Expanding Legacy

Dois Rosser stands as an example of someone who uses immense giftedness for good. A seasoned Christian, capable businessman, and dedicated philanthropist, Rosser's life work has become helping small Christian communities in developing nations build worship buildings and spawn new congregations.


The 2011 memoir, The God Who Hung on the Cross: How God Uses Ordinary People to Build His Church, published by International Cooperating Ministries, presents the highlights of ICM's twenty-five years of Spirit-driven work. The fascinating and powerful stories of generosity, determination, and faithfulness reveal what an exciting calling it is to follow the God of Resurrection into unlikely places.


The book presents a series of vignettes from ICM's work which are poignant, funny, startling, and inspirational--at times simultaneously so. The weaving together of these stories creates the picture of a man--Dois Rosser--and his fellow Christians who will go anywhere, eat anything, and talk to anyone in service to Jesus Christ. With just a little money (by American standards) and a great deal of persistence and prayer, ICM gives Christian communities a hand up to creating their own houses of worship. Part of the "payback" is that these communities covenant to plant several new churches in future years. Thus, in the process of helping to construct hundreds of buildings around the world, ICM has helped to create thousands of new congregations.


Add to this the Mini Bible College translation program, which has worked hand-in-hand with ICM, and the dividends of blessing multiply to an even greater degree.


Even if we call can't be a part of International Cooperating Ministries, would that we all could use our talents to multiply God's blessings in such an intentional manner. This book leaves me wondering how I can be part of such a wonderful legacy.


Thanks to Nancy Croker, member of ICM's Board, for giving me a copy of the book!


~ emrys

Adventures in Rest

They discovered that the old apple tree growing on the other side of the creek had a host of fruit. Small, but with that Granny-Smith kind of bite.

"These are good! Let's get a basket so we can have them for snacks!" says the elder, bubbling over with excitement.

"Yah!" says the younger, "Les get baskit!"

We pick a couple of dozen. Correction: I pick a couple of dozen, while the other two argue over the basket, eat the proceeds, and get distracted, all in thirty-second cycles.

She lets out a gasp. "Daddy! Look! There's another one up there!"

It's true. Our property used to host a whole orchard of apple trees. It still does, technically. But they've gone untended so long, no orchard would want them.

"Where?" says the younger.

"See, up there? With the red apples on it. Daddy, let's go up there!"

"You do realize that means we have to cut a path through the weeds." Moment of diabolical parental anticipation: I had been procrastinating on hacking my way to that very tree earlier this week.

"Let's go get the tools!" says the elder.

"Me too!" says the younger.

An hour later, we're half way there:

Burdock, it turns out, is a fascinating opponent in a first-grader's summer imagination. We have to hack through a great deal of it. One would think we were slaying dragons.

Another hour later, and we've been to the Red Apple Tree. (And we have found the other two Green Apple Trees right next to it.) These are sweeter, more of a Fuji or Gala. Perfect for "ruining one's dinner," as we often say:

When one has a belly full of wild apples, there is no better activity than digging in Daddy's Bridge Renovation Site. After a lesson in not sitting where someone else's shovel is flinging (bloody nose), seats are found side-by-side. And there is silence in the yard for a whole fifteen minutes:

"No work today," my calendar said. Sabbath.

The sweat in my clothes begs to differ. It can beg away, though--because labor this fun can't count as work.

~ emrys

Plane Old Work

I'm working on a surprise woodworking project. Thanks to my brother Chris, I have beautiful hardwood boards, but they need to be planed to specific thicknesses. This requires a planer.

I am blessed to have a friend who is very generous with her wood shop, and that shop includes a commercial-grade planer. However, the planer is a 1985 model, bought in 1988. Unintended consequences of the generous lending of the planer are much amateur use (like my own) and not a lot of maintenance. Sara and I used this planer to make the strips for our butcher-block counter top five years ago, and found that the blades had dulled in the middle, causing a crown effect on the planed boards. My current project has little tolerance for such irregularities. Upshot: I needed to sharpen the blades.

Thanks again to Chris (who has more experience with shop tools than I), I got schooled in how to remove and replace planer blades. I handed them over to a local guy who sharpens blades (thanks, Larry!), and brought them back for replacement. However, since I want high-quality work out of this planer, I wanted to make sure the blade adjustments were also high-quality. 

