Goodland, Kansas

We are now parked outside of Goodland, Kansas. Its biggest claim to fame is that, as of  2002, it is the place of a 24 foot by 32 foot reproduction of Van Gogh's Sunflowers, created by a Canadian born Cameron Cross. The reproduction stands on an 80 foot high easel. The artist has plans to place reproductions of Van Gogh's seven different sunflower paintings on the seven continents; so far he has placed one in Canada, Australia, and now in Kansas. Kansas was chosen for the site because of its large sunflower fields.

Coincidentially, I just finished reading Sunflowers by Sheramy Bundrick. It is a fictional story of the last two years of Van Gogh's life as seen through the eyes of a young prostitute. The book has many references to the artist's sunflower paintings ( they were a favorite of his mistress Rachel, according to the story line), so I was thrilled to see one of those reproductions here in Kansas. Pardon me now if I jump to another subject entirely. Yesterday John and I had the wonderful experience of attending Goodland United Methodist church. The call to worship for the service adapted a quote from Steve Jobs: "Out time is limited, so lets not waste it living someone else's life... don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice...Let us have the courage to follow our heart and intuition.God is at work beyond all our imagination". Pastor Dustin Petz pointed out in his sermon that Goodland Methodist needs to find a way to reach out to the younger people of Sherman County. The average age of the surrounding community is 35 years, while that of the congregation is 54 years of age. It was the first time John and I had seen a pastor whip out an iPhone to read from the Bible. That was a very good object lesson to demonstrate the point of his sermon!