The Purcellville Post

On April 29, the town of Purcellville seized over seven acres of Crooked Run Orchard, a 250-year-old Quaker farm at the east end of town, in a quick take procedure that gives the town immediate title to the land.  The purpose of the seizure was to complete the Southern Collector Road, to expand development at the 287/Bus. Rt. 7 intersection and to facilitate development along the road running south of town, including the Valley Springs II subdivision, the church school for 450 students and offices and shops on the O’Toole property next to Crooked Run.

The land the town seized has about 100 mature fruit trees, a barn that has been extensively used for twenty-five years, and a vegetable garden.  It also has an historic building that Sam’s grandfather bought and that Sam uses for a tool shed.

Quick take is a particularly malicious form of eminent domain.  What makes it so frightening  can be summed up in provisions of the law that give the taker of the land complete protection from any damages occurring on the land even if a court later decides that the seizure was unwarranted, and returns the land to its owner.  In the Brown case half the wooded area would be destroyed, and trees would never be able to grow there again short of destroying the asphalt surface, and no one has money for that. The land owner’s business can be destroyed, and he can be ruined for life.  The condemnor walks away free of any wrongdoing.

In Chandra Lantz’ argument  before the court she said that the annexation of the 16 acres (now partially confiscated by the town) did not change the usage or status of the land, and so there was no harm that came to Sam.   And as with anything to do with the power of municipalities over private proptery, it was completely untrue.   Land annexed into the town is not only subject to town taxes, it is subject to all sorts of town ordinances which can be very restrictive and burdensome. Not only did this give the town the right to impose an Historic Overlay District Ordinance on the property, it imposed a Creek Buffer Ordinance, even though the town knew perfectly well that the 41 acre parcel was already in a conservation easement, which regulations are at least as restrictive as the towns.  It also gave the town the right to annex the property for the road.  So to say that this annexation did not change the status of the land or that it did not “harm” Sam Brown was, to say the least, an argument over statutory law, not reality. In the same way, by not serving the petition of condemnation, Sam cannot fight the condemnation in court.  There is no statement of what the land is to be condemned for, and if that purpose has merit or not. In fact, the town does not have to condemn the land until AFTER the road is built.

The land the town seized also cuts the Brown’s completely off from the back forty-five.  Since there is no other way for Sam to get to his back fields, the Browns will continue to use the farm road.  Taking  Main Street  all the way around onto Maple and onto A Street skirting the Village Case development on a tractor would be futile and time-consuming, since the owner of Village Case has  completely blocked the portion of the road to the farm, presumably to stop teen parking next to the woods.  It would also be disruptive to traffic and dangerous for Brown.

Winter Prayer

In this bitter wind, let me feel the green spring of your eternal promise.  Let it be the renewed promise in my heart even as the desert of despair covers the land.  My compassionate Christ covers and warms me, and leads me to the place of plenty; we will know and love one another even as there is division and hatred.  Let us forgive and accept one another, as you did. We will find in your goodness the lost lands of our longing, and we will find in them a plenty we have forgotten.  In this time of darkness, and time of withdrawal, let us exchange the stories of our hearts, and give to the rivers of our native lands the hopes that will seed the hills of the next generation.  Let us not bind the dreams of the children before us, but spread them as the hills of opportunity spread into the legends of the distant landscape, and the forest of the air they breathe will make them strong and as open as the sky that renews their faith in the kingdoms above them, and the spirits below them, and the sounds that awaken them, and the green, green earth that inspires them, and the mystery of the life that is man and the universe and the wonder that is life. You open your hand and eternity spills into the world.  You open your eyes and sympathy enters our souls.  You open your voice and the magic of music beats with the beat of our hearts.  You embrace us and we are whole again.  Let the wind blow and let it be bitter, for there is not one bitter thing in the taste of my mouth or the adventures of my thoughts that you will not wipe away.

The Town set forth a table of rates for BPOL taxes showing current and proposed rates for  fifteen categories of businesses which pay a percentage on gross receipts per $100.  Two business owners, Jeff Browning and Mike Parker, both spoke, asking the town not to raise the taxes.  Jeff Browning made the point that the tax was on GROSS receipts.  He indicated, as did Mike Parker after him, that business was going through a rough period. He lived a couple of miles out of town.  In a poignant but simple statement he captured the feeling of many business owners.  My goal, he said, is to survive this recession. The mayor assured them that this was just a review and that there would not be tax increases at this time.  He explained that the town had not reviewed their BPOL tax rates in ten years and this was simply that, a review.  No tax rates are going up tonight, he said.

