![An absolutely beautiful photo by Kalani Gordon of The Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ Ministries alongside Interstate 40 in Groom, TX.
I’ve always been taken by roadside largesse. When I was growing up my family would go on an annual summer road trip and I was always left with a peculiar kind of awe before sights like Mt. Rushmore or the Crazy Horse monument. Not a deferential awe, but rather the feeling that something decidedly odd was at hand, something “human, all too human”. Years later I would be reminded of this when studying Genesis 11.
This genre quickly degrades into the comical, of course, with roadside attractions such as the World’s Largest Bottle of Catsup, the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, the World’s Largest Ball of String (Not Twine), and the World’s Largest Jackalope.
But my favorite of all is this cross, which I drove past about five years ago on my way to Santa Fe, NM. One begins seeing billboards probably a hundred miles in advance on I-40, all advertising in loud block lettering, “The World’s Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere”. That’s a funny choice of words, you know, since unless you’re trying to sell something you’re probably not going to lead with words like “THE WORLD’S LARGEST CROSS” only to have to immediately qualify them with the fine print of “(in the Western hemisphere)”. Not to mention the fact the residents of Effingham, IL upped the ante with a cross of their own that dwarfs the Groom cross by eight feet—but the billboards still stand.
Each of these roadside attractions has its own particular poignancy, each its own varying degree of irony. At Rushmore one finds that the mythology of American exceptionalism can be reinforced by presenting four former presidents as being both literally and figuratively larger than life. At Crazy Horse one finds a never-before-seen earth moving operation to construct a massive and record-breaking monument that’s probably roughly proportional in size to the magnitude of the atrocity perpetrated by white men on native peoples. At the World’s Largest [Insert Random Object Here] one often finds a shameless conflation of man’s phallic skyscraper obsession with man’s unconscious internalization of consumer culture.
At the World’s Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere one finds a gift shop.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/yvZqiroI9qfdaue5oV8xOZ5fo1_400.jpg)
An absolutely beautiful photo by Kalani Gordon of The Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ Ministries alongside Interstate 40 in Groom, TX.
I’ve always been taken by roadside largesse. When I was growing up my family would go on an annual summer road trip and I was always left with a peculiar kind of awe before sights like Mt. Rushmore or the Crazy Horse monument. Not a deferential awe, but rather the feeling that something decidedly odd was at hand, something “human, all too human”. Years later I would be reminded of this when studying Genesis 11.
This genre quickly degrades into the comical, of course, with roadside attractions such as the World’s Largest Bottle of Catsup, the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, the World’s Largest Ball of String (Not Twine), and the World’s Largest Jackalope.
But my favorite of all is this cross, which I drove past about five years ago on my way to Santa Fe, NM. One begins seeing billboards probably a hundred miles in advance on I-40, all advertising in loud block lettering, “The World’s Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere”. That’s a funny choice of words, you know, since unless you’re trying to sell something you’re probably not going to lead with words like “THE WORLD’S LARGEST CROSS” only to have to immediately qualify them with the fine print of “(in the Western hemisphere)”. Not to mention the fact the residents of Effingham, IL upped the ante with a cross of their own that dwarfs the Groom cross by eight feet—but the billboards still stand.
Each of these roadside attractions has its own particular poignancy, each its own varying degree of irony. At Rushmore one finds that the mythology of American exceptionalism can be reinforced by presenting four former presidents as being both literally and figuratively larger than life. At Crazy Horse one finds a never-before-seen earth moving operation to construct a massive and record-breaking monument that’s probably roughly proportional in size to the magnitude of the atrocity perpetrated by white men on native peoples. At the World’s Largest [Insert Random Object Here] one often finds a shameless conflation of man’s phallic skyscraper obsession with man’s unconscious internalization of consumer culture.
At the World’s Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere one finds a gift shop.