How to make sure the knives were set properly? Although the manual had been saved, the knife-setting key had been lost. This tool is used to make sure that the blades stick out just far enough from the cutterhead to cut wood without breaking the blades. Could I get a replacement key?

After some googling and phone calls, I discovered that the company that made this planer was bought out by another, which was then bought out by a third firm. After a chain of transferred phone calls, I got to Steve, who knew exactly how my model of planer worked and how to repair it. Steve told me both that there was no way to get a new key and that newer knife-setting jigs were available. My knowledge of power tools just keeps expanding--of necessity. Thank God for old-school tech support with a lot of experience!

Thus I found myself in the market for magnetic knife-setting jigs:

After a week for delivery and 10 minutes of tutorial on youtube, I set the knives in the cutterhead. So far so good.

Due to the amateur beating this planer took over the last 27 years, other parts of the planer were also out of whack. So, following the instructions in the manual, I manufactured a gage block, found set screws, and stumbled my way around the underbelly of this Rockwell steel beast. The last piece of the puzzle was finding a feeler gage. Thanks to a friend with a full set of automotive tools, I was ready to evaluate gaps of 0.040". After that it was a matter of following directions.

After about 10 hours of labor to make calls, hunt down tools, learn the machine, and make adjustments, the planer performs like gangbusters. See the auspicious spray of fresh shavings from my test runs:

I'll probably only need an hour of work from the planer for my surprise project. But I find it quite satisfying to know that this old beast is back to tip-top performance, and I've learned quite a bit about another niche of woodworking.

Thanks to Bobby and Mike for their continued generosity with the shop!

~ emrys

You, Too, Fans

I just finished a massive tome of interviews and photos entitled U2 By U2 (2006). I enjoyed getting such an in-depth chronological look at the growth of U2's music and career as a band. For those will only a passing interest in the Fab Four (who, ultimately, cannot do what they do without a host of others), or for those who are only interested in the music, this book will provide way too much.

But for those of us who like drinking from the fire hose, it's perfect. In the midst of vast amounts of autobiographical data about the band's struggles and relationships, there are little gems of humor, like Edge's assertion that it's never a good idea to let Bono play lead guitar. The book reveals how four awkward Dublin teenagers could become super rock stars and, at the same time, remain four awkward boys trying to figure out how to play together.

When the house was asleep and I couldn't, this book gave me an entree to the dream land of impossible arcs of musicianship, fame, and living poetry. Well worth the read to me, and might well be for you, too.

~ emrys

Church Rules

Two Sundays ago, the following exchange happened, on paper, in the church pew during worship. The players: Kerri is a beloved friend of the family, college student, and wise mentor to my precocious 6-year-old daughter.

It's amazing what can be said in the silence of pen and paper.

"Dear G: Today is Sunday, April 12th, 2015, and your bony bottom is squishing me. However, even though your dress is itchy beyond belief I still love you very much. Love, Kerri"

"Dear G: I love you. Sit on your own buns. Remember church rules. Love, Mom."

I love the women in my life.

~ emrys

Dismantling a Dream

Since visiting Disney World when I was a teenager, I have loved treehouses. The Swiss Family Robinson part of the park sold me on the wonders of living in tight, handmade quarters high up off the ground. I have dreamed for many years of one day having the chance to make one of my own. In 2006 we purchased (or began a handy arrangement with a bank to live on) 3.25 acres of forest with a house on it. 

In 2007 I began building my treehouse. Soon I had Phase 1 finished and had moved on to Phase 2. Soon after the floorboards started going down on Phase 2, My Lovely daughter was born; and everything non-parental in my life slowed down. Including treehouse construction.

Fast forward to the spring of 2014, when my construction-savvy brother came visiting. He noticed that the growth of the treehouse-hosting trees was pushing the boards off their anchor bolts. Slowly but surely, my treehouse was becoming a disaster waiting to happen.

So over the last three months, my treehouse has come down. Rather than let it turn into a decrepit shambles hanging in the distant trees, I decided to give it a proper end.

