Sustenance

It’s a cloudy, rainy, thundery morning today.  Last night was cool and clear, but sometime, overnight, the clouds rolled in and the rain started in earnest about 30 minutes ago.  They say (whoever “they” is) that we will have rain most of the weekend, and can see up to three inches or more.  Good.  We need it.
I will be leaving in about an hour for Western Kansas.  I am taking part in a one-day meeting at Goodland.  It is a church-type meeting (I’m a minister…remember?) called “The Power of the Word”.
I’ll be with friends I haven’t seen for a year or so and will be able to spend the day in God’s country, at 3,500 feet elevation, on the wide-open prairie.  Even though I love living in Topeka, I also like to go “out west” sometimes and get back into what I perceive as a more human reality than the asphalt, noise, and rush of the city.
Yes, there are some asphalt, noise, and city-type things in Western Kansas.  But it doesn’t take a genius to look around and see a whole different way of life…one that depends more on the land, the clouds, and one’s neighbor.  There’s a recognition by those who live in that area that although they are an independent lot, they also have an utter dependence on things that they know they can’t control.  And most of the folks there have a reverence for the Higher Power that sustains them.