A bright and sunny good morning to you! Today is a polar opposite to yesterday. The sun is shining brightly and there are no clouds in the sky. Only a slight breeze is blowing and the temperature is 57 degrees. Unfortunately that about maxes out our temperature for today since we are only supposed to reach 61 degrees. But the sunshine makes it look warmer anyway as aopposed to the gloom of yesterday. Yesterday looked cold, but actually it wasn't.

The robins have been busy at the Holly tree next door stripping all of the berries off of the tree. There isn"t the flock of hundreds that we have at time had here. That is okay because fewer robins means less poop all over every thing. But there are several dozen of them in this wave. I guess it is a migratory stop for them since this happens annually.

Since the sun is shining so brightly, I'll go fill all of the feeders up today. I also want to blow off the sidewalks and perhaps much up the leaves agan with the mower. Yesterday afternoon I pulled up the tomato plants and collected my last four small tomatoes of the season. If it isn't too muddy, I'll cut off the asparagus today too. It is a good day to be outside breathing some clean rain washed air.

I did my visitation yesterday at the two nursing homes. My 102 year old lady was soundly sleeping and I didn't wake her. Seeing her lay there reminded me of seeing Ms. Kate's grandmother many years ago as she lay in a nursing home bed. She would never be awake when we got there and she had shrunk down in size to the point one could hardly tell she was in the bed. She was like that for a very long time. I don't wish that existence for my parishioner. Her mind has been gone for several months now and she has zero quality of life. I know that everything works on God's schedule and there is a purpose and a reason for God's actions. Sometimes though we have to really search for meaning, and sometimes we simply never find it. And so for this lady I only pray that she can still recognize the warmth and comfort of God's love.

We ran the bulletins and monthly newsletter yesterday and then stayed around the church for choir practice. The cantata is coming along. Some songs are harder than others but we are working our way through them. I am so blessed that the people of the churches respond positively to almost everything I ask of them. I chose this cantata music and how we should do it and it is taking some extra practice time for several people, but they come out and they do it. Likewise, we are running two charity funding drives at the churches and people once again have stepped up and responded very well. We have two weeks left of our Operation Christmas Child drive. On the 15th of November, we will assemble the shoe boxes and fill them. Last year we filled fifty seven shoeboxes and I think we mught have enough stuff to beat that this year. The people of this parish are truly wonderful people with a strong mission heart. As I said, I am truly blessed to be their pastor. I know of a lot of churches that do not have this kind of relationship with their pastor.

So, that is just one of the things that I lift up praise to the Lord for this morning. I also lift up thanks for this beautiful fall day and all that it might bring. I also lift up prayers of gratitude for those of you who read my blog. I would write it even if no one read it; but it is nice to know that you and I spend a few moments of our day together. I pray your day will be blessed and full of peace and joy. Shalom.