Here is the roof, torn off the rafters and sent drifting to the ground:

 Phase 1 without a roof (note that the condemnable wooden ladder has been replaced by a safe aluminum one):

 The only proper end for wood that's been hanging out dutifully in a tree for seven years is sublimation in a funeral pyre:

 Phase 1 with rafters and half of the railing gone:

 Where my foot went through the deck, proving another facet of my brother's concern:

 View from below Phase 1, after the decking was removed:

 The first night of returning the elements to whence they came:

And My Lovely assistant, who is ever ready to help on such solemn occasions:

Phase 1 with only two whole boards left. I cut the main joists, because of what you'll see in the next image:

Seven years of growth consumed more of the shafts of the lag screws, pushing the (rotting) wood outwards. An attempt to unscrew the lags met with significant resistance. Of course! A hard wood like maple would certainly grip the screws ever tighter over time. I decided to leave them in, and mark the tree for anyone who might show up with a chainsaw.

All the while, autumn was falling. So my Two Wee Helpers took frequent breaks to enjoy the crackling shower of lofted leaves:

Phase 1 with only screwed-on chunks left:

Phase 2: the next target for demolition:

 An example of where the rotted board had torn off its anchors, leaving one joist precariously perched:

Only the three joists left on Phase 2:

It turns out the lag screws did come out of the soft hemlock:

The free-floating triangular support that held up one half of Phase 2, on its way to the ground:

Emboldened by my success on the hemlocks, I made another attempt to get the screws out of the maple tree. With some persistence and lots of grunting, I did finally get the screws loose, dismantling even the last scabs of wood from Phase 1.

Lastly, the maple tree that hosted Phase 1, stripped naked but for a few holes and the green paint with which I had marked it:

Adieu, fair Treehouse! Though it lacks a structure of which to brag, this little stand of trees will hold for me memories of brilliant plans, time with teenagers, and adventures with my Two Wee Ones. It was worth it.

~ emrys

Remember When . . .

. . . you could fit inside a vacuum cleaner? Remember when you wanted to?

Digging out my mobile phone pictures, I found these two of Micah, at 1.5 years, loving the steam cleaner. It's in repose, getting its resevoir refilled. While an adult makes the trip from living room to kitchen faucet, Micah seizes the moment to climb into his race car and take off.

And for the times when the race car is not going fast enough, the geniuses at Hoover even added a crop with which to whip your vehicle to greater speeds:

Yee-ha!

~ emrys

Traditional

How many times does a family have to repeat an activity before it can be called a "ritual"? How many years must contain the same activity, in the same season, before it can be called a "tradition"?

For our household, blueberry picking has become a tradition.When Stone Hill Blueberry Farm opens up in July, we schedule a day to pluck several buckets of the little blue lovelies. Picking our own fruit continues to be one of the few activities which, for all four of us, can be productive, healthy, energetic, and fun all at the same time.

For scale, here's the haul, drying on the kitchen counter, with my two-year-old son looking on with excitement:

Jam and jelly, here we come!

~ emrys

This Is Not a Blog Post

"You shall not bow down to idols or worship them, for I, Yhwh your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of their parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments."
~ Exodus 20: 5-6

In my calling as student of scripture I find myself confronting paradoxes on a regular basis. The text from Exodus contributes to a paradox when we note that almost no two successive generations of Israelites were faithful to Yhwh; their history is a pendulum of back-and-forth commitment to God. How, then, can punishment or blessing be promised so categorically across generations?

Add to the paradoxes of scripture those of theology--the Incarnation and Trinity, to name the two catholic examples--and I find myself swimming in apparent contradictions.

You might imagine, then, how a book entitled Paradox (Margaret Cuonzo, MIT Press, 2014) caught my eye. Cuonzo offers, in a handbook-sized volume, a brief historical survey of classic paradoxes, various solutions to them, and intriguing descriptions of how paradoxes function in our world.

Paradox reads easily by virtue of its conversational style. As a 210-page book with such a sweeping trajectory must, it keeps the reader moving through Zeno, bald people with full heads of hair, bivalence versus excluded middles, and philosophy of science. The writing has the tone of a professor who has invited us over for lunch on a summer afternoon to chat about her favorite topics. Paradox is a friendly read.

This amicable flavor, however, does not neutralize the challenging character of the material. Cuonzo does not shy away from tackling the conundra of the Liar's Paradox, the Sorites Paradox, or whether scientific inquiry can actually prove anything. She also offers a helpful way of thinking about solutions to (or ways out of) paradoxes by drawing distinctions between typical approaches. In a mind-stretching effort, subjective probability is enlisted to produce an novel assessment of paradoxicality, by which we might determine which paradoxes are more paradoxical than others.