Lazaro went on to say that there has been a 17.6% increase in businesses and that while the revenues the county has collected have gone down the towns revenues have gone up.  He went on the say that Purcellville represented 30% of the new growth.That is impressive, and Purcellville certainly does attract entrepreneurs.  But his presentation would have been move balanced if he had told the other side of the story.  A woman who had worked for thirty-five years for Giant confided that Giant has let go of part-time workers and cut the hours of full-time workers.  Restaurants are struggling.

Kelli Grim got up to read from her statement chiding the council members on the town’s raising of ANY taxes at a time like this.  “It is completely ludicrous for you to brag about having surpluses over the past two years of over $600k, but fail to brag about all the borrowing and wasteful spending you have done. You should be taking major steps to stimulate the Town business. . .economy by rolling back meals taxes, BPOL, and real estate taxes instead.. . .the rainy day fund. . .is more than double any recommended fund for this town.”  Ms. Grim went on to suggest that if the Town Council doesn’t want to get a lump of coal in their stocking(s), they should take $1 miilion dollars from the rainy day fund and divide it among the 2500 or so households in the town and give them a Christmas present.  (That would be roughly $400 each).  “Do something right for the struggling, hard-working taxpayers of the town.”

Uta Brown got up to address Dr. Wiley in response to his comments made at the last (Nov. 9^th) Town Council meeting.  As he wasn’t there, she addressed them to no one in particular.  As the Mayor would not give her the time she needed (she asked for five minutes) Ms. Brown half read, half improvised a portion of the letter that was to be addressed to Dr. Wiley concerning his comments about the conservation easement and how the town supported it.  They may have supported the easement, she read, but they did not support our farm.  In fact, they made disastrous decisions that could have cost us our business, she said.  The town wanted to strip the farm land of its zoning.  We would be selling the farm today if you had succeeded, she read. She went on to say that had the town not approved the conservation easement after the Browns went through the approval process with the Land Trust of Virginia, they would have sued the town for interfering with their property rights.  She ended her comments by upbraiding the council for meddling in the Brown’s affairs, and gave the most recent example of the town’s outrageous interference in the partition suit between Sam and his brother Tim.

Jennifer Schiffer, of Pel Anderson LLC, Attorneys at Law, read from a letter that had been sent to Dr. Wiley and Jim Burton concerning the false statements he made about Valerie Joyner, Kelli Grim, and Sam and Uta Brown having “blocked” the entrance way to the Crooked Run Orchard property as the drill team assembled to do some digging along the center line of the proposed Southern Collector Road on September 29^th.  The letter asked for a retraction of the statements, and indicated that further action could be forthcoming depending on Wiley’s response.

Lazaro again made the point that only a small number of people asked for information through the FOIA process.  In a typical maneuver to isolate activist citizens who question his decision making, something Lazaro resents to the point of obsessing over it, he pointed out that of fifty-two requests for “information”, 48 of them came from four people.  This is the second time the town council has tried to imply something sinister, disloyal or questionable about citizens who are most vigilant in trying to keep their government open and honest.  A few meetings prior, Tom Priscilla treated these few activists citizens in the same manner. It appears that Lazaro finds this threatening.  A common tactic of discrediting citizens he doesn’t like is to attempt to make them appear abnormal, overzealous or misguided in their consistent inquiries over the backroom dealings of the town.  It isn’t going to work on these people, even though the Gazette constantly slants every such incident in favor of the town.

Committees-at-a-Glance: Ways and Means

Monday, Dec. 6, Ways and Means  amended Chapter 18 of the Town Code by creating Article VI, Farm and Community Markets.  Under the definition, they restrict the markets to no more than two days a week, which in effect excludes all other markets, since Juanita Tool’s market is already scheduled for Saturday and Wednesday.  This will be the death knell for the Loudoun County Home Grown Market (or any other community market) which the town had already marginalized.  The town also passed a contract between the town and Juanita Tool stating that for the sum of Ten ($10.00) dollars she was allowed to use the town premises for a period of one year, ending Dec. 31, 2011. This in effect is giving her the space for free, something most markets are not fortunate enough to enjoy.  An amendment to the food tax excluded such items as pre-packaged gum, candy and nuts, foods sold in bulk, cookies, ice cream, etc, when sold for off-premise consumption, food bought with food stamps, and factory-sealed alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.  How this will effect sellers at the market isn’t clear.  However, it is obvious the town has stifled any and all competition, and this should be questioned.

