Personal Reflection:

I grew up on a small farm in Alabama where the backwaters of the Tennessee River raced through the the last hills and mountains of the Appalachians. We were poor. Our little frame house, with no underpinning, was ice cold in the winter and fiery hot in the summer. We did not get running water until 1970.

But WOW, I was surrounded by beauty and faith. My earliest recollection of God was knowing His presence on that farm. I knew it through the smell of newly plowed ground and the taste of spring's first vegetables. He was there in the midst of my Mother's gorgeous flowers and my Dad's tall corn.

I suppose the desire for beauty was born with me. When I was six, my mom taught me to sew on the old treadle sewing machine. She also showed me how to match colors. Symmetry and form seemed natural to me. I loved color. Still do.

My dad taught me to identify trees and to whistle "bob white" for quail. He taught me how to sing Sacred Harp songs, on key of course. And he showed me how to laugh.

All of this was in the context of faith in God. Beauty was God and God was Beauty there on that farm.

--SKE