At these innovative junctures the work of Paradox shows its limitation. Subjective probability has its usefulness, I think, but the premise of a paradox is precisely that statements assembled together show inconsistency under the objective order of logic. Introducing subjectivity at the place where objectivity presents the challenge seems dodgy. I am not convinced that paradoxes, even with Cuonzo's rubric of subjective probability, can be ranked quantitatively. She has convinced me that their solution-types bear out qualitative differences, but numerically assessing paradoxicality is, I think, not especially helpful.

The book's real power is in showing that struggling with apparent paradoxes bears the fruit of important distinctions and, in the realm of science, further discovery. However we evaluate, categorize, or quantify paradoxes, it is in struggling with the seeming contradictions in life that we uncover our assumptions and discover new ways of thinking. The work of swimming through life's inconsistencies is some of the most important work of all. For the fascinating, challenging, and entertaining opportunity to learn this lesson, I am grateful for Cuonzo's work.

~ emrys

Socrates Must Die

I very rarely purchase a book because I see it advertised in a magazine. In fact, it has happened only three times in my life, and all of them in March of this year. I read the advert for Rebecca Newberger Goldstien's Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away (2014) and immediately got online to order my copy.

Goldstein is a fully-credentialed philosopher with a brilliant analytical style and a penchant for narrative. Plato at the Googleplex masterfully weaves together a full introduction to the work of Plato and a tantalizing rendering of what Plato would say to 21st century interviewers. I write "full introduction," because Goldstein writes in such a way that a reader who has never picked up a Platonic text can merge quickly into the stream of his thought, but also in such a way that readers familiar with the biographer of Socrates will learn something new. And they might even be challenged in ways even Plato himself did not imagine.

Every other chapter is a move deeper into scholarly--but often playful and always accessible--analysis of Plato and his Socrates in situ in the 5th-century B.C. The chapters between are imagined dialogues between Plato (magically transported to 21st-century America) and various characters: a media escort at the Googleplex, a thinly-disguised FoxNews interviewer, and two radically different child-rearing experts, to name a few. I found myself drawn in by Goldstein's dialogical style, alternately enjoying new ideas, laughing aloud, and knitting my brow at philosophical zingers.

In spite of the book's title, Goldstein does not spend much energy building a direct argument that philosophy won't go away. The arc and sweep of the book does that heavy lifting: the plausibility of her imagined interviews with Plato draws the reader out of the cavern of the mundane. We are carried gently into the realization that yes, pursuit of "the real-the beautiful-the good" is still the bedrock of human life and yes, those that don't grasp this truth are staring at the back of a cave.

The power of Goldstein's work is epitomized, for me, in one point made about half-way through the book. She gradually builds a persuasive case that Socrates' real offense--the real reason that the Athenians decided he must die--was declaring that being a good Athenian citizen did not make one truly virtuous. Many of us--even those who have never studied the works of Plato--have heard the assertion attributed to Socrates, "The unexamined life is not worth living." This phrase seems innocuous philosophical banter at best, navel-gazing trope at worst, if it stands alone. But in its context, where Goldstein places it like a gem in the perfect setting, the phrase is destabilizing and offensive.

I live in a nation whose government has been described as "a bad form of government but better than any other," which claim I am inclined to believe. And I believe that a life lived as a "patriot" in the United States may be much better than a life lived in loyalty to a good many other lesser things. But I also see patriotism too often conflated with virtue, the latter being something that requires exhaustive (and exhausting) examination and dialogue which do not privilege the assumptions of patriotism. Goldstein's masterful new dialogues of Plato brought me further into the light of our pursuit of "the real-the beautiful-the good." I take new zeal for the examination of life from her erosophy--her passionate pursuit of wisdom.

For anyone who is interested in Plato's work, who enjoys well-written dialogue, or who seeks wisdom with a passion, Plato at the Googleplex will be a rewarding experience.

~ emrys

The Perfect Favor

I have been to several weddings. And I have crossed a point in my work at which the number of weddings at which I have officiated exceeds the number I have attended simply as a guest. I have, by virtue of these, acquired my share of wedding favors.