According to information given by the town, Purcellville presently hosts 816 businesses that range from retail (75) to money lending (2) to itinerant merchants (4).  There are 136 home-based businesses, many of them along Main Street.

The committee members also discussed BPOL rates, categories of businesses and how they needed to be consistent with State Code.   The town is already taxing wholesale and public utilities at the maximum rates, which are ,05 cents and .50 cents per hundred dollars respectively. Fortune tellers, carnival owners and itinerant merchants are taxed very heavily, all at $500.00 (and that’s per show for carnivals!)  Seen any fortune tellers lately?  At an increase of one cent, the increase in revenue for the town would be $33,511.  At an increase of three cents, the increase in revenue will be $93,182.  The maximum increase allowed at any one time is three cents

Lyme Disease Symposium

It was a mix of personal story, statistical results, science and attitudes, bias and anecdote;  six hours of testimonials, charts, facts and suppositions, questions, answers and more and more questions.

The testimonials were very powerful and disturbing, with an overall picture of either incompetence or indifference within the medical establishment.  If routine protocols don’t work, some health professionals refer their patients to psychiatric doctors. The frustration and emotional turmoil of many of those whose family had experienced severe disability, and intrusive and insulting questioning about their personal habits because of the wasting powers of Lyme’s Disease, was palpable. The distress of the children who were put through grueling examinations of their behavior with the implication they were sexually active, lazy, or just “rebellious teenagers” was especially appalling.

Lyme is a pernicious disease because it masquerades as so many other things.  We are told to look for a bull’s eye rash. Yet in many cases there is no rash.   Many, perhaps most people, develop no rash. Or the rash may resemble a spider bite.  “Don’t ever think of a spider bite without thinking of Lyme,” one presenter warned.  Since the symptoms of Lyme often mimic other common and better known diseases, such as fibromyalgia, arthritis, sinusitis,  Bell’s Palsy, Epstein Barr, multiple sclerosis, meningitis, heart problems or symptoms associated with old age such as dementia, irritability, depression and difficulty in finding a word when speaking, many doctors overlook Lyme as the actual cause.

Even accepted guidelines were questioned.  Is it accurate that the tick has to be attached to the body for thirty-six hours in order to infect the patient?  How do you know how long the tick has been there, since these are deer ticks that are only a fraction of an inch long, much smaller than other ticks also common in this region?  One of the panelists remarked that the critical time the tick remained attached to the skin was too vague, ranging from twelve to seventy-two hours!

Since antibiotics are the main defense against the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria that cause the disease, there was a great deal of discussion about their use and efficacy.  According to Dr. Marty Schriefer, who spoke in detail about the clinical trials and procedures currently reviewed by the Center for Disease Control  (CDC), the spirochete is detectable by culture only during the early stages of the disease. After the first week or two the immune system reduces them to unobservable rates. Antibiotics are apparently most effective at this time.  (But the problem that the antibiotic could blunt the immune system has to be considered.) Once the bacteria go into hiding, many of the tests for Lyme show negative results. Serology tests are unreliable at this stage.  A person may not have any positive indication of the disease from PCR, culture or serology and still be infected. On the other hand, cultures can confirm the presence of the disease months or years after infection begins. People with late stage illness that have had no treatment will almost always test positive by serology. There are no lab tests that can prove you are cured of Lyme, and this has left many people resigned to managing the disease in lieu of ridding themselves of it.

There appeared to be wide acceptance that the disease was vastly underreported.  Although the official numbers in Loudoun County are about 3,600 per 100,000, a more realistic figure would be 14,000 per 100/000.

Is the deer tick the only tick that carries lyme?  Apparently, yes.  However, it is hosted on many animals, the prevalent ones being deer and mice. It is also carried on migratory birds.  Our dogs and cats are often bitten by ticks and can get the disease.

Climate change favors northern migration of the disease, but it is migrating south as well.

