Letters

On Live Where We Are (16 Feb 2011)

Although I live in Greenville, Michigan (home of the Winter Inn where Russell Kirk and I would stop on the way between Mecosta and Grand Rapids in the early 80s), I serve on the Board of a Christian health center located behind a post office on Forest Avenue in the north shore Mariner’s Harbor neighborhood of Staten Island. That health center is a community-based, grass-roots initiative that exhibits the sinews of Burkean conservatism. I have been involved with this project from its beginning about eight years ago. That kind of local engagement is something I learned to value from Russell Kirk; it has shaped my life. In city after city I find flowerings of Christian and civic virtue, hope, and can-do optimism. I look forward to reading the Staten Island book, about a place and people I have come to love. Thank you.

Robert Kamphuis
Greenville, Michigan