A grey sky greets me this morning as I come out to the sunporch. With any luck, maybe it will bring us some rain. It has been nine days now since our last rain and that wasn't a lot. All the plants and the garden could benefit from it.

The yard is quiet this morning. No breeze is blowing and there are very few birds out there; mostly Finches and maybe four Cardinals. The Finches are eating the seeds from the phlox these days which is good because they have gone through almost two gallon of thistle seed in the past two weeks. So supplementing their diets from off of the phlox and the black-eyed susans is a good thing. Again I'm getting low on bird seed of all kinds and it will be another expensive trip to the store. In the mean time, I may have to let wild birds and squirrels do what they are designed to do, --- fend for themselves. There is certainly enough spilled food on the ground to last them. I just hope they don't organize and start picketing. I hate it when they do that; ---- walkng back and forth with their little sign, flipping me the human.

I'm working on my sermon for next week's service and it is a difficult subject. The liturgey is all on "forgiveness", and I find that writing about forgiveness is almost as hard to write about as it is to do. I doubt that I know a single person who doesn't hold at least one grudge against some person in their life, and that includes me. I wonder why that is. I only got a "D" in my college Psychology 101 class so I probably won't come up with a good answer to that question, however, perhaps holding on to those grudges is what constitutes the basis for our mental defense system. But somehow there has to be a difference between learning from an unpleasant or hurtful experience and letting that experience control you. Anyway --- wish me luck in putting this together.

Good news--- my 101 year old parishioner that fell is doing well enough to sit up and eat at the table. I give God thanks and praise for that. I saw her a week ago and she appeared to be on death's door step. God never ceases to amaze me with His goodness. Of course I also lift up Byron and Sheila as they go through Byron's appointment today. It may not be as big of a deal today as I imagine but certainly our prayers are there for him. I continue to thank God for my family and friends and the abundance of blessings I receive each and every day.

Now, I must get busy. I have work to do, and the coffee cup is empty. Have a wonderful day.