Wagon Wheels or Wooden Wheels?

Today is Pioneer Day. I have fond memories of Pioneer Day as a child. Well, not really, because I didn't even know that it was a real day for the majority of my early life. We sang pioneer songs in Primary growing up, but I don't think I thought too much about why. They were even favorites from time to time in Family Home Evening (unlike my college Home Evening Group, everyone in the family picked a song to sing at the start of FHE. Everyone. So, 6-7 songs to start the evening. If we did that now, most people would probably groan a bit and then never come back to Home Evening, thus causing me to fail at my calling as Group Leader). The Oxcart, Pioneer Children Sang as They Walked, and I don't remember singing any others. 

Little side note: Whenever we sang The Oxcart we would all get on all fours (I don't think Ma ever did, but the chilluns, definitely) and move around like slow oxen. This would generally result in minor head butting, slightly tackling, and otherwise trying to knock over the other "oxen" on the trail. Not a very pioneerish thing to do, but fun nonetheless. I'll have to teach that to my children some day.

Anyways, back East, Pioneer Day is not a recognized holiday. In fact, Utah is the only state that formally recognizes it. But wherever there are LDS people, there is Pioneer Day (though generally, unless there is a large population of Utah Mormons in your Back-East congregation, it slides by pretty much under the radar).  As a youth, I just thought it was an arbitrary day that the ward would have a cook-out, celebrating pioneer ancestors (of which I have a few) and their contributions. Imagine my surprise when I found out that it was actually the 24th of July and marked the day that the first pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley after traversing over 1300 miles (in oxcarts. Oh, how slow. They're pulled by an ox, of course, you know). 

Now, in order for the LDS folk and all other folk that came out West to start new lives to have done so probably required a great deal of faith. Whether they traveled the Mormon Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Santa Fe Trail, or any other trail, it required them to pick up everything and head in the opposite direction of civilization. I don't mean to offend any folks from out here in the West, but very little of the region is hospitable for flourishing human colonies. The word desert comes to mind. And yet they were driven by something greater than themselves, knowing that it would not be an easy life. And then (speaking now of the LDS pioneers pretty exclusively) once many of them were established in the Salt Lake Valley, they received calls to colonize other even less hospitable plots in God's Rock Garden. 

They faced immense physical and spiritual challenges as they managed to eek out a living in the dry and barren land. And yet, somehow, they did it. They overcame challenges, turning the desert into something slightly less deserty. At least there's grass and a handful of trees (where people live).

Lots of folks today face similar challenges in terms of enormity. Most people probably aren't lugging a handcart across 1300 miles in unfortunate weather. I haven't been called recently to turn barren ground into a thriving community (Literally. Figuratively? I think that's what most mission calls are). But the struggles in our lives oftentimes seem as insurmountable as the Rocky Mountains (though from experience they are not insurmountable, in point of fact). The world is no less difficult now than it was then. Only the nature of our challenges has changed (and it hasn't really changed all that much). We have our challenges, our obstacles, our temptations, our fears, our hesitations, our insecurities, and all of them aim to force us to stay put, to try and convince us that moving forward will not bring us to a better home. They point out all the desertification that is waiting for us over the mountains. And if we face those challenges, if we arrive in those deserts with that faith and hope in a better world, nothing can stop us from making it so.

Pioneers are not limited to those that crossed the plains in wagon and handcart [or train, after 1869 when the first transcontinental railroad was finished with the driving of a golden spike, thus unifying East and West at Promontory, UT (Which is still pretty deserty, though if you live in Utah and have never been, it's worth the drive into nowhere at least once. The trains are cool. You also learn that there were like a half-dozen golden spikes, along with several silver ones, and they removed the golden spike immediately to prevent theft)]. Women and men of courage have consistently and bravely gone into the deserts of their lives to bring about a better world. These people have worked, and continue to work, in all aspects of life, from the sciences to the arts and everywhere in between. The world is not perfect, but it is brighter today because of the hope that people placed in the possibility to make life better. My life is better because of these pioneers. 

So remember your pioneer forebears, whether they crossed the plains or not, and live your life to give their lives greater meaning. They believed the world could be better. Honor their sacrifices and make it so.

Explanatory Note: For many years there was hot debate inside the Fife Household as to whether or not the wooden wheels or the wagon wheels of the oxcart creaked as they rolled along. While the official lyrics in the Children's Songbook say "Wooden," I would still contend that "Wagon" is an acceptable adaptation as well. Same number of syllables, same meaning, both applicable to travel by oxcart, and both creak. I will sing "wagon wheels" until my dying day.