Along the Way

If you happen to be driving through the Mohave Desert from Arizona to Southern California along CA State Route 62, be prepared for a strange sight, the abandoned “ghost” town of Rice, CA which was formerly named Blythe Junction. Rice is now a town with zero residents.

You won’t see abandoned streets or buildings from the highway here, just the foundation of a gas station beside the two lane road, its steel girders still holding up an outdated sign of a business which surely doesn't even exist anymore. Next to the gas station are the burned out foundations of some buildings, surrounded by a wire fence. Across the highway, a string of unused freight cars sits in storage on a defunct spur of the Arizona and California Railroad. While the physical EVIDENCE of past residents of the ghost town of Rice is minimal, there is EVIDENCE of multitudes of more recent visitors to this bleak and desolate place, 50 miles from a town in any direction.

What evidence am I referring to? Taggers have left their mark here. The rail cars, girders of the gas station and even the cement foundations of the former buildings are the canvases for multicolored graffiti art. Along the bank of the railroad tracks you can see rock art graffiti - designs and names made from the multicolored rocks taken from the rail bed. All this graffiti art leaves an interesting blend of new upon the old.

 

Perhaps the most intriguing mark left by visitors to this deserted place is the thousands of pairs of shoes on the fence and thrown onto the remains of the gas station sign. 

Yes, I said shoes! Some are worn...some new...some name brands... some are small children’s shoes...sandals...men's boots. You name it, you will see it here! 

On the internet this place is now designated as Rice Shoe Fence; it is actually listed as a tourist destination on some web searches. If you use Instagram you can find it under its own hashtag, #riceshoefence. If you look carefully you might find a designation for it on Google maps, but we found this place quite by accident. But in walking around this area and taking some photos, it struck me that all these people who have left their mark here (either by painting graffiti, assembling rock art or tossing shoes around a steel beam or fence) have gone out of their way to come here. They PURPOSELY made this trip through the desert to this deserted spot in order to leave a mark - the EVIDENCE of their passing through, either with paint, shoes or rocks! These “taggers” seem to have a desire to leave behind something artistic or unusual that says, “I was here.” I think this reflects our innate human desire to achieve something, to leave a legacy, to have PURPOSE. 

This place which we discovered by accident, brought a couple of questions to my mind: 

1.     What is our PURPOSE in life? Do you know it’s more than driving miles into the desert to tag a steel beam or cast off old shoes, or make art from rocks!

2.     What EVIDENCE of our life’s journey are we leaving along the way? Certainly it is more than paint, rock designs or old worn out shoes! 

There is an account in the Bible of a man who came to Jesus with questions about how to live his life, what PURPOSE he could pursue to be successful. He asked, “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?”

Jesus said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

Matthew 22:36-40, http://bible.com/72/mat.22.36-40.hcsb

PURPOSE and EVIDENCE! If we follow these two commandments given by Jesus, from Matthew chapter 22, we will leave an eternal legacy behind as we journey along the way. In His first commandment Jesus sums up our PURPOSE in life; it is to love the LORD our God with all our heart. Flowing from this PURPOSE, the EVIDENCE of our love for the Lord will be that we love our neighbors as ourselves. 

As we pursue the PURPOSE of life, let’s be sure to intentionally leave behind the EVIDENCE that we love God by loving others. As the town of Rice has disappeared into the landscape, so the paint and shoes at Rice Shoe Fence will not be there forever. But LOVE will not fade away!

“And we have this command from Him: The one who loves God must also love his brother.”

1 John 4:21 http://bible.com/72/1jn.4.21.hcsb