There was some locking of horns between Dr. Paul Auewater of John Hopkins, and former President of Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the panelists.  He questioned the effectiveness of extended uses of antibiotics, even as the lay witnesses felt that intravenous and prolonged treatment of their children was working.  Despite several challenges from the panelists, he displayed equanimity and a consistent belief which he backed with references to studies that demonstrated no improvement with extended application of antibiotics, the three major ones being  doxycycline, amoxicillan, and cefuroxime, and  ceftriaxone if used intravenously.  He emphasized that there are risks associated with these prolonged uses.  This brought back much skepticism for the testing processes themselves from the panelists, including a rebuke from one doctor who assured Auewater he has had success with these protocols.

To add more complexity to the problem, ticks may carry other diseases with or without Lyme.  In a New Jersey study of 100 ticks, 57 carried Lyme, Lyme and other diseases, or simply other diseases.  About fifty percent carried Lyme.  That tiny population cannot be used to extrapolate to other tick populations, however.

Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall made a brief appearance and talked about a bill he had tried to push through the assembly that required mandatory reporting of the disease. “If you don’t look for something you won’t find it,” he said.  The bill passed delegation but the Public Health Department killed it. Dr. Phil Baker, former NIH Program Officer, has also advised against further treatment trials, and has testified against more funding .  More ominously, certain doctors have been investigated for treating Lyme as a chronic disease.  Some health insurance companies have denied the use of antibiotics for Lyme.  These may be contributing factors in the average delay of diagnosis, which is presently estimated at 1.7 to 1.8 years.

Lyme disease has a cost, as every debilitating illness does.  According to Dr. Cameron, 88% of the costs of Chronic Lyme Disease (CLD) were indirect and non-medical costs because of a loss of productivity.  To treat early (acute) LD, he estimated the cost to be about $1,310 annually per patient. The costs shoot up to $16,199 per year with CLD.  In the State of Virginia that means about $9M per year to treat early LD and $67M annually to treat CLD.  “We need to catch the cases early and treat them before people go on disability. The Public Health Department is not paying attention to the legislative end,” he cautioned, adding, “We need protection for doctors treating Lyme”

There was a great deal of talk about the methodologies of testing, the gathering of data, the results and the conclusions.  An overall view of the status of the response to Lyme gave the medical establishment a poor grade.  The body of knowledge at present has been compromised by poor technique, sloppy data gathering, expectations that may be too high or low, small numbers of people participating in the testing, and very basic differences in the philosophy of treatment. Many people, including some of the panelists showed frustration at the “establishment” for what appeared to be incompetence, dragging of feet, and delaying tactics. Time was being lost.

In the end the guests, the panelists and the audience seemed to focus on the need to increase the funding for research, tighten the data banks and improve consistency and methods used in clinical trials. And as one father repeated in his testimony, while brandishing a hefty binder containing years of research, “Read the literature.  Don’t believe anything.”

The town held a special meeting concerning the BAR standards for the windows and door(s) for the addition that the Bethany Methodist Church wants to put on the east end of their building.  The addition is being planned in order that handicapped people can attend the services and the public meetings that are held there.  There is presently no access for handicapped. Considering all the non-church  meetings that are held there, like the Rotary Club and AA meetings, the new pastor, Rev. Jeffrey Roberts, wanted to extend the welcome mat.

In what might ordinarily have been a meeting of half an hour, almost three hours were spent talking windows, wood chad, aluminum chads, profiles, texture,  muntins, relief and style.  At one point Mr. Bud Bodkin was asked to come and speak for the church and for a few moments sanity prevailed.  We want to make sure handicapped people can use the church was his basic message.  We don’t want to pay a fortune for these windows.  There is a cost savings of $15,400 for the windows and that’s important.  Wood is also difficult to maintain and has to be painted.  He thought Mr. Beese had some good ideas and was willing to go with those. . .

But then Voskian reminded everyone that there was the texture and style and patterns and relief that you just can’t get with aluminum.  Beese protested.  You can anodize the aluminum and get it very dark and people won’t notice the difference.  More talk went on about the importance of the windows and the view and the effect and the commercial district and was the church in one maybe not but it used to be and Wiley said the windows are terribly important.  Then they went on about the storefront design and was this applicable here and Lazaro suggested that the cost could be offset from the Façade Improvement Program Fund. And Wagner said something to the effect that we’re not trying to make this Williamsburg and there was more talk about profiles and relief and shadows and such.  Then there were motions and withdrawals of motions and discussion with Gilmore about procedures and guidelines and how flexible they were and what was the purpose and whether or not the BAR was taking the place of the architect and getting into the business of designing rather than advising and Voskian said the whole purpose of the BAR was to enforce the guilelines set down by the council and then there was more talk about the windows and the church building which was about ninety years old and Beese said it wasn’t a pure building but a conglomerate and ninety percent of people couldn’t tell wood from anodized aluminum until they got real close and Mr. Bodkin sat very patiently in the back and didn’t say anything and finally Lazaro pushed the meeting along and they finally recessed it so the BAR could quickly schedule another special meeting (I’ve been very sensitive to the urgency of this project and have tried to hurry it along Voskian said) so they could talk more about, well, windows.

