Some missionaries came to my door the other day, and in our brief discussion of "earth" and "heaven," I was astounded to find that they weren't familiar with Audubon!!

On my front door is a Audubon emblem, and the well-dressed lady asked, "What is Audubon?"

I blurted out, "You know--the Birds of America paintings and the Audubon Society and bird watchers and nature watchers!" shocked at a full adult so uninformed.

Repeatedly, I find myself backing up to more elementary levels, unwisely taking for granted that a larger spectrum of society knows something of what I know about nature, and with a similar sympathy for all things great and small. There are people out there who do not know about John James Audubon, and certainly unaware of the Audubon Society.

For that matter, I know nothing about the Schutzhund Club, prominent in the Chico, CA area. "We are what we think," and there are a lot of thoughts on earth. Henry David Thoreau said, "To find arrowheads, you have to think arrowheads." The same could be said of bird watching-to see birds you have to watch for birds. "You can observe a lot by just watching," said Yogi Berra.

Not to get into religion--and I lean to the religious side--but in the spirit of John Muir, I become distressed when a concept that separates man from nature is preached. "God made the earth for man" was what I was hearing from my well-meaning visitors--not the "hitched together" attitude advocated by John Muir. In my infinite ignorance, it is not for me to judge, but some things seem probable, and being dependent on intricate relationships with nature seems to me to be one of them.

I had to back up in interpretation on a nature hike that I was leading at Oakland, CA's Feather River Camp last summer.

I told my audience, "Tomorrow we will explore the wonders of the Paul Covel Nature Trail."

A full-fledged senior citizen surprised me by asking, "Why do we want to explore a Nature Trail?"

I blurted out some answer but mentally I was backing up, to a time far beyond John Muir when we learned 2X2=4 and "C" is for cat! Where do you start with people of another world?

The missionary moment encompassed planet and earth and how "the earth abideth forever." (Ecclesiastics l:4). "God purposed earth to be a global paradise...all living in harmony." God said to them: "Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it." When that word "subdue" hits me I revert into a stubborn state of "stewardship."

The booklet presented to me by the zealous missionaries stated: "Earth is here to stay." I replied, "Well, that sounds good, but what about the theory that the sun will burn out in some billion years? Is earth any good without the sun? And what happened to the Passenger Pigeons? I don't have the answers; just questions.

On the same day I received my Missouri Conservationist magazine, and the first article was entitled, "Kids and Conservation Forever!" Maybe earth is here to stay after all!

The conservation-indoctrinated magnificent monthly from my home state, considered kids to be "the hope of tomorrow" through organizations like "Jakes", "Green Wings," "Hooked on Fishing--not Drugs," " Earth Angels," "Project Wild," Learning Tree," and Audubon clubs.

I thought of hope.

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the same tune over and over,

And never stops at all.

           Emily Dickenson

There must be something to hope, whether it is in a personal creed, a practiced religion, or the direction for youth to go.

John Muir said something about hope also: "In Wildness is the hope of the world." Just as Henry David Thoreau said, "In wilderness is the preservation of the world. Is there hope in preservation, or preservation in hope?

"What I say unto you, I say unto all, WATCH." (Mark 3:5)