Editorial

Water! Everyone needs it. It’s vital to life itself. “Water is a finite resource with no substitute and upon which there is total dependence” (Ana Palacio, June 2007). So, whenever water issues are discussed, everyone comes to the table with a personal interest and a driving need to be heard.  We tend to use buzz words like efficiency and conservation when we talk about water, when what we really need to do is strive toward better stewardship of our water supply. Being good stewards of our water resources and managing those resources wisely is necessary in order to ensure the availability of water for ourselves and future generations.

Protectors

If you look at our waterways from above, you can see a rolling and flowing patchwork of managed lands and natural landscapes, including urbanized neighborhoods, agricultural fields, riparian forest, seasonal channels and open water. More and more we are seeing how our management of these lands influences the others.

New initiative

Railroad Forest actions

December 25 is, of course, Christmas Day, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. Christians believe that this birth is the turning point, the very center of human history. From it we count the years forward and backward, B.C., before Christ, and A.D., Anno Domini, Year of our Lord. We believe that the baby born in Bethlehem is Emmanuel, God with us, fully human from the flesh of His Mother Mary, and fully God by the power of the Holy Spirit. We also know, along with this and because of this, that every birth is sacred. Carl Sandburg, in his uniquely down to earth way, said that a baby is God’s opinion that life should go on. When my older brother’s first child was born he called me in the middle of the night to tell me that his son’s birth, at which he was present, was the closest thing to a miracle he had ever seen. I had the joy of witnessing the births of my five children and I agree with Carl Sandburg and my brother and certainly with Mary and Joseph. Birth is a miracle, it is God’s opinion, it is God with us.

Thank you Fairfield Inn

Veterans Day