Beese got disgusted.  Lazaro advised him to go have a cup of coffee with Voskian and work it out.

Didn’t the town go through this with the Dilzer Eye Center, which was delayed for four months because of the WINDOWS?

Now the town is considering adding two MORE members to the BAR?  It would perhaps be a good idea to have actual businessmen on the BAR, and in fact forty percent, as proposed, might be exactly right.  But please, not Chapman and not Nelis.  They own or control half the town already.  Since so many of the business people are disgruntled with the town, why not invite two “dispossessed” people onto the BAR and get rid of two present members, including Voskian, who does not appear to understand what is wrong with delaying a business or a church from getting on with life. People who are actually dependent upon opening their storefronts tend to be down-to-earth and efficient, and those attitudes are needed in the BAR.  After you’ve read thirty pages of discussion over windows from the minutes, the overall tenor of which raised nitpicking to a level in which nit becomes nano particle, you need to try something else.  To assure a certain quality and overall harmony in the commercial area of town is one thing.  To argue millimeters of difference of one kind of architectural approach over another is senseless. The meeting itself was a demonstration of both aimlessness and a profound inability to compromise. It’s like the old saying goes,  they’d have to hurry up to stop.

Hopefully, Mr. Bodkin did not come away from the meeting with the feeling that the town is living in its own, detached world.

The closed session was about five minutes.  No decision was made.  Meeting ended at ten o’clock.

The population of this great and grand country is in turmoil.  There is a constant shifting of people from places of their birth to places very far away.   The college of their choice or acceptance is far from home.   Employment requires a long commute.  Mother, who has been living in another city, now requires intensive care.  Has anyone measured the waste of time this traveling and commuting entails?  The pollution, the isolation, the frustration it creates?  We move.  We shift around.  We keep looking for that perfect place or we keep looking for a place that can get us to the perfect place.  In all those places in between we try to live our lives and make meaning of our existence.

Shouldn’t it be the other way around?  Aren’t we supposed to “story” the land, and give ourselves up to it? Isn’t the sense of place one of the most important parts of the air we breathe and the heart of our homeland?  Where is our home?  Who is our home?  Why do we keep shifting around and trying to find a sense of place, all the while leaving the places we know, and have known, for the better part of our lives?

The Nichols family didn’t need a sense of place. They storied the land.  They gave the place its meaning. They knew who they were and they made their place here.  And they kept it as a sacred trust.  In doing so they drew all of us in who came to them for our little and small needs, our garden seeds and paint, the bolts and nuts that make our shelves stay in place or our doors open and shut, and our daily endeavors connected to our community at large.  The Nichols were a staying force.  A binding and enduring presence.  They were an essential part of the landscape and the meaning of this place. They were what gave America its strength.  And they are dying out.  And now the fabric of America is frayed, because people are moving in and out of the towns and cities that define us. We are losing our sense of place, and with that we are losing the very land we are supposed to cherish.

Over fifty percent of the American population moves within a five year period.  Think of that.  Can a community survive that?  Can any town keep its binding and cohesive force when over half of its population moves in such a short time?  On average ten percent of the population is moving out every year, and being replaced by people who have no sense of the place they have moved into.  A sense of place takes time.  It takes time to story the land because, as Frost said, we need to give everything we have into it.  And we won’t do that if we know the stretch we are spending here will be short.  So we withhold ourselves.  And we give less.  And we love less. And the stories we tell are more superficial and sentimental stories.   We are not putting down roots, we are sending out feelers.  Our communities become plastic and artificial.  No one is accountable because so many of us will be leaving soon. The critical mass of engaged adults never coalesces. Talk of small town life becomes a platitude.

