Perhaps you have heard about the Texan who visited Colorado.  His friend took him up into the mountains.  Late in the afternoon high on a slope, resting beside a trail, looking out through lodge-pole pine across a steep valley, the Coloradoan asked the Texan "What do you think of the view?"  The Texan replied, "Well, it would be all right if we could just git these trees and mountains out of the way."

Love of the woods is not universal.  One could walk for days across some parts of our world and never see a tree of any sort. There is grandeur in the open prairie, power in the deep seas, and vitality in the savannas where trees never gather in groves.  Likewise, in many stories, forests are places of the unknown, full of dangerous wild things.  Some people feel closed-in when walking under canopies of maple and elm.    The woods stand for us as a symbol of the web of life, the whole biosphere, which is but a part of the vast web of being, which some call the Net of Indra, sparkling with the light of uncounted stars.  Just as the health of our woods are but part of the health of all, so to our church is one small piece of a vast movement of all those living on behalf of what we sometimes call "The Beloved Community."

It always is amazing to me when I meet people who have never stepped outside of Delaware County.  It is this the more impressive how many of our people have come from other lands outside of the US (even Canada) and how often we have hosted international visitors.  As I travel to Europe I will carry with me the image of, the greening banks of the west fork of the White River, and I will carry this church and its story and the stories and needs of its people.  Like the proverbial Texan I might find that all those old buildings and international culture will get in the way.  More likely I will find new resources to bring back to the woods, as well as a renewed appreciation for how powerful, creative, and important is this community in our little neck of the woods.

Peace,
Thomas