It must have been frustrating to have spent all that time in the wilderness knowing he would never see the Promised Land and that it could have been different.įor some forty years before, the nation of Israel stood poised to enter the Promised Land, just as they did in the Old Testament reading for today. It must have been frustrating for Moses in those last days of his life to be standing on the mountain overlooking the land to which he had lead his people. No view from the mountaintop will ever show you what is deep within the valleys below. Standing on the Edwards Plateau, the dominant geological landform of west central Texas, one cannot see that riches buried beneath the ground. In fact, most of the oil in the world today is in the Permian rocks, not in the Pennsylvanian rocks as so many people thought. But this one geologist, whose name escapes me now, urged the state of Texas to buy up the mineral rights to the land in west Texas.Īnd some seventy years later, his judgement about what was beneath the rocks of west Texas has continued to be correct as the oil pumped from the Permian Basin continues to fund the educational coffers of the University of Texas and Texas A & M systems. Most people were of the opinion that the only oil to be found was in east Texas, believing that the barren and stark landscape of west Texas was a reflection of a lack of resources below ground. But at least one geologist looked at the rock formations and felt that there was oil in the Permian layers of rock deep below the stark landscape of west Texas. From a geological standpoint, the rock formations where the oil was found were much like the oil fields of Pennsylvania and it was thought that this type of rock formation was necessary in order to find oil. In the 1930’s, the first big oil boom in the country was in the oil fields of east Texas. The geology of Texas also confounds people.
Until Roger Tory Peterson wrote “The Birds of Texas” for the Texas Wildlife & Game Commission in the early 60’s, most “birders” had to carry two or more bird books in the field for identification. Three of these highways in the sky pass through Texas. There are five major flyways, routes birds take during migration. And in the one direction that you can drive and leave Texas, you end up in another time zone.įor orthinologists, Texas presents a challenge. And if the size of Texas defines what it is, can you imagine what that means for Alaska?įrom where I lived in Odessa, Texas, which is in the western part of the state just north of the Big Bend country, it is possible to drive over 300 miles and still be in Texas. But it is the size of Texas that probably defines what it is. Now, Texas is not the biggest state in the Union Alaska holds that honor. Much is made, sometimes in jest, about the size of Texas. And of all the places in this country, the one place that I think defies our notions about what it is like is Texas. We all have preconceived notions about the various parts of this country. And that the Hudson River at this point, though deeper, was a lot like the Mississippi River north of Davenport, IA, where I once lived. So it was that I had to explain that Beacon and the area where I would live was much live the eastern slope of the Appalachian Mountains with broad valleys. “Why,” they asked, “would I want to leave the hill country for all that concrete and steel?” When I first moved to New York some three years ago from the hills of eastern Kentucky, most of the people I knew wondered why. The Scriptures are Deuteronomy 34: 1 – 12, 1 Thessalonians 2: 1 – 8, and Matthew 22: 33 -46. This is a sermon/message that I presented at Tompkins Corners United Methodist Church for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost, 27 October 2002.
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