In the Harris Teeter appeal Judge Chamblin said essentially that citizens have no rights to determine what happens on the site plan for the Gateway Development.  Here are all the capitalists who want businesses to thrive, but communities to falter.  Here big business is all that matters while the heartland falls away.  Thousands and thousands of towns in this country have been mugged by Walmart.  This is what Donovan Rypkema was talking about at the Carver Center.  Did anyone listen?  People like the Nichols, whose steadfast belief in getting up every morning and knowing the landscape of their earlier lives is reflected in the people they hired who have stayed with them so many years, this is what Donavan Rypkema was talking about.

Here is the land of the free and the home of the brave.  And here is the land where a good percentage of people leave because the lovely landscape they moved into is being turned into a shopping center.  And for no good reason.  Who is free when he is forced to move because capitalism or the Town Council trumps the rich inheritance of time and the wishes of the people?  How free are you when you are “tied up” in traffic two or three hours a day because you need to get to work in a place out of your community?

Land of the free and home of the brave?  Where is everyone when the corrupt council members make their decisions and you are somewhere else because this place is temporary, and you will be moving on to better things? Where will these better things be if at any time the landscape of your dreams can be changed into a shopping mall?  How many people who now look onto the lovely Cole Farm will move when the fumes of parking cars hit them as they sit out on their decks? When the trash and noise builds up? When crime increases?

Another ten percent gone.  Gone to disgust, to disillusionment, to looking for a better life. Another ten percent that could have storied the land and made the community strong, but who left because leaving was the only vote they had the right to express. This is the desperate sense of helplessness the American population is living through.  And we express this as freedom??  The freedom to never connect ourselves to a sense of place?  The very freedoms that our forefathers built this nation upon??

Because there is no way, apparently, that the people who live in a community have any control over how that community will evolve. As long as citizens have no say in the development of their own communities, we will keep shifting around, looking for the perfect place when, in fact, it is just below our feet, if we could just keep hold of it.

Local businesses, like the Nichols, like Crooked Run Orchard, keep communities strong and cohesive.  Chains, like Harris Teeter, keep communities poor and force people to commute long distances or to leave.  The 200 jobs that the article talked about creating are temporary jobs and the permanent jobs are low-paying jobs that will be filled by people living in West Virginia, as they are now at Giant and Bloom.  The hell in traffic it will create isn’t worth the tax revenues that this town will spend on new and useless projects.

When we have no control over where we live and where we work, who is free?  And when we let others decide for us how our landscape will look and feel, who is brave?

Until the ordinary citizen gets involved we will continue to be tossed about by overweening interests and money.  The Tea Party was an expression of anger, but showed little sense and reason.  The single person is all that matters in this country.  And single persons need to start attending the meetings at the Town Hall. And single persons need to start electing honest and reasonable people who care about their futures, about the land, about the country we inhabit, about our freedoms and well-being.  That is the only way we will be the land of the free and the home of the brave. Anything else is a fairy tale. And we have been riding on the fumes of fairy tales for some decades now.

Remember the fallen and those who wait for them.  These lives whose futures we must live in double duty must never pass out of our consciousness and purpose.  For the lives who have gone down into the sea and the dust and who have returned into the earth become the flesh of the land and we walk on the bounty where their blood has sustained us.  Celebrate the gift of their spirit and wonder at the beauty of their transformation into life again, as we walk among them in a different time.  There are no words for grief this wide, nor songs that can express the longing of the woman who looks toward the sea to mourn.  This membrane of our separation can only be broken by the hope of our forgiving hearts, and by the daily recognition of their gift to us.  At every table set a place for those we know and those vast numbers we will never know, and let the incense of hope rise to the farthest expanse of the space that our minds can reach, even into the universe of our dreams. Remember them as Christ has taught us to remember sacrifice, for all of those who were ready, and who were not ready, who were bold and who were afraid, all of the fallen and all of the waiting, let us remember; let us never forget.

What is time and the greatness of the universe when it comes to grace, and the grace of Christ? What mind can comprehend these leaves of gentle dancing falling down to earth remembrance of the sky? Who knows each breath and incandescence, each cloud that rows beyond the view of man, and longs for the journey and the journeys end?  Where is perfection if not in longing?  Who do we not long for if not that gracious host who satisfies our longing with the full river of compassion, and the grace of the fullness of life. And who can fill this empty river to its overflowing point if not the grace of Christ, who we express with the tears of our compassion, the work of our hands, and the wonderment of our appreciation. Let the rivers of life flow forward, and the grasses of milk thrive on the banks of the rivers, and the land sing with the songs of birds who remember the garden as it was in the beginning.