It seems like it has been a long time since I got up and saw sunshine coming through my windows. I suspect it hasn’t ben as long as I imagine it but this has been a gloomy winter so far hasn’t it? It seems it has rained forever and then we had the polar vortex come through and freeze our rear ends off. Luckily, here in southern Indiana we didn’t get near the snow much of the nation got. I can’t imagine what a person does when they start measuring their snowfall in feet. But, we have a sunny, 46 degree morning and it looks like the wind is minimal. It won’t be bad when I head out a little later to do parishioner visitation. 

I went to the churches yesterday and ran the bulletins for the coming Sunday and put everything in place for the service. The churches still have their Christmas trees up. Which is fine. I think St. Paul’s will take their’s down this Sunday after church. St. Lucas may wait another week because this week they have their winter congregational meeting after church and I suspect the meeting is going to go long. They have some issues to discuss concerning their constitution that will require discussion. That all comes about because they are also needing to discuss how they are going to go about finding a replacement for me. If you had not been told, I am officially retiring as of December 31st 2023. Their current constitution restricts them to  hiring only a United Church of Christ pastor. And what is worse is that they have a clause in their constitution that was written 50 years ago that says that particular clause can never be changed. I mean, who approves something like that, that let’s the cemetery control the destiny of the church?? The denomination has changed drastically since that was approved and the direction of the denomination is not the direction that this current congregation wants to go. So, it will be interesting to see how they go about solving this issue. I have not checked St. Paul’s constitution yet to see if they have a like clause. I need to do that. Well, actually they need to do that. I can have no part of this process. I’m not a member of the congregation and have no voting power and by “the rules” I should not even be giving any input; not that rules have been a big blocking point to my thoughts on a given subject before. LOL

I need to go out and fill some bird feeders today. But, I’m only going to do that if the back yard isn’t too sloppy from the rain. I have to get up on my ladder for a couple of them and I don’t relish getting on a sinking ladder. They have quite a bit of food out there now but some of the favorites are empty, of course. The black-oil sunflower seed feeders are mostly empty, thank you very much you fuzzy-tailed rats! It isn’t the birds that clean those out, it’s the dang squirrels. I was out the other day and happened to look at all of the trees that lined our neighborhood and every tree has a minimum of one squirrel nest in it. No wonder we are over run with them. They have a whole community residing thirty feet above our heads and the trees are a natural highway for them. If a fella was in to eating “squirrel stew” he could live well for a while. I’ve eaten squirrel when I was a kid. My dad would take me squirrel hunting in our woods. We’d get a couple and bring them back to the house and skin them. Then my mom would begrudgingly fry them. I don’t remember much about whether I liked it or not. I know my mother hated cooking them.

Okay, that’s enough for today. I pray you have a blessed day and that you have sunshine in your life and in your heart. Always remember that no matter what is going on in your life, God walks besides you to give you strength. 

Peace