Monday morning and the sun is shining brightly, --- at least for now. It is 28° out there this morning and the breeze made it feel even cooler as I went out to put the mail in the mailbox and carry the garbage out to the compost. The snow is ice crunchy under my feet. It isn't as deep as it was because of the melting. At some point, maybe mid-week, we are supposed to have temperatures maybe as high as fifty degrees, but --- of course those temperatures are an upswing of gulf moisture and will bring rain with it. But, fingers crossed, next weekend currently promises to be beautiful.

Worship services were fairly well attended yesterday despite the fact that the parking lots were treacherous to walk on. But I continue to notice what I guess would be considered a social phenomena. It doesn't matter the size of the church or congregation, people just seem to not want to sit up in the front of the church. I pastor two churches, St. Lucas and St. Paul's. St. Paul's will hold around 120 people if we include the balcony space, and our average attendance is around 19 people. As I look out over the congregation, there will be seven people in the back three rows of the right side, and another dozen plus in the back four rows of the left side. At St. Lucas it is just the opposite. St. Lucas holds about 220 people with an average attendance of fifty people. The front five rows are almost always vacant except for Ms. Kate and one other. Yesterday at St. Lucas, I asked everyone to move up front, and they did. The sound of the congregation sitting close and up front singing the hymns was an occasion to rejoice. I hope the experience enhanced their worship experience as much as it did mine. But, I'm just so glad to have people faithfully attend, that they can sit where ever they wish to as long as they are there. My biggest disappointment is the lack of youth that attend church. Despite having confirmed them and hearing their confirmation promises, so many of them just don't come back, and I lay the blame for that straight on the parents who have not made church attendance a priority. And --- I'll be the first to admit that we were no different when our children were young. Hindsight and age and maturity are big teachers.

We have a batch of young squirrels running around here. They are really small and yes, they are cute. They also need to go find a different buffet. Maybe if I pop a couple of them in the butt with my BB gun now, they wiil chose to leave; ---- not!

It is time to get busy so I better close. I started my morning with my Max Lucado Lenten devotional reading and now it is time to offer up my prayers of gratitude. This morning I simply offer prayers of thanks for this beautiful day and all of the joy and blessings that God has provided in my lfe. I hope your day will be full of love and joy and a sense of the presence of God. If you have all of that, you have no need for anything else.