{"id":15556,"date":"2026-04-05T15:51:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T20:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/?p=15556"},"modified":"2026-04-06T20:55:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T01:55:01","slug":"sunday-circus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/2026\/04\/05\/sunday-circus\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday Circus"},"content":{"rendered":"

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BEEN THINKIN\u2019 ABOUT\u2026 SUNDAY CIRCUS. I\u2019m flipping through the magazine, looking at pictures of a traveling circus that was documented as it wound its way through the Upper American South sometime in the late 1960s. The photos are in color, and a little grainy. The performers magnificent, but a bit worn. The photojournalist had been embedded, traveling with the troupe as they left their warm Florida winter quarters and made another arduous journey north in the spring, battling rain and storms and winding, rocky, mountainous terrain to bring their own very special, very strange liminal space to people whose lives consisted mostly of work and church and farm.<\/p>\r\n

The photos stand in my memory \u2014 a glamorous showgirl with huge snake draped over shoulders and neck, her mascara running after a long show. A big local man, laughing uproariously while reaching into his daughter\u2019s popcorn. A trapeze artist family waiting anxiously in a local emergency room after a hard fall. And a band of roadies, sweating in the spring heat, having just put up the big tent. Behind all the photos is the backdrop, a genuinely real character in the story \u2014 an Upper American South springtime, beautiful, glowing with new life, but also dark, jagged, occasionally punctuated by devastating storms that ripped up the tents and frightened the horses and elephants.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The space between here and there, the crossroads, this tempestuous cauldron called life and time and space, is a hard thing to understand. We shield ourselves from it with work and life and a thing called \u201cbeing too busy.\u201d Liminal space makes us uncomfortable. Too much Lovecraftian room to get lost in, too much of our own darkness to face. We like the idea that we, ourselves, are the pinnacle of goodness, of virtue, and isn\u2019t God so lucky to have us, all dressed up, squeaky clean. Maybe that\u2019s why the circus, the storm, the dark backstage, the old showboat with river water lapping at the bow and Midwest lightning flashing across the river, speaks into our ancestral and elemental being so strongly. There is truth in the half-darkness. And truth speaks powerfully through the ages and to our souls.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\u201cPeace be with you,\u201d Jesus said, \u201cAs the Father has sent me, I am sending you.\u201d Over Easter weekend, social media was filled with fancy outfits and Easter tidings that were, more often than not, more about self-entitlement than deep humility. I even ran across a garden tomb charcuterie board, all charm and heresy and cute little olives. \u201cEat up Christ\u2019s croissant tomb while picking your way through a pistachio garden path.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

At the same time, plenty of the self-entitled were out in the comments sections, berating my conservative colleagues for even saying \u201cCelebrate the Resurrection,\u201d as posted Bryan Seitz, our 156th district representative. \u201cSTFU, Republican Jesus,\u201d replied \u201cDan,\u201d an anonymous poster. Glad to see that tolerance and love is overflowing this season.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Our community\u2019s sense of principle has gone awry and so we fight, seemingly unaware that we all have come short of the glory for which we seek.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Nonetheless, the creation all around us reminds us of truth. There is new life in the forest, subtle greens and grays and pinks called forth under last week\u2019s full moon. A tentative sun peeks through humid, low-hanging afternoon clouds, fertile warm weather reminder that the skies will change soon, and change is forever inevitable. My windows were open, and the maple-like smell of cut grass flowing through the house during the witching hour was strong, storm winds beginning to flap the curtains as though the drapery were the wings of some huge bird. Shadows moved strangely. Even in our own homes, we are sojourners in a foreign land. Anxiety comes when we don\u2019t accept the dark.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

The cold front indeed passed through, bringing rain. Now, the skies are clear but the wind cold. The sun is liquid yellow gold melting through the cedars, lining the new honeysuckle leaves in sharp relief. The haters are still arguing on social media. The kids are still fighting over the last couple of chocolate eggs. The light and the dark, they\u2019re both still here, within, without, ever challenging our better and worst natures. But the path forward remains clear \u2014 in the end, it is whatever we choose. Again. Just as it always has been.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\u2014 Joshua Heston, editor-in-chief, StateoftheOzarks<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\u00a9 StateoftheOzarks 2026<\/p>\r\n\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””] BEEN THINKIN\u2019 ABOUT\u2026 SUNDAY CIRCUS. I\u2019m flipping through the magazine, looking at pictures of a traveling circus that was documented as it wound its way through the Upper American South sometime in the late 1960s. The photos are in color, and a little grainy. The performers magnificent, but a bit worn. The photojournalist…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1865],"tags":[3908,3177,3896,3891,3907,3893,3474,3903,3918,2365,82,3916,3909,2400,3912,2366,3883,3902,3901,85,2046,3900,2735,3915,2047,2651,1952,3904,3917,3892,3888,1328,2323,3885,3911,975,99,3884,3910,3899,3905,3894,3906,3890,3897,3887,2274,3914,2434,3254,1977,3882,3886,3898,3895,3913,3889],"class_list":["post-15556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly","tag-156th-district","tag-1960s","tag-backstage","tag-big-tent","tag-bryan-seitz","tag-cauldron","tag-cedars","tag-charcuterie-board","tag-chocolate-eggs","tag-church","tag-circus","tag-cold-front","tag-creation","tag-crossroads","tag-cut-grass","tag-easter","tag-easter-sunday","tag-easter-tidings","tag-easter-weekend","tag-elephants","tag-farm","tag-father","tag-florida","tag-foreign-land","tag-forest","tag-free-will","tag-full-moon","tag-garden-tomb","tag-honeysuckle","tag-horses","tag-huge-snake","tag-jesus","tag-lightning","tag-liminal-space","tag-maple-smell","tag-midwest","tag-missouri","tag-national-geographic-upper-american-south","tag-new-life","tag-peace-by-with-you","tag-pistachio","tag-popcorn","tag-resurrection","tag-roadies","tag-showboat","tag-showgirl","tag-social-media","tag-sojourners","tag-springtime","tag-storms","tag-sun","tag-sunday","tag-trapeze-artist","tag-truth","tag-virtue","tag-witching-hour","tag-work","category-1865","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15556"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15560,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15556\/revisions\/15560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateoftheozarks.net\/showcase\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}