It is a heat wave in Little Egypt. Almost 50 degrees. A few days ago the weather was in the single digits. As I walked in the Woods this morning, a little friend joined me. A little brown dog with a collar on and a skittish nature. I noticed that he did not come too close to me but when I thought he must be gone he seemed to turn up again. I walked over to the Visitors Center where a Park employee drove up and asked me if he was my dog. I replied that he was not but that I was worried about him as he seemed to have lost his master. The nice Park Staff took a photo of Little Brown and was going to inquire about his potential owner…although he did not know that he was the dog they were missing. He went on to say that he knew he had not seen me with a dog previously. He mentioned that a person in the Visior’s Center had told him that I took a lot of photos. I replied that I had 20,000 and that I had been visiting the Park for nearly two years. We agreed that the Park was a beautiful place to visit and that we liked the winter views better than the summer. 

I thought of loading up Little Brown and taking him home but feared that his owner would be unhappy. I also knew that MJ and Mylo would not be pleased with an addition to the family. There are a few campers at Giant City who may have been missing their dog. I did notice that once I was done speaking with the attendant Little Brown disappeared. Perhaps he went home. 

The Woods has a captivating allure for me that few other places possess. There is an inherent serenity in my Woods visitations. Politics and divisiveness melt away in the beauty of nature. The trees are not worried about who will be elected President in 2024. The peace of our past and the promise of our future is before the Woods Visitor. The din and clang and clash of we humans arguing about who is the best Christian and who comprises the True Americans is silenced by the winter Woods. 

Our churches are a bit lost because they have lost the script of what Christians are supposed to offer to the hurting and lonely the needy of our land. Love and acceptance are what Christ offered. He had neither Church Bulletin nor Church Program to entice the masses of his day. He was a person who did his own thing. He enjoyed a drink with his friends and the company of those who had been marginalized by the religious society of his day.

Neva J taught me to show good manners. Do not speak ill of others. Do not engage in name-calling. The Bible tells us to welcome the stranger. Zaccchaeus climbed up in the Sycamore Tree to see the Lord as he passed by. He was a short man and a tax collector. Our churches are dying as we have buried the line of Christ’s message in our dogma and doctrine and our nationalism that we call Christian.

A revelation to some would be that Christ did not preach his earthly message to white Europeans… The folks who populate the pages of the Bible are from the Middle East…

We are a bit like Little Brown…we are looking for our home…