Last week our congregation hosted a middle school youth group from the Windemere (FL) United Church of Christ. We provided floor space for their sleeping bags; helped them make arrangements for showers with the local Rec Center; fed them pancakes one morning for breakfast. Nothing extraordinary--just one church helping out another.

The kids and their chaperones worked with a city official and a representative from one of the environmental groups here on the island, the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation. SCCF, as its known locally, has been instrumental in helping Sanibel be a sanctuary island. It manages over 1300 acres of wild lands here on Sanibel, runs a marine laboratory and a superb nature center with trails, a touch tank and a butterfly house!

The youth group helped plant sea oats. In all they planted nineteen-hundred seedlings. Nineteen-hundred! That's a lot of sea oats! While they may sound rather innocuous, sea oats (uniola paniculata) are actually a very important part of our ecosystem. They can grow to six feet in height, and provide natural protection against the ravages of tropical storms. Their long root systems help to stabilize the loose soils of barrier islands and coastal environments. Unfortunately, they can be fairly easily destroyed by pollutants. As strong as they are--and they are strong in many ways--they can be wiped out by human carelessness.

In the courtyard of our church we have an eternal light created by one of our local artists, a very gifted fellow named Luc Century. It was erected in partnership with the Jewish congregation that shares our facility. It is a beautiful glass cylinder, etched with sea oats. The light itself is powered by a solar panel. It is a constant reminder that even as the sea oats literally help to hold our island together, so the light and love of God holds our world together.

Sea oats may seem rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things. So too things like providing hospitality, creating art, and partnering with folks from other places and other religious backgrounds. But I am convinced such things count for much. I am convinced that every time we stop, as those kids from Windemere did, to tend to the earth, we are making God's love a bit more real in our fragile world. Every time we provide hospitality, every time we partner with folks of differing faith backgrounds, every time we pause to observe something beautiful, we are making God's light a bit more visible in a sometimes darkened world.

Sea oats--who would have imagined?