With all of that beautiful sunshine out there, it seems hard to believe that this day is going to end in rain and snow. But --- that's what is predicted for today. 

Happy Tuesday, the 24th of January. Do you realize that there is only one more week in this month and then we move on to February. Time does continue to flow and we can suddenly be asking ourselves "where the tine went". I usually ask myself that when I'm suddenly closer to a deadline than I want to be. Fortunately, I got to quit worrying too much about deadlines twenty years ago when I retired from the Air Force. There, everyday was a day closer to a suspense that had to be met or a goal that had to be attained. It's probably like that in the business world out here with the civilians too but as a pastor, I usually only get jammed up if I'm a little late getting my sermon written and suddenly I have a funeral or hospital visitations pop up unexpectedly. That's why I try to work a couple of weeks ahead. 

I think today Ms. Kate and I are going to go look for a new office desk chair for her. Her old one is looking pretty ragged these days and she spends a lot of hours in that chair. So, I managed to get her old one out of the office and have it parked by the front door. I sent my daughter Julie a text to see if she wants it for a craft chair in her garage. If not, I'll put it out on the street with a "Free" sign on it. Somebody might want it. It just really need some duct tape on it and it will be perfectly useable. Duct tape fixes most anything ya' know!!! Then if no one takes it, into the trash can it goes. 

While I'm waiting to go, I've been going through our two church constitutions with reference to their hiring of a new pastor. Both churches have 50 year old constitutions and when they were written , they were not written with much leeway on several points. So they are both going to have to do some hard work to get where they think they want to be. The denomination has changed a great deal since those two documents were written and our churches views don't match those of the denomination in several way.  It will be interesting to see how they resolve their issues. But --- if they don't do something, they are in for a very long pastoral search because the current flavor of pastors is far more liberal than the two churches are. God will provide the right person when God sees fit. It took my home church seven years to find a suitable pastor. 

Gotta' stop and do some other writing. Have a blessed day. Peace.

 Rain - cloudy cloudy, rain cloudy cloudy, rain cloudy cloudy. If you say it in rhythm it sound like “Indian War drums”. LOL But that seems to be our winter pattern for weather around here this winter. Our weather lady did promise us a little sunshine this afternoon to brighten up the day. The other day we got our first and only peek at the sub right at 4:30 - 5:00 pm. There was a thin line of sunshine right at the horizon as the sun set for the day. Actually, it was kind of awesome. 

How was your weekend? Ours was okay, certainly nothing to write home about. We were busy just doing stuff. Yesterday of course was Sunday and that means two church services and a Confirmation class to do. We were thin in attendance yesterday at the churches. Church services have to compete with too many other things like sports tournaments, sports on TV, middle school dances, vacations, school spring break, rainy/snowy cold weather, and the colds and flu season. There is always a reason not to attend church. I’m just glad when folks do come and I’m glad that God doesn’t “take a day off”. It is just another way in which our society has changed since “the olden days” when I was a kid. We didn’t have all of these other activities when I was a kid and even if we had —— there was no way that they would take precedence over attending church. And while “TV church” capability was a blessing during COVID, it has also come to be a curse too as people stay home and watch  or don’t watch but we never know which. I guess in a way, we are like restaurants; we cook up a lot of food for the day but we never know if anyone is going to come in and eat. But that doesn’t allow us the right to serve food of any less quality. 

Ms. Kate and I have a week this week that is almost event free. Wow!!! Of course I have to work on services etc but other than that, we have no appointments or anything else. What will we do with ourselves?? Well, for one thing, we need to run by Walgreens and pick up a prescription and also pick up some Dasani bottled water for Ms. Kate. Then I need to run over to Art’s house and pick up a couple of books he has for me. And then I have to come home and get busy both reading and writing. I’m working on a sermon series and the books that Art is giving me are reference books on my subject. He has given me several of his book; one he wrote and also several articles and research papers he has written and published. He is such a great mentor and an even better friend. I’m blessed. 

Time to put my head together with Ms. Kate and decide what we are going to do about some lunch. I hope you have a great day. And I hope your week is fully blessed. Peace. 

 A happy and blessed Friday morning to you. It’s just another cloudy day in the neighborhood. It’s 31 degrees and isn’t going to go up much from there.

Of course I don’t have much of anything new since I just wrote last evening. Well, actually, my one bit of news is that we had an active shooter incident at our west side Walmart last night. I don’t know anything more than that with the exception that the shooter is dead. I haven’t heard the news yet as to if there were victims or if it was a random nut job that decided to commit suicide by cop or what. What in the world is wrong with people these days? I just don’t get it. If you want to kill yourself, just take your gun and go out in the woods somewhere. Why ruin the lives of people you don’t even know. Suicide is a selfish and cowardly act in the first place. God did not give you the choice of when you will die. But neither did he give you the right to end other peoples lives just because you are mad about something. Well, I bet your reception on the other side of that veil is a whole lot different the your victims. 

