Tracy Wakefield

Dolly Parton is dead, and the church never knew what to do with her. Half my feed is posting rhinestones today. The other half never trusted her, because she would not wear the uniform. She never preached a sermon. She just did the works. One man. Fifty-eight years. In an industry that eats marriages. No scandal reel, no reality show, no trading up. Just Carl, and a promise kept until death did them part. She could have built towers in Nashville. Instead she built in the mountains she came from, so the people she came from could work. Two hundred million books. Given away to children, free, no strings, while the rest of us argued about what to read. A million dollars for a vaccine in the middle of a plague, and she called it what it was: helping. She was a feminist who never used the word, a superstar who never left home, and a believer who never made you watch her pray. "Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works." James 2:18. We spent years asking whether she was one of ours. She never asked whether we were one of hers. She was too busy feeding children. I do not know her heart. That was never my job. I know her works, because the whole county she came from lives on them. "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." Matthew 7:20. You want to honor her today? Put down the tribute post. Put a book in a kid's hands. Stay married. Do the works. That was the whole sermon. She just never said it out loud.