Religion: A Pastor Ponders

To serve unheralded

By Pastor William Jenkins

May 26, 2006

One day I saw castles of clouds floating in the sky. It rained. That night I saw the stars spangled upon the black velvet of space. The next day the earth was bursting with color. I saw red berries shining in the sun. I saw green leaves waltzing with the wind. I saw a flower, tiny and delicate, beautifully blue, growing in the mud. It seemed so out of place there. It had no reward in that place, except to be what it was where it was.

I may have been the only person ever to see it, so it gave me all its beauty and all its blue. If my careless shoe were to crush it underfoot, it would bear no grudge against the world. It would rise as best it could to receive the warmth of the sun and smile at the sky. I wondered if it knew its Creator.

In an old cemetery overgrown with brush and weeds, there are forgotten graves within an acre of forgotten sacred ground. No one ever visits; only the wild hogs, squirrels, or occasional deer pass through, disinterested in the lives laid to rest below them. I was taken to this forsaken place by an elderly gentleman who stumbled across it while hunting. All of the headstones are fallen over and illegibly save one. It stands straight and proud marking the resting place of an unheralded Methodist circuit rider. This inscription is carved on the stone:

Sacred to the memory of the
Reverend William O’Conner
Itinerate Missionary of
The Methodist Episcopal Church
From Ohio who died
October 10, 1843

I wonder, “Who were you, William O’Conner?” His Creator knows.

Dear Lord, teach my heart to be like that flower and that circuit rider who served well where they were, unnoticed and unknown to all except You.

League City United Methodist Church is located at 1411 Main Street (FM 518), one block east of Interstate 45. For information, call the church offices at 281-332-1557 or visit the website at

HYPERLINK - http://www.lcumc.org