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The Goderich Signal-Star, 1975-10-09, Page 731 Dec. 1 0 90 7 1b 5 Public Library, 52 l,lontreal Ot., Goderich, Ont. N7A 2G4 •4t J.1fbV •M Thanksgiving 1975 Zbe oDeridj GNAL= 1 28 YEAR -41" THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1975 SECOND SECTION Amidst bounty and prosperity.... Forge t, no t all H is ben� f i ts fv^ .4 BY GWYN WHILSMITH Of the ten lepers healed by Jesus only one came back to give thanks. St. Luke states, "This man was tS'arnaritan," which implies the other nine were not, that they were, in fact, Jews, Relations between the Samaritans and the Jews were, strained and unfriendly, to say the least. The former were the,, despised half breeds of ,their day. It would not surprise us, therefore, if the restored Samaritan had gone Merrily on his way. If he had not taken the trouble ,to come back to say "Thank you" for this most priceless gift of -health we would not have wondered about -it. But if the other nine had come back, Je'ws'with a strong tense of God, all the traditions behind them, if they had come back, grateful for His cure we would think that the perfectly natural thing for them to do. But it was, in fact, these nine who went their way with never a backward glance and quickly forgot. I fear this is not a distorted picture of contemporary ;life. The. grateful people are in the minority. True gratitude begins wifh God aridall lesser gratitudes spring from that. It is when our hearts flow over with thanksgiving that we. find God. The story of the ten lepers begins with the tragedy of ten men who had • had to face the heartbreak of leaving families and home comforts to wand& through the land as unclean ."outcasts. It ends with the tragedy that nine of them, who had just received in _.their own . lives a demonstration of God'spower and goodness, could take it co casually and so, much unmoved. Yet, this ungrateful attitude -still prevails today. Think of the blessings which,come so,freely into our lives and into the lives of people everywhere. Jesus 'tried to bring home to. us the generous openhandedness of a God who shows no partiali#y and does not dole, out His gifts after the fashion of rewards. Meritorious conduct does not produce the benefits, and failure does not mean the gift is witheld. '.'No" says Jesus, "God makes the sun shine on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.'' There is an overflowing im- partiality about .His dealings --with us. • Perhaps that is why we take His gifts for granted. They come. readily, dependably with such regularity that we cease to wonder at them. Even those of us who. claim to recognize the gift and the Giver, who owe our allegience to Him, even' we show a strange forgetfulness. So ..often when we get what we want we forget, like the nine lepers, to come back to say "Thank you." Often children are ungrateful to their parents. Of all living creatures; man. requires the longest time'' to become able to meet his needs for life. In our infancy, a week's neglect Would kill us, and there are long years when we are dependent on parents for literally everything. Yet, .,. the day comes when an aged parent is a nuisance. Children forget the debt they owe. We are" ungrateful toy, our fellow men. Few of us ,.have not at sorne time or other owed as a great deal to someone else which is impossible to repay. At that moment we think we could never forget. Yet the sad thing is that we do so' casually let it pass from. our memory. We are ungrateful to God. -In our terrible need we pray with desperate intensity; time passes and we forget. Perhaps Christ.as•:He_I_ooks around in our churches today still asks sadly and a little amazed, "Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?" 4 The best.thanks we can give God is to try to deserve His goodness and ,His mercy a little better, and to sing with the Psalmist, "Bless the Lord, O my,.soul, and lr..,get not all His benefits." (Psalm 103:2) K 4 4• :+.•/�:: � �.. �gpgy JMx4S, .: {. ;..S: i:...::G.y:i�iF}!>•;Y;C•,?; Lo, the day is grey- ' ,TM2lEtryam The trees stand still; Clouds hug us close - Across valg and hill'. • Of bird and bug and bee! We seem to softly, wait. Fields are brown, •resting, Preparing for the,,planting ! Gay weed •and fiower, flown, • Ph�tosby Jeff Sedd Agricultural land - Huron' oremost- asset for the future County councillors not impressed by $110,000 UDIRA report A new cover on the county's official plan, That was ' the opinion of Huron County Coun- cillor Bill Elston when council tpembcrs discussed the culmination Of, two years of study into the ramification of urban development in rural areas (UDIRA). Similar opinions were expressed by other members of council concerning the report entitled Countiyside Planning. $110,000 report was presented to 'county council Friday for "discussion only to enable planning board to make. recommendations", Coun4y,, Planning Director Gary bavidson told members, Prepared by J.F, MacLaren Consultants Ltd, of London, the report concentrated on the three main land uses in the county - agricult ure, urban, and reercaat ion. The 4t tidy vJas financed through 80 percent provincial,' government money and- 20. per- cent Huron County funds, It is the first time that land use planning from an agricultural perspective has been studied in the province. Huron was chosen as a pilot study area because it was the first rural county to adopt an official county plan. Goderich Township Reeve Grry Ginn, however, didn't feel there was much new or helpful in the study. In fact, according to Reeve Ginri, the ,study only confused hint morn than ever concerning land use planning for Huron. "1 thought this study would look at planning from a rural point of,view'."Ginn told council. "I don'tMthink this does, ReCv'e Ginn had plenty 'of questions to ask concerning what was contained in the report, Most importantly,'he''wanted to know how tie' planners proposed to restrict growth in villages and hamlets while allnwting towns to grow as quickly and as large as necessary Gary y 'Davidson fold him that villages acrid hamlets would ex, panel with their abilities to pro -vide services. He said that growth in the village would cone from the areas arciund them and it would no4 be "exceedingly fast ", while growth in the towns would he encouraged. Reeve Fred Haberer of Zurich called village's' an "impbrtant arm" in the county community. He charged that the MacLaren study was a "rural report and a big town report ", but had notating of value to offer the villages and hamletsok4he county, The study makes two major recommendations. One is that urban development should be `onto poor quality farmland when it is necessary to "expand; the second is that it provides the five county towns With room to grow in a specific radius around them and that within this circle,he growth should be orderly and predictable. a Farmers with ptoperty within the growth area of one of the five towns would have 10, 20 and 30 year assurances, the report suggests, with the farmers on the outer perimeter of the growth circle having the 30 -year ;assurance and the permission to remain on their 'farms for the remainrler of their.. lives if that were their wish. Reeve Warren Zinn of Ashfield was concerned about the "old surveys" scattered throughout th'e count y, "Building is going on hut it doesn't seem to be going on correctly," Reeve Zinn observed. "1 -Tow does this plan control that?" Planning director Davidson said the initial step would be to determine boundaries and then control development. Bayfield Reeve Ed Oddleifson argued there was "nothing in the report about specific area for development". He 'was par- ticularly concerned about recreational land ,use along the lakefront. He learned that for•the present at least, agricultural land was considered more ,important than recreational land, One specific area of develop- ment interested Reeve' Ginn. He wanted to know what "scenic easement development" was and (continued on page 10A) n a1.4€4izru_�....