE STARS AND STRIPES IN BOOKS – by Dr. Lin Stepp
We began to research and plan for that new book, around our jobs and my ongoing writing and book tour events for my novels, and in 2015 we finally began our travel trips to the parks. Over the next two years, we visited all 56 of Tennessee’s state parks. In researching and planning for the book, we decided to divide the book into Tennessee’s three natural regions, East, Middle, and West Tennessee. We began our visits at the far Eastern end of Tennessee at Warriors Path State Park, Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park, and David Crockett Birthplace, working our way gradually across the state on weekend travels until we reached Tennessee’s final parks on the Mississippi River like Meeman-Shelby Forrest State Park, Fort Pillow State Park, and Reelfoot Lake State Park, the last park on our journey.
In writing our new guidebook later, we gave clear directions to each park, a description of all the things to do and see within the park, and we provided over 700 color photos throughout the book in illustration. We hiked multitudes of trails, visited historic sites and museums, explored battlefields and old forts, took historic tours, and learned more than we ever could imagine about the rich history and diversity of our state parks. Often, I wrote and added a “History Note” after a park description to further acquaint readers with aspects of how that park had formed and about its early settlers and historic significance. I often talked about Revolutionary and Civil War battles which had taken place at the parks, the lives of patriots, old homes, churches, and cemeteries within the parks, and about the early work of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in building many of the roads, trails, and structures in the parks.
A surprise to us in nearly every park we visited was in learning that the U.S. flag was raised and lowered with honor and respect every day, often at the main visitor center or park office, but sometimes also over a historic fort or museum. We also saw old flags of the past honored in photos on walls of museums, and in historic buildings, with descriptions about their part in pivotal battles or in the lives of patriots. It was a rich lesson in the history of the United States, and of our home state of Tennessee, to visit these parks and to learn more than we expected to about our state and national heritage.
After completing our park visits, the next year was spent getting the book completed for publication, and in the spring of 2018, DISCOVERING TENNESSEE STATE PARKS published. It was, and is, to the best of our knowledge, the only book about Tennessee’s state parks, detailing each in descriptions with photos. The guidebook hit several bestseller lists. It raced into the top 5 in Amazon’s East South Central US Travel Books category. Book Authority ranked it #4 in Best Tennessee Travel Guide Books of All Time, featured also on CNN, Forbes and Inc, and the book became a finalist in the Travel Guides and Essays category in American Book Fest’s 2019 national contest, with over 2000 publisher entries. It was fun seeing our adventures appeal to so many, and knowing we were providing a roadmap for others to learn more about Tennessee’s heritage, beauty, and unique history, in every park they read about.
As mentioned earlier, I also write novels set around the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, and others set at the South Carolina coast. As of today, I have twenty-three published novels, with two more publishing in March, and six guidebooks jointly written with my husband, and I give many talks at civic groups and organizations, like DAR groups, at libraries, book clubs, women’s conferences, and regional events. I mention this because when J.L. and I were in South Carolina in 2019 at a book signing at Barnes & Noble in Charleston, SC, the year after our Tennessee parks book published, the store’s Community Relations Manager (CRM) came out waving our TN parks guidebook. “We need one of these for South Carolina,” he said. “We got nothing, and people ask for books about our parks all the time. You guys need to write one of these for our state.” With pressure like this continuing, we decided to listen, and over the next two years, around our other ongoing work and events schedule, J.L. and I took week-long visits, when we could, to work on a new South Carolina state parks guidebook.
South Carolina has less parks than Tennessee, and in South Carolina, many historic sites, military parks, and battlegrounds, which were governed under the state’s jurisdiction in Tennessee, were under the national park’s jurisdiction in South Carolina, so we decided to also include those parks in our guidebook. Many were also close to the state parks, as well, and we knew visitors would want to know about them and probably visit them, too. We ended up including a total of 55 state and national parks in this new guidebook, and we laid it out in format and design similarly to our published Tennessee guidebook.
