We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time

– T.S. Eliot

Our family has lived in Lawrence for 10 years. In many ways (when people say, “Oh, you live in the Skye House”) I still feel like a newcomer. Yet, I have been here long enough that Lawrence continues to surprise me, as if, in the spirit of T.S. Eliot, I am seeing this place for the first time.

On a sunny spring day, I walk down Massachusetts Street. Students, couples, singles, the young and not so young, of varied backgrounds and attire are all here, visiting, leisurely strolling from one shop to the next. There’s an energy in the air, all the more so if the hawks just won.

Still I wonder. This bucolic scene belies the truth of this place. This community began amid violence and bloodshed. On August 21, 1863, William C. Quantrill led a group of pro-slavery ruffians on a rampage that left this town in smoke and many of its citizens dead. The impetus for Quantrill’s massacre was an attempt to “get” the abolitionist preacher, Rev. Richard Cordley, whose very pulpit I currently occupy at Plymouth Church.

Some came west for gold, others for land. Lawrence’s settlers came because a conviction burned in their hearts that slavery was abomination in the eyes of God. These people gave up the comfort of their New England homes in exchange for a dangerous frontier life. As I sit on a Mass. Street bench and take in the carefree strollers, some on their cell phones, I think about our brave predecessors. Do we not owe them a great debt? They risked life and limb so our country could remain free. On the evening of Aug. 21, 1863, Cordley walked these very streets ministering to the wounded and grieving.

The smoke has long since abated. Still I wonder if something of Lawrence’s frontier spirit lingers in the air. This town has a personality. Sometimes feisty – when Missouri comes – but always energetic, engaged and free-spirited. Compared with the rest of Kansas, Lawrence marches to the tune of its own drummer.

The universities contribute to the richly textured quality of this place. You can in 36 hours attend a powwow at Haskell Indian Nations University, take in opera at the Lied, partake of Thai cuisine dinner and end the day with an outdoor concert at South Park. Lawrence offers amenities of cities many times its size. What is unique here is that, for all its diversity, this is still a place you run into people you know.

For a local church pastor, the diversity is both a challenge and gift. So many perspectives coming for so many different backgrounds, the challenge is always to discover what we have in common.

Early on in our time here, my wife and I had an opportunity to get to know Don and Marilyn Bread. Don and Marilyn, of Kiowa and Cherokee descent, have long been involved in the community. Marilyn is the director at the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Haskell. Over dinner together, I learned that I shared something else with Marilyn. We are both pastors.

Don and Marilyn represent one of the many gifts this community has been for our family.

Lawrence is a richly textured place. And the more layers of that texture I discover, the more I feel I am getting to know Lawrence for the first time.