I call it “BJ’s Hideaway.” It’s just a short distance off of Highway 165 South, which I must travel with some regularity to get to meetings and events in central Louisiana, like tomorrow’s ordination at a church in Alexandria.

An old logging road extends into the Kisatchie National Forest. I’ve never walked as far as I could, so I don’t know where or how it ends, but I do know that a good way into the forest, there’s a longleaf pine plantation.

I go there in search of #harmony. Sometimes it eludes me for a time as I remember the millions of acres of majestic, mature longleaf pines sacrificed to human hubris. What were they thinking? That trees 100 feet tall could replace themselves overnight?

But ultimately I am restored by the sighing and shimmering of pom pom balls of long slender leaves moving in a gentle breeze. And reminded that we humans also sometimes act in redemptive ways. Our own National Forest Service works hard, in spite of severely limited funding, to restore the longleaf pine with plantations like this one.