Live Like Jesus

It happens every morning here ... that golden hush before the town stirs, when mist rolls down from the hills like soft breath and the bells from St. Elizabeth’s whisper to no one in particular. Basin Spring burbles its ancient hymn. The shop windows still sleep under their canopies. And I, coffee in hand, stand on Spring Street watching sunlight chase shadows across the cracks and curbs.

This is Eureka Springs in her first hour, unpainted, unhurried, and profoundly alive.

If you stand quietly enough, you can feel her pulse, not just in your feet on the stone or your breath in the cool Ozark air, but deeper, in that place beneath thought. That inner place where your spirit hums and your soul remembers.

Some call it presence. Some call it God. Some say 'source.'

Here in Eureka, we just call it home.

There’s something extraordinary about living in a town that seems to breathe with you ... that invites you, daily, to return to yourself. In this place, life and spirit are not separate things. They’re part of one joyful current, like the water that once healed the weary who came to these springs. The locals say the springs still heal, though now it’s not so much the body as the being that is soothed.

Christ of the Ozarks, Eureka Springs, AR

Eurekans, perhaps without realizing it, live like Jesus, not by preaching, but by being. By walking with open hands, open hearts, and eyes that see the sacred in each other. We’ve all built something here, a living testament to "the spirit which is divine essence, and the soul which is the traveler learning to reflect it."

In this town, that reflection takes form in murals, kindnesses, festivals, forgiveness, parades, hugs, inclusion, drum circles, color, music, laughter, and LOVE.

If you live here long enough, you begin to notice that time moves differently in Eureka Springs.

It doesn’t rush; it spirals.

Edgar Cayce, American Clairvoyant

That’s the secret rhythm of this town, the same one Edgar Cayce described when he said, “Your soul is the record of every life you’ve lived.” The soul moves in circles, not lines; revisiting, remembering, healing, and learning. And Eureka, nestled in these ancient Ozarks, seems built to honor that rhythm.

The hills curve around us like a cradle. The streets meander with no logic but their own, looping back on themselves like lessons repeating until they’re learned.

Every path here, every crooked lane, feels alive with memory; with stories told, tears shed, songs sung, and prayers whispered into the mist.

And through it all moves the spirit; the divine spark Cayce said, “never sins, never fears, never dies.” That spark hums through Eureka like electricity through a living wire.

You feel it when the morning sun hits the rainbow flags on Main Street. You feel it when the preacher at the stone chapel blesses the same couple who danced at Pride last June. You feel it when two strangers lock eyes at Brews and say, without words, “You belong here.”

That’s the spirit moving. That’s the divine pulse of God expressed through humanity’s most joyful act - inclusion.

Cayce once said...

“Salvation is not about escaping the world but transforming it from within.”

This quote could be the town motto here.

Because in Eureka Springs, we don’t run from the world, we redeem it. One smile, one mural, one quirky parade, one hug, and one heartfelt conversation at a time.

We don’t separate the sacred from the ordinary. We serve espresso and empathy with equal reverence. We believe a drag queen can deliver gospel truth just as powerfully as a priest, because spirit is spirit and we all have been given the gift of spirit regardless of each human experience.

Here, you can find the divine in a crystal shop, a biker bar, a yard sale, or a Sunday service at Thorncrown Chapel. You can meet Jesus at The Passion Play, at the haunted Basin Park Hotel, at Mud Street Café, or in the mirror.

That’s the joy of this place: the understanding that we are not waiting for heaven to arrive. We are building it here, together, every day. This is our own little heaven on earth.

And that, my friends, is precisely what it means to me when someone tells me to live like Jesus.

Because to live like Jesus isn’t about perfection; it’s about presence. It’s about remembering that the same spirit that moved through Him moves through you, and through me, and through everyone who ever came to Eureka Springs seeking healing, love, or simply a fresh start.

Love thy neighbor!❤️