Over the next two years we shared many interesting trips exploring and enjoying the lovely parks all over the state of South Carolina. Similar to our previous guidebook, we organized our parks into four geographic regions, the Upstate, Midlands, Pee Dee, and Lowcountry. South Carolina’s history is older than Tennessee’s, so we enjoyed learning even more about earlier times in America through our parks’ visits, especially in visiting many Revolutionary War and Civil War sites. Again, as in Tennessee, we often ran into DAR markers and history notes and the joy of seeing our national flag flown in nearly every park we visited. Several historic sites of particular interest were Ninety-Six National Historic Site, Charles Pinckney National Historic Site, Colonial Dorchester, Rivers Bridge, Andrew Jackson State Park, Kings Mountain, along with coastal Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter.
Our new guidebook published in 2021 and it, too, has been a strong bestseller. As far as we know, there is no other current guidebook to all the parks in South Carolina, although, of course, different parks get mentioned or spotlighted in other books. We are so pleased that we have been able to bring our readers “armchair traveling” to the state parks to encourage them to visit them and to let them know more about the interesting places to see in each park. As in our first state parks guidebook, I wrote many “History Notes” after significant parks in South Carolina to teach readers more about the heritage and rich history of the parks.
Our travels to visit parks, to bring them to life for our readers, involves a lot of planning and extensive travel. We create a detailed agenda before any week of visits, with our journey mapped out to travel in the most expedient way to the parks we plan to visit in an area. Despite the advent of GPS and other modern technology, J.L. and I always take printouts of park and state maps with us as we travel. Many parks are in remote areas where cellphones and other travel helps don’t work well, and we often find better routes to the parks than the ones recommended. Finding good places to stay in proximity to the parks we plan to visit is yet another challenge.
On our return home, I write up the descriptions of our park visits for our book and introductory materials, like including a history at the beginning of each book about how the parks in the state developed. J.L. and I select the best photos to include, and then he creates and lays out each park page in InDesign. He also creates regional and alphabetical indexes for each book. Multiple edits follow, done both out of the publishing house and in. Our graphic designer creates the book covers, the state park maps included in each book, and other specialized pieces that make our books unique. It’s a long effort to get a book press ready, even after all the parks visits are completed. Yet, it is very rewarding to pass on the joy and learning—and rich history—of our visits to readers all over the U.S. and abroad.
This last year, in the summer of 2023, our third book VISITING NORTH CAROLINA STATE PARKS published after yet another two years of park visits. In the same year, two of my novels published, one a novel set in Cherokee, North Carolina, titled VISITING AYITA. Even in my novels I teach history to my readers. In this book I taught about the history of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee, about the town of Cherokee, its people, and heritage today. Others may be “history makers” in person but I love sharing history in books with my fans and readers. Every one of my Smoky Mountain books takes readers visiting to a new place around the mountains and I often get to include wonderful extras about the heritage of an area that I hope my readers will visit, like the rich history found in Dandridge, Tennessee, in EIGHT AT THE LAKE, a closer look at quiet Townsend on the quiet side of the Smokies in DOWN BY THE RIVER, colorful history about Gatlinburg and the Walker Sisters in my book DELIA’S PLACE, and interesting facts about Edisto, Charleston, Beaufort, and Port Royal in my Edisto and Lighthouse Sisters books set on the South Carolina coast.
Books are the way I go home with people, and as a past professor, books are the way I teach others about the beauty and history of places I love. My books, set in contemporary times, take readers to new places and into the lives of new characters each time, teaching about love, patriotism, good morals, kindness, faith, and more. I cherish Dolly Parton’s words about my books: “Well, I’ve finally come across someone that believes in all the things that I do … love, family, faith, intrigue, mystery, loyalty, romance, and a great love for our beloved Smoky Mountains. Dr. Lin Stepp, I salute you.” I believe, in these times, where we often see morals and patriotism compromised, that we each need to work to remind others of the good in our country, the rich legacy left to us by our ancestors, the beauty in our world, and the way to live in it with caring and kindness in our everyday lives. This is what I strive to teach in my books, in my novels, and in our regional guidebooks.
I celebrate the Stars and Stripes, the love of country, the beauty around us, the good and the honorable and true, still in our world, with every book I write. So much of what people write today does not encourage the type of strong character, strength of mind and heart, that helped to create our nation and that our forefathers fought and died for. My own relatives trekked down through the wilderness to settle this east Tennessee area. I have a rich legacy of patriots, teachers, preachers, and statesmen in my background. I hope I give them honor in all I do.
Lin Stepp 