As I approached Stacy Groscup's home high on a hill near Morgantown, I sensed I was in for a special day. I knew Groscup by reputation only. He's the minister who dresses in buckskin and performs shooting demonstrations with bow and arrow. It had been perhaps 10 years since I had seen him shoot several tiny aspirins right out of the air. Today, I would meet the man behind the buckskin.

      He greeted me at the door with a smile and twinkling blue eyes and almost immediately pointed to the woods behind the house.

      Groscup came to love nature and the outdoors honestly. He grew up all over West Virginia; his father was a traveling preacher. He learned to love the land as a child, but his mind and spirit fused with a land ethic while he was a divinity student at Duke University. He was fascinated by Indian culture-especially its spirituality-and how it paralleled the white man's culture. For three years he lived with a Cherokee chief in North Carolina, and later he spent time with a tribe in Quebec.

      Cherokee Chief Standing Deer's influence left a lasting impression on the young student. His passion for natural history, archeology, and theology intensified. He concluded that there are four cornerstones to the human psyche.

      "We must be strong spiritually, mentally, physically, and socially," he said.

      Stacy Groscup is a man who practices what he preaches. And he preaches without being preachy.

      In 1995, the Rev. Dr. Groscup retired as pastor of the Goshen Baptist Church after a career that spanned 65 years and three parishes. With a youthful vigor and enthusiasm for life that belies his 80 years, he relishes the chance to explain his views on life and spirituality.

      I asked about the bola tie he wore that day. One of the slides was shaped like a crucifix, but consisted of totem-like figures.

      "A priest friend once asked the same question," he replied. "He was surprised that I wore a pagan symbol. I told the priest I'd always been interested in symbols, but I didn't consider this to be pagan. By its shape, he correctly called it a crucifix. But the faces of a wolf, bear, owl, and eagle and the outspread wings of the eagle suggest pagan images. But to me, they are symbols.

      "One eye represents the rising sun-the first great miracle, the gift of life. Another eye represents aging, maturation, death, and, ultimately, a new sunrise, a new life." The circular nature of life is a recurrent theme in Groscup's theological perspective.

      "The outspread wings of the eagle each contain 10 feathers, one for each of the Ten Commandments," he continued. "The Indians had many Bible-like stories long before the Bible ever arrived in the New World. There is not one truth, but many truths."

      Groscup's dissertation at Duke dealt with God's encircling love. He preaches ecumenical inclusion.

      "Never shut your fellow man out of the circle," he said. "Unfortunately, Christianity and many other religions of the world have all, somewhere along the line in their evolutionary development, developed a tendency to shut out rather than include. I told my friend the priest that, yes, the slide with the animals was a crucifix, a crucifix of symbols signifying that all are welcome."

      In addition to his passion for acceptance of all persons and beliefs, Groscup has an ongoing passion for physical fitness that dates back to his student days.

      "I can still kick higher than my head with each foot," he noted.

      He was an athlete at Morris Harvey College (now the University of Charleston), and at Duke University he coached and became a diving instructor. Ultimately, he taught diving techniques to those who would later become military frogmen. With experience came the realization that physical and mental abilities reinforce each other.

      "No one can ever become a good athlete until he learns to relax in a split second and to use the power of concentration," he explained. "It's the power of mind over matter. That's how I shoot aspirins out of the air with a bow and arrow."

      Most who see the buckskin-clad Groscup perform his feats of instinctive shooting (don't call them tricks) assume he learned the skill from the Cherokee. But that's not precisely so.

      "Chief Standing Deer didn't teach me to shoot a bow," Groscup explained, "but he did introduce the basics of instinctive shooting using a blow gun."

      The concept of instinctive shooting is simple, according to Groscup.

      "When you point to something with your finger, you don't aim and think about it," he said. "You just raise your finger, point, and you're on target. Just like a quarterback throws a pass to a wide receiver. The world's most powerful computer, the brain, does all the work."

      I suspect a little practice along the way helps. Groscup suggests targeting fireflies on summer nights because, "it's dark, and there's no time to aim."

      The longer I listened to Groscup, the more he sounded like Obi-Wan Kenobi teaching Luke Skywalker the power of "The Force." All things considered, it may be a valid comparison.

      Though Groscup's incredible ability to shoot aspirins from the air with a bow is what draws crowds, everywhere from elementary schools to sporting shows (his largest audience was 80,000 people in Little Rock), he is ever the teacher. He praises the strength of the human mind and spirit. He welcomes everyone to share his message. And especially with kids, he preaches a strong anti-drug message. He is convinced the brain is the most powerful computer ever made, and he asks why anyone would take anything that might destroy it. Anyone can preach an anti-drug message, but Groscup's actions speak louder than words.

       Before I left Groscup's home, he invited me downstairs to his den. It was more like a museum. Scores of bows lined the walls, blow guns stood propped against overflowing book cases, and arrowheads and other Native American artifacts decorated rough-cut shelves. Many of the items Groscup made himself. In another room, mounted animals, drawings, carvings, and scrimshaw hung from the walls.

       Stacy Groscup is more than a minister, showman, sportsman, and philosopher. He's also a taxidermist, an artist, a nationally respected expert on the evolution of the bow, and a storyteller. He's one of that rare breed: a Renaissance man. He knows a lot about everything. And he's one of our own.

       Dr. Scott Shalaway is a wildlife biologist, birder, and freelance writer. He lives near Cameron in Marshall County with his wife and two daughters.