This week’s homily |

This week’s homily

Virginia and Tom Boles

By The Rev. Thomas M. Boles, DMin., D.D., PhD.

Proverbs 14:23

All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty

He who is waiting for something

to turn up might start with his

own shirt sleeves.

Many people remember President Theodore

Roosevelt as an avid hunter and sportsman. Few, however,

know of his efforts for conservation, which is a far greater legacy.

After a hunting trip to the Dakota region in 1887, years

before he was president, Roosevelt returned to his East

Coast home reporting that trees were being cut down

carelessly, animals were being slaughtered by “swinish

game-butchers,” and that the wilderness was in danger.

He expressed great shock at how quickly this region that

he loved was being stripped of its glory; the big game

gone, the ponds drying up, the beavers disappearing, the

grasslands becoming desert.

But Roosevelt did more than talk. He founded the

Boone Crockett Club, dedicated to the preservation of

wilderness in America. Largely through that club’s influence,

legislation was passed to care for Yellowstone National Park,

to protect sequoia trees in California, to set aside nature

reserves for bird and sea life, and to limit the shooting of

big game.

Laws were also passed to regulate hunting practices.

Hoping for change rarely brings about change. Work,

however, generally does!