Mighty grain elevators—1,500 broad-shouldered "Sentinels of the Plains"—once stood guard over farm towns across the State of Texas. Today, less than a third of the aged watchmen report for duty. In their place, prison towers now shadow the edge of many rural communities.
            I spent the first week of November in one of those prison towns. Normally, the opportunity to serve a rural community invigorates me. On this particular assignment, however, a vague sadness lingered in my soul.
            I blame the derelict elevator on the south side of town.
            For Catholics, the month of November is set aside for remembering the dead. In Hispanic parishes, like the one in this town, pictures of departed loved ones greet the faithful at the door of the church: deceased grandparents, spouses, infants, soldiers and high school graduates.
            If I could, without appearing disrespectful, I would add a picture of a grain elevator among the photographs, a momento of a lost culture that I mourn, a time of abundant and confident rural communities.             I seldom pass abandoned elevators without recalling my father. I see him in a field, breaking off heads of wheat, then rubbing the grains between his fingers. If he judged them to be sufficiently dry, he would head off to the elevator in town to test a sample of it.
            Later that afternoon, I’d be whistling happy, hauling wagons loaded with wheat to the same elevator. I’d listen to the rumble of augers beneath a wood plank floor, nod to neighbors in the office, collect the weight slip, then return home to hitch to another wagon already filled to the brim.             A young man sits across from me in a room with barred windows. I’ve been his spiritual director for more a year. During our sessions, we ponder God’s plans for his life when he gets paroled.
            When that day arrives, he will likely be released to a city similar to the one from which he came. As his spiritual father, this leaves me feeling inept. I am unfamiliar with the streets on which he grew up. I worry about his returning to his former way of life.
            I would give anything to steer him to a time when men wore work gloves instead of tattoos, a time when weekends meant square dancing and sex was wedded to sacrifice.
            His eyes are earnest. His intentions sincere. Still, I can’t help but notice his hands folded on the desktop between us.
            Those fists of his have fought some tough fights, but his palms never weighed handfuls of grain.