Mr. Rogers would say; “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood”, and he would be exactly right. Tight now it is a sunny 70 degrees out side. I went out long enough to water a few plants and take an envelope to the mail box. The sun is “eye-squintable”. Okay, that’s not a word or phrase, but I make them up as I go. 

I fixed a pan of canned biscuits this morning, got out a jar of Kate’s cherry freezer jam and ate all ten of the biscuits myself. Just to be fair, I’ll let you know that Kate didn’t want any, she had yogurt and was satisfied. I know it still sounds rather “piggy”, but you and I both know that caned biscuits don’t get very big and it’s probably no different than having a stack of pancakes. Although I was tempted to make Belgian waffles for breakfast. 

Jobs today on my list are to fill the bird feeders, and go to the churches and run my bulletins for the week. That is generally an hour job, but it’s also a 30 minute drive up and a thirty minute ride back, so it does take chunk out of the day. Then late this afternoon, I hope to get out and do some work on my raised beds. The weeds are not bashful already this year. I don’t think I told you that Kate and I went out to the nursery and bought our tomato plants on Monday. We won’t put them in the ground just yet but last year we didn’t get any nice ones because they were gone before we gout out to but any. I think we bought 13 plants which is more than we need, but if one or two doesn’t make it, it’s not a loss of much. We do love a good slicing tomato. So often when you raise big tomatoes, they have a large core in the middle of them and that’s just a waste. Hopefully these will be good varieties. 

I went out and bought sunflower seed for my birds yesterday. I could not believe the price of sunflower seed; —- a forty pound big cost me $50.00. I used to pay $17.00 for the same size bag only a couple of years ago. I only bought one bag. Last year the price went up to around $35.00 and they blamed it on drought. But now it is up another $15.00. I truly think that these companies know they can get the money so they just keep raising the price. If you want it —- pay the price. I’m lucky that I can still afford to buy it, but there are a lot of senior citizens that can’t afford to buy it and for many, watching and feeding the birds may be their only real pleasure. Watching and feeding the birds was my late mother-in-laws one real joy, but there is no way that she could afford these prices today. It’s very sad. 

That’s it for today. I hope you get a chance to get out and breathe in some warm spring air. Don’t stay too long though; —- the tree pollen in the air will mess you up. 

God bless! Peace. 

 Good morning on this Tuesday after Easter. Can you actually believe Easter has now come and gone?, Of course as a pastor, my prayer is that only April 9th is gone, but that Easter is still alive and well in the mind of everyone who turned out to celebrate with worship and song. 

As predicted, my Easter was filled with worship services. The choir did a wonderful job with the Easter Cantata and we had a really good turnout for it. That was followed by a breakfast and good fellowship. Then it was time for me to head up to St. Paul's for their regularly scheduled worship service. The church was full and it was a great worship experience for everyone. The young children enjoyed the children's message that Megan did. and we all enjoyed participating in Holy Communion. 

After the 0900 service while the folks at St. Paul's enjoyed an egg hunt and taking lots of Easter pictures , I headed down to St. Lucas for the 1030 service and we did it all over again. Again, we had a full church. I felt very blessed and a bit sad. This was my last Easter service as pastor of this parish. There will be a lot of :lasts" this year. 

While I was at church, Julie and Jim came over. Kate made lunch for us and Jim put the lawn mower deck on the John Deere for me. My yard was really starting to get tall and needed to be cut, so thanks to him for that. 

Yesterday morning Kate had a regular family doctor's appointment. He as happy with how her healing was going as it had just been one week since her surgery. She is still very tender and sore. His advice was "don't be a hero" -- take your Tylenol more often if you need it. Good advice. 

So that's it for today. Have a great day. I have a yard that wants to meet my John Deere and get reacquainted. Peace. 

 Good morning! Do we actually say; “Happy Good Friday”  or is it more appropriate to simply give a blessing greeting? I’m not sure —- the events we recall that bring us Good Friday are horrendous at best. However, without those events, the event s of Easter Sunday could not have occurred. So, it’s dealer’s choice I guess. 

Good Friday is the day that we Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Tradition tells us that he was nailed to the cross at around 9:00 am and hung there suffering until approximately 3:00 pm. Most crucified prisoners would linger there sometimