It’s a small town with a big parade: Princeton, Illinois.
Every year, this city of 7,589 people hosts what they call the Homestead Festival. Under a big yellow tent, folks chow down pork butterfly sandwiches grilled in the town square by the Pork Producers Association. But the most prominent event is the parade—some two hours long!
When you think about it, parades are curious things. They offer a warm welcome to whimsy: people walking on stilts, or driving motorized flying carpets, or firing tee-shirt cannons.
Of course, the Homestead festival has taken all of this to new heights. Candy? You walk home with enough to feed the entire neighborhood at Halloween. But we’ve also seen folks hand out frisbees, ice cream tokens, full-sized water bottles, and even hotdogs. This year, one guy was handing out wristwatches—for real!
Parades are where politicians go to meet and greet, where banks and businesses try to win customers. Parades are curious things. But they are also a strangely fitting metaphor for the mind.
Consider. Every time you speak, your mind is on parade. You go public with what was previously private. High stepping down the public square are words for all to hear. Words that can hurt or heal. Words that can never be taken back. Words that can change the destiny of a life.
Little else is more public than a parade.
Little else is more sobering than knowing that your mind is on parade with every word you speak.
What is your parade saying about you?
Set a guard over my mouth, LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips.
Psalm 141:3