PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

June 26, 2026

PREPARING THE WAY

Howard Means in his 2011 biography of John Chapman, Johnny Appleseed: The Man, The Myth, and The American Story, identifies Chapman’s special genius as operating within “the exact seam between past and future, between encroaching civilization and resistant wilderness.” (p. 147) From 1801 until 1826 he parlayed this wedge into a thriving business of growing apple seedlings to sell in and around Mt. Vernon, Ohio.

Chapman realized that settlers moving into the area would need apple trees.  First, so they could establish by planting an orchard their intent to stay on the land.  In addition most of the crop would be turned into one of the staples of the day, cider.  In fact, his supply of apple seeds came from cider presses in south western Pennsylvania.

There was a second seam through which John Chapman was able to squeeze during his stay in Ohio the first quarter of the nineteenth century.  Religion was in flux.  No Christian denomination had established a strong foothold.  There was room for an evangelist of the Swedenberg  faith (Church of the New Jerusalem) to make inroads.

At the First General Convention of the Church of the New Jerusalem in 1817, John Chapman is described as being “a very extraordinary missionary of the New Jerusalem … almost independent of corporeal wants and sufferings.” (Johnny Appleseed, p. 213)  Chapman had the appearance of John the Baptist, sharing the Swedenberg doctrine with a gentle, kind, loving, grandfather demeanor that attracted children to him.

The seam that opened for Chapman to peddle his apple tree saplings and propagate the Swedenberg theology lasted about twenty years.  Civilization had tamed the resistant wilderness.  John Chapman began a westward migration which eventually took him to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he died in March of 1845.

Today seams continue to open between the resistant past and the encroaching future.  Just like John Chapman people are still filling these voids, assisting the future to take hold in the present.  Unfortunately, many of those who fill these rolls are quickly forgotten.  The names that are remembered are those who rode the tide of the new future.

We are all familiar with names such as Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple), Pieree Omidyer (e-bay), Mark Zuckerber (Face Book) and Jack Dorsey (Twiter).  What is forgotten are the names of those who did the necessary pioneering work for each of them to succeed.

The most famous Biblical person who operated in a seam between the resistant past and the encroaching future was John the Baptist.  His mission was to prepare the way for Jesus.   John was clear that he must decrease so that Jesus might increase.  Several of Jesus’ disciples had been followers of the Baptist.  His preaching laid the groundwork for the message Jesus was to bring.

Johnny Appleseed, John the Baptist, and many others have played the important role of preparing the way for others who were to follow.  Without them much of past progress might not have taken place.

(This article was originally published June 26, 2011.  Comments may be sent to davidh15503@embarqmail.com.)