I have also, several times, found an empty miniature bubble bottle lurking in a box long unpacked. I have found, in the bottom of long-neglected drawers, little plastic leaves, moons, and doves etched with the names of bride and groom. I have discovered that the durability and significance of wedding favors is far exceeded by the cost that goes into selecting and purchasing them.

At the reception for the couple that I most recently joined in matrimony, we guests found at our seats a small piece of parchment paper rolled up and tied with a simple orange ribbon. Upon unfurling the scroll I found this favor:

This favor has extra flavor for me, as the husband of a cancer survivor. But had the cause been feeding the hungry, providing clean water for underdeveloped villages, or supporting AIDS education in plagued areas, the favor would have been just as sweet. We enjoyed a fine meal, good dancing, and the warmth of two families celebrating the union of their own. The last thing I need is a small piece of plastic to be lost the next day in the whirlwind of my life. The world needs a bigger favor, too. This one, I think, will endure.

~ emrys

Above the Books

While hunting Christmas gifts for my brother and his wife last year, I came upon the following sign while perusing River Read, a wonderful independent bookstore in Binghamton:

Philosophy, Gender, Sports. I know that it is unfair to expect a logical sequence in book categories. But seeing those three words up against each other made me wonder about the connection between them. And then I got to wondering about the possibility of cross-category genres: I almost began searching the shelves for the book(s?) that fit into all three categories. There's one I'd like to read.

Metacategorical analyses: just another reason to visit your local independent bookstore.

~ emrys tyler

Just Watching

It's Monday morning. Sara's asked for time to work, so I've got the kids. Micah is down for his morning nap.

The morning has been the familiar inexhaustible litany of requests, exclamations, and cries from Gwendolyn. Then: something unexpected. She points to her gingerbread house, made with Granny in early December, which has been sitting on our counter for a month. I can't help looking at it and seeing mouse attractant.

"We have to put this outside for the birds and the squirrels." Squirrels still comes out like krurruls from my three-and-a-half-almost-four-year-old's lips.

I have no idea where she came up with this idea. I try not to let my happiness seem excessive. "Really?"

"Yeah." Matter-of-fact. As if everyone puts out gingerbread houses on January 14th for local fauna to eat. As if it's a Catholic feast day.

We don our boots, hats, and mittens. The air is cold. Right there, outside the kitchen picture window, we lay the cookie abode to rest, a hapless victim of nature. Then we come inside.

Without a word Gwendolyn retrieves her "oggles," binoculars made out of two mismatched paper towel tubes glued together and decorated with princess and butterfly stickers (magnification: 1X). She perches on a chair next to the picture window and peers through her binoculars at the gingerbread house, six feet and a world away on the other side of the triple panes. I sit next to her, gazing into the cold January sky.

"Daddy, you need your oggles."

I reach over to the counter and pick up my pair of toilet paper tubes with DADDY inked on one side. Gwendolyn made a pair for every member of the family, including Micah, how sees cardboard only as a fantastic chew toy.

Now we are partners in the watching, our worlds divided evenly into two circles.

 The gingerbread house sits alone against the pale green and brown of early winter, a steel blue sky showing no sign either of birds or squirrels. But we watch.

For ten minutes we sit in silence. Ten minutes: a blessed eternity in my life with a whirlwind preschooler, with no words, no whining, not even the quiet contemplative singing she often does. She is too focused to speak, riveted by the expectation that at any moment a flock of birds or warren of squirrels will appear in the field of her binoculars. The moment is full of gravity and hope. We are watching.

Just watching.

She is watching for the hidden beneficiaries of this unexpected winter treat.

I am watching, silent with joy, yet another facet of this ever-new life lit by our winter window.

We are watching, together.

~ emrys

Healed

At a gathering this morning I asked for prayer that my residual back pain from my incident 20 months ago be taken away. As of that prayer time, the twinges of pain are gone. God is still doing awesome things through Christ.

~ emrys

Ganache Me

A few months ago I embarked on the experiment of making Boston Cream Pie. (It's not really a pie: It's a layer cake with filling and frosting.) I decided not to use the cheats (vanilla pudding, canned chocolate frosting) and make everything from scratch.

Rather than frost it in the traditional fashion, I elected to use a chocolate ganache. I find ganache is more fun to apply and to eat. And my little helper, there for every step of the not-pie-making process, had the same evaluation:

We only differ in where the ganache is applied.

