Volume VIII, Issue 3
the NEWs
 April 2008 
  A Note from Tom Hay, General Presbyter

Travel much through Augusta, Rockbridge and Bath Counties in Virginia and you have to cross three enigmatic rivers:  The Calfpasture, the Cowpasture and the Bullpasture.  The names have intrigued me for years.  Therein, it turns out, is a story rich in the frontier remoteness of early years of European settlement in the our Presbytery.
    Of course these rivers had names long before the westerners arrived.  For instance the Cowpasture was called the “Walatoola” meaning “winding waters”.  The word just sounds right.  But Europeans tended to name things less poetically.  So land and rivers (think “Virginia” and “James”) were often named for sponsors back home.   Springs were given anglicized attributes:  “Tinkling”  “Warm”, “Sinking” or “Falling”.  Only a few places still reflect their native pasts like  “Shenandoah”, “Potomac” and “Opequon”.
    I don’t know what the settlers called the rivers of Bath County before the big cattle raid.  Likely they just pointed toward them and referred to “that river that runs through the McDonald place”.  Or perhaps more colorful words if they needed to ford one with a load of heavy produce.
    But on the day of the great cattle raid, everyone noticed the rivers.  We have to conjecture the details of the story.  The cattle were stolen at night, rounded up from several farms to make a herd.  When the homeowners noticed the loss, they would have gathered a posse of sorts to make pursuit.  Even I could follow the trail of that many cattle.
    Thus they came to the first river crossing and discovered the bleating and frantic calves from the herd.  The thieves had not been able to push these weaklings across the first river and left them beside what became known as the Calfpasture River.
    You see this coming, I know you do.  The next river crossing culled out the cows of the herd.  Exhausted from the hard push and frantic for their calves, they could not be coaxed across the river where they were discovered.  Thus the Cowpasture River.
    The final river is the Bullpasture, for here the last of the cattle were left.  Not even the bulls could be pushed across it.
    Thus three rivers saved the herd and earned their names.
    Now let me tell you a story from this year.  It doesn’t have a conclusion yet, and no one has been saved, but they will.  It is about a group of people in this Presbytery who are working to create new rivers – or at least new barriers – to catch and save those who are being stolen away from the church.
    This group is a small group of pastors and elders who are looking for a place and a plan to plant a new church.  They aren’t motivated by a desire to build our membership or reverse the losses of the denomination.  They aren’t about expansion or victory.  They simply understand that to catch those who are drifting away from the faith, we need new pastures, new catch-basins if you will, new and inviting folds to offer the lost.
    In frontier times, the land provided three rivers to save the herd – can we provide a congregation to save the new populations of Berkeley, Clark, Jefferson or Frederick County (or wherever the need is greatest)?  It won’t be easy.  It will take energy, intelligence and lots of imagination.
    I think we are commissioned to do nothing less.