Glen Wild

To the editor:

Your article from 8/15/23 says this church is “renowned”. I say for what? You incorrectly named it the Church of the Little Green ‘Men’, but in fact it is ‘Man’ - an egotistical name that in this case does not convey the love of nature or of God. A church is a building used for Christian worship and other Christian religious activities. It represents the body of Christ but it is representative of the people who follow Jesus. The color green can represent “fertility, fruitfulness, and God’s love for humanity” . Fecundity, which is what he calls the statue, means “the ability to produce an abundance of offspring...”. I would definitely not call this particular building in Glen Wild a church. A church would not provoke hatred and insults on another’s beliefs by putting up a huge despicable sign right in front of it. 

No one has ever called me a prude, but in the name of art, why would anyone want to offend in this way, people who are prudes and are probably totally embarrassed as they pass this statue to PRAY? If all they are requesting is to turn the statue around, what is the problem? Maybe it is legally OK, but what about our values. And by the way, the word for synagogue is spelled S-h-u-l. Let’s also identify that this Shul is composed mostly of Chassidim. Yes, they are strange looking to us in their black and white garb and on Shabbos, parade on the roads in their fur hats. Mr. Osterhout can say what his creation is about, but the word fecundity was chosen to remind people about the huge families that these people have which can be offensive to many of us who are conscious of the effects on our environment by such a huge population. We are outraged at the ruination of the pristine areas of our beautiful rural community, but it does not give anyone the right to intentionally affront them. The reason why the business community supports this type of art, is because it brings in business. People come to the town to see it. Well come, everyone come. Just turn the darn thing around and be decent about it. Mr. Osterhout’s contention that he is open to conversation is a bit pretentious. Some people might not know that he purchased an old Shul in Glen Wild years agoand after stripping it bare of all the very old artifacts, painted the word C-L-O-S-E-D in white paint on the brown front doors. I did go to talk to him, telling him I would like to paint over the word because it felt so ‘closed’ to look at it every day on the way to my Post Office. He said he wanted to be a good community member, but instead of painting over the letters in brown, he did white squiggly lines over the lettering. Maybe this is what he calls art, but to me it’s defacing an old building that once was a National Landmark, and is now just another old building that is getting dilapidated. 

On the other hand, there is nothing cool about vandalism. We all have to put up with each other. It would be nice if we could love as all religions believe we should, but if we cannot, we can at least be respectful of each other.