So, today I’m going to get dressed and then go feed my birds first thing this morning. II had a slew of cardinals, bluebirds, titmouse, finches and wrens out there this morning all looking for food and most everything is empty. I’m also going to Wild Birds today because they have a 15% off sale on safflower seed and that is a mainstay for the cardinals and other birds —- and the squirrels don’t like it. That makes it a win-win. I’ve been putting hot peppered seed in the feeders except for the sunflower seed. The squirrels can have that. But if I put the hot- pepper seed in the rest of the feeders, the squirrels have learned they don’t want to get on them and that way they aren’t tearing the feeders up. I have lost a lot of feeders to squirrel damage over the years and they are not cheap. I can easily drop $40.00 on a new feeder. Most of the new feeders I buy are fairly indestructible even by squirrels. I try to stay away from plastic feeders if I can.  

The other thing I have to do today is go up and run y bulletins. If I time that right, I can grab a bite of lunch somewhere too. 

But, if I’m going to get any of that done, I better get myself changed and start moving. I hope you have a blessed day.  Peace. 

 It’s a late afternoon and the weather is cloudy, very cool, and just “blah!!!” We did have a little sun today but not much and then we had some off and on sprinkles. Just a good day to stay inside, but —- we had running around to do today. 

Ms. Kate had to go for her mammogram this morning around 10:30. So, we did that and afterwards we went to the bank to do some banking stuff, then to Walgreens to pick up a prescription for her. From there we went to a little deli where they have a spaghetti special every Thursday and had our lunch. That put us an hour away from her next doctor’s appointment and the hospital was basically around the corner so we went and found a place to park and sat there on our phones and IPads for an hour until her appointment. We knew the appointment wouldn’t take long. It was the doctor follow up to a Doppler scan that she had a month ago. She has it done once a year. She told me; “he’s just going to say everything’s fine, See you next year.” She came back out and said —- I told you so. 

From there we came home and had hoped to take a nap. However, I was about to doze off when I got a call from my credit card company asking me about what could be a fraudulent charge on y card. Sure enough, someone had used my card number to try to charge $4.39 worth of something in Florida. I didn’t recognize the purchase or the company that it was tried at, —- so they cancelled that card and will send me a new card via express mail. The thing is, I just got this card two weeks ago as a replacement for the last time someone tried to use my card. They gave me the name of the business where the purchase was attempted. I tried to Google them and they came up but all information as to who they are and what they do has been redacted. So, I called the number their webpage listed and told them why I was calling and they wouldn’t give me any information about the company but they did ask for the card number that I was calling about. I told them I’m not giving it to them and they hung up on me. So —- if you get a charge on your credit card for a purchase at Shebschou.Com, — report it. They have a fancy webpage with a lot of word on it but they do not tell you what they actually do other than they have teams standing by 24/7 to help you out. I hate scammers with a passion. Not only doI have to go through the hassle of setting up my new card, —- but they have ruined my chance of getting a nap today. 

Tomorrow I have to go to the churches, run the bulletins and set things up for Sunday’s service. It’s my weekly thing to do. It doesn’t take long and the weather is supposed to be a little nicer tomorrow. 

I got home today to a message on my answering machine from my next door neighbor. She wanted to let me know that they had found her 23 y/o granddaughter dead last night. She had overdosed on drugs. My heart breaks for the family. Please say a prayer for all families who have to go through a thing like this. 

Have a good evening. Peace. 

 Good morning. I started a blog yesterday and got about three lines written and then we had to go somewhere. I never got back to it so I deleted it this morning. I might as well start over. 

It’s looking gloomy this morning and I hate that because yesterday was such a perfect day. It was sunny and bright and the temperature went above 60 degrees. It was a perfect day to do some of the running around that we had to do. One of the first things we had to do was take Ms. Kate for a hair cut appointment. Those don’t take very long, maybe 30 minutes. Then we went out for lunch at the Friendship Diner. We have eaten there a few time and like their food. I had a breakfast plate and it was really good. Of course it is usually pretty hard to mess up breakfast. Ms. Kate had a pork lunch plate and she said it wasn’t good at all. The pork was shredded, which she didn’t like, the mashed potatoes were instant and she didn’t like the gravy. The best part of her meal was the fruit that came with it and even that was limited to a few grapes and three pieces of pineapple. It was disappointing. Generally their meals are really good. (That’s why I stick to breakfast.)

From there we went to The Vineyard, a Bible book store. I wanted to get some bulletins for my granddaughters wedding. From there we went to the barber shop for me. For once, I was able to walk right in and sit down in a chair. There is usually a 30 minute wait so I felt pretty lucky. 

Today I have nothing on the calendar except to either go downstairs and work on my sermon for the 29th or I need to go up and run the bulletins for the week. Tomorrow we have two different doctor’s appointments for Ms. Kate and they will mess up most of the day because they are spaced apart just enough to be a nuisance and they neither one take all that long.  However, it is supposed to start raining here in the next couple of hours and it’s not supposed to rain tomorrow at all. Decisions, decisions. I think today I will stay home and write. The incoming rain is supposed to be accompanied by some storms, —- so yep, I will stay home. 

