Sunshine again on this Saturday morning. It was pretty nice most of the day yesterday but of course, eventually we had another storm come through. I did have time to get the front yard mowed again this week and Dan's too. I can't believe how much it grew in just a couple of days. I hope someone got the church yard mowed. I was up there Wednesday and it looked terrible, and of course it has rained everyday since. I would have mowed it myself but I could not figure out how to get that mower started. It is a rather large John Deere ZTR and I've used it before but it has been a couple of seasons ago. I did everything I knew to do but I wonder if the battery might have been almost dead. I'll have to ask one of the guys at church tomorrow. There is someone signed up to mow this week, but I was just going to try to help out. I'm not crazy about ZTR mowers. They take practice to master for sure.

Tomorrow is the last day of July and that means that I only have 120 days until I am retired. On one hand, I'm excited about retirement because it will free up Ms. Kate and I to go and do and not have to worry about being home for this or that. That scenario has been fifty years in the making. But I am really going to miss being there. By the "rules" of the denomination, Ms. Kate and I are supposed to avoid contact with the church and the parishioners for a minimum of a year so as not to interfere with the ministry of the new pastor. That will be hard on us because we truly love these folks. I hope they never get a pastor of that considers it just a job or a paycheck. They deserve much better.

But I am also excited for the churches. New blood and new leadership is good for any organization. I hope they get a pastor that loves them as much as we do and someone who will challenge them spiritually. You know, opening up the Bible and discovering the mysteries that lie within is like looking into the vastness of space. The answers to life that are in the Bible are just never ending and are so open to interpretation. I know people who tell me they have read the Bible several times over and yet, they still will read it again because something in that book will speak to them in a different way and bring new life and new meaning. In our United Church of Christ denomination we say "God is Still Speaking". And that still speaking God is exactly what I hope a new pastor for the parish will continue to introduce to the members. I believe that every day we meet God, we are meeting God for the first time because every time is a whole new experience.

I didn't mean to get into a sermon today; sometimes that just happens. I need to finish up this cup of coffee and go do a few things, the first of which is to fill my bird feeders AGAIN because these flying pigs have cleaned out everything. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Peace.