~ emrys

Mazda: the Super Car

Twelve years ago a Gal was getting ready to graduate from college and head out into the big, wide world.  At the beginning of her last semester of college she bought a car.  She really wanted a truck, but ended up with a "practical" car instead.  Little did she know that it would be The SuperCar.  Five months later, she loaded that car up and moved to Colorado where she met a Guy with a motorcycle.

When they dated, the Guy thought it would be funny to pull a prank on the Gal while she was out of town and filled the Car with shredded paper.  If you look closely in the window wells of the Car, to this day you can see remnants of that little prank.

 Two years later when they got married, the Car brought them home from their wedding.  Less than a year after that the Guy and Gal moved to California. While the Gal said "no motorcycles on the LA freeways", the Car was loaded up again and moved the Guy and Gal off to Pasadena. And then moved them back to Colorado.  The Car took them to Camp for the summer, and chauffeured the Gal to and from chemo and radiation treatments.  The Car moved them up into the mountains for a season.  Between all the big moves, the Car was a reliable member of their little family that got them around for trips near and far.

The Car got a break when the Guy and Gal went to travel the world, but then it was time to get back to work as the Guy and Gal loaded up to move again.  This time to New York.  The car brought the first load of stuff to the first house the Guy and Girl bought and continued to trundle them around central New York.  A couple years later, the Car got to carry the most precious cargo when the Guy and Gal brought Little Girl home from the hospital.  When the Car kept going and going, we said that Little Girl may actually learn to drive on the Car.  Well, you have to start somewhere:

The Car has earned its SuperCar status and has been more than reliable- never had to be towed, never in an accident (even though big mean trucks dinged it a couple times while it was parked and minding it's own business).  But the time has come to move on, for cars don't last forever.  The family is growing again and the Car is getting tired. The Guy and the Gal searched among the Car's younger cousins and they found one that would fit their growing family nicely.  Today the SuperCar is getting traded in at 194,000 miles-yup, a lovely used car dealership gave us trade-in for it!

Mazda - you were a SuperCar, may Cinco serve us just as well.

The Little Laundress

Today, I'm working on laundry.  G has gotten very helpful on the laundry front and loves to help load the washer and the dryer.  Helps to put the soap in the washer and haul laundry baskets that are as big as she around the house.

This afternoon, I was cleaning up the kitchen from a baking project.  I realized she had been in the bath/laundry room for a while and I wasn't sure what was up.  So I went to check it out and this is what I found and the explanation I got:

A little while later, the dryer was silent. I heard a noise in the bathroom that was the distinct "thump" of little crocs hitting the side of the washer and managed to catch this:

It was soon followed by "Mommy, I need you to come help me!".  Ok, kiddo, I'll come help you.  So I save this for family history - that there was a day, in May of 2012 when my daughter enjoyed doing laundry. And I have to say, I sure don't mind doing laundry with a little helper like this!

~sjt

A Reason to Yell

A couple of weeks ago Sara, Gwendolyn, and I were driving along I-88 towards our little village. We had been out running errands in town. Gwendolyn sat in the back and Sara and I in the front seats. About a mile from our exit Gwendolyn asked if we were going home. Sara informed her that we had to stop at the library first, then we'd be going home.

Gwendolyn shouted, "We're going home! We're going home!"

She did this seven or eight times, her head thrown back to get full volume. "We're going home! We're going home!"

At the bottom of the exit ramp I turned left. Sara interrupted Gwendolyn's yell-fest and asked her, "Gwendolyn, if we were going home, which way would we have turned?"

Gwendolyn looked out the windows and took notice of which direction we were going. Then she threw her head back and yelled:

"We're not going home!"

Sometimes form is more important than content.

~ emrys

Worth It

For MLK Day

From the Ground

I grew up in eastern Pennsylvania as it became a suburb of Philadelphia, then New York City. I high-tailed it to the urban grit of Montreal for university--and loved it. I took my first real job in a resort town in the Rockies--and miss it dearly. I went to seminary chewing the subtropical air of Los Angeles County.

How do I survive in the rural reaches of upstate New York, where the nearest cafe is twenty miles away?

I realized how just yesterday, as I rode my bike the ten miles home from soccer practice amidst fields of seven-foot corn stalks and August lushness:

in the country we see more clearly that life always springs up from the ground.

~ emrys