Can you believe we are on the second half of January already. I keep looking at my calendar and seeing that we have so many things to plan for and plan around during the first half of the year. I am supposed to get five weeks a year of vacation but it seems that we never get the time to take it. We will take a week in March so we can go to North Carolina for Amanda’s wedding. But, it will be a hurried affair because I have to be back for the following Sunday which will be Palm Sunday. I have to Confirmands this year and they will be confirmed on Palm Sunday. One of the reasons we can’t take vacation now is because I teach the confirmation class every week. That stared last September so that knocks out a seven month period of time that we can’t take a vacation. But, starting June 1st, we will be doing our summer worship service schedule so maybe we can get a week or two in there. Or —- I could do what we do in the military and just save it until the four weeks before I retire. That would put me on vacation as of the 1st of December and my retirement starts the 31st of December. I could handle that. I guess we will see what we will see. 

That’s it for the 18th day of January. I pray you will have a wonderful day. Take some time today to make contact with God. It will improve your entire day. Peace. 

 Good morning on this rainy Monday morning. It is Martin Luther  King Jr. Day and therefore a National Holiday. It is an interesting kind of holiday. I think the only thing that closes on this particular holiday are things that are government related like government offices, post-office and mail delivery and banks. Retail places like shops and grocery stores and restaurants are all open. There will, of course, be ceremonies and speeches made here and there. Some churches will hold poorly attended services, and there will be some marches in the street to replicate the marches that Dr. King led; the participants in those will be mostly people from the black communities. (Am I allowed to say “black communities”? I don’t know anymore.) I guess my point in this is that Dr. King was a man with a great vision for all people. He had a wonderful vision of a society that could get past the color of people’s skin and see one another as just another person. He had a vision of a society that we could peacefully live with one another regardless of the color of our skin and ethnic background and we could and treat one another with dignity and lift one another up. He believed in non-violent protest against racism and segregation and injustice at any level. It got him shot down and killed by a hate-filled racist.

I personally think he would be appalled at all of the directions the movement he started has taken and the lack of progress toward his goal that has been made. No ghettos have been eliminated, school systems in black communities are still horribly underfunded. Education opportunities haven’t improved.  Trust between white people, black people, Asian people has gotten worse and more violent. Movements like the Black Lives Matter (BLM) have garnered millions and millions of dollars but have yet to build a single school. The Black Power movement became just another militant stomping around with their fists held high in the air. The Take a Knee movement during the playing of our National Anthem became the most recent decisive symbol and created more hate than support. 

I know this blog today sounds very cynical and I don’t mean it to; but it reflects our society from my perspective. Declaring a holiday might have been well intentioned but I believe the reality is that it really does nothing to solve any of the social justice problems in this country. I don’t think MLK Day has any more relevance that “Presidents Day” or any of the other “holidays” that are reasons to close government offices. I think Dr. King indeed “had a dream” and it was a wonderful dream. I would love to see our society realize that dream someday. Somehow, we need to move past the façade that we care and actually truly care about one another. Somehow our discussions need to become “prayerful conversations”. I personally believe there is a difference between holding a discussion and holding a conversation. Conversations require listening to one another. Discussions are just people presenting their view. Somehow our our actions need to become “prayerful actions”. Somehow we need to learn to actually see our neighbor. Somehow, we need to learn to love our neighbor and figure out a way to realize that we are in fact morally responsible or them. 

That’s it for today. I pray your day is fully blessed. Peace. 

 This won’t be long today; —— I just want to know who ordered snow?? That was rude of you. My daffodils are up, the bluebirds are eating at my feeders, it’s been 50 degrees, —- and I get up this morning to a coating of snow. Grump, grump, grump! Yeh, yeh, I know it’s melting already and I know by the weekend we’ll be back to mid forties, but that’s not the point. The simple point is that I don’t like snow. 

I writing a quick post today because I’m waiting for Ms. Kate to get ready to go. We’re heading to the funeral home this morning where I’m conducting the funeral of a good friend. I think I told you about her yesterday. She was a sweetheart of a lady and I don’t begrudge her passing because I know she was secure in her faith and was looking forward to being reunited with her husband. He was a great guy too and one heck of a woodworker. He made several pieces of furniture for use at the church that are still in use today. 

Once we get back home today, I need to finish up my sermon that I’m working on for the 22nd of January. I have it half done and have some good note that I jotted down to use or at least use to remind me to stay on track. I do that a lot. While I was sitting here working on this, I came up with an idea for a sermon and stopped and made some notes. Maybe I’ll write it, maybe I won’t. I come up with “sermon thought” all the time and make little notes to myself. There are a lot of “one-line-sermons” laying on my desk that never get developed. I suspect all pastors do pretty much the same thing. But if I don’t write myself a note, —- those thoughts for sure will never see the light of day. 

Okay, time to go. Have yourself a wonderful Friday. Stay warm and out of the weather. Peace.