Thanks given for Jay County

There is something primitive within us, little changed perhaps from the Ice Age, that wants to see nonhuman things with human attributes. Poets have done this for years. William Blake, the english poet insists that, “The owl that calls upon the night speaks to us a lot about our fright,” and William Wordsworth, another Englishman, calls the river Wye, “The wander thru the woods!” The metaphor seems to work because each of us seems to experience the natural objects as personable. It seems that nature is only an appendix of the soul. Our natural self seems to be a spiritual quest and longing to find oneness with the great spiritual force of which God has created. As each of us looks around our rural Jay County, it is quickly realized that nature feeds us, but on a higher level it gives us perceptual sensations that are beyond our imagination. From my own point, I realized this perceptual sensation by viewing my flower garden or driving along the Limberlost Swamp Wetland area. It seems to penetrate me, like a wave rolling from the sand and slowly back to its ocean source, collecting itself into the unity of “ocean.” It seems to create a God-like paradise within me. How many of you have shared this experience during this summer?

Within myself is where I make peace with the world, sort of like dreaming about a better world when there is sometimes so much sorrow and fear. Sometimes the dreams do not come true, but I have learned to love the place where the dream was born.

Many of Indiana’s artists capture the great natural beauty of our state. When one perceives their works on canvas, one begins to realize that beauty has more than one face, truth, and goodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same great spiritual power called God.

Several times I have walked through Arts Place here in Portland and viewed many of the wonderful paintings displaying our part of the world. Often this work shines a light within me and the mystery of mankind. Many times it is a reflection of nature and the world around us: a leaf, an old farm surrounded by wooden areas and flowers, a shaft of light moving from the sky thru a woods. Gene Stratton Porter who lived a century ago has left a legacy of nature that is filled with harmony, peace and love of God’s creation. Thank God for this spot that is called Jay County.

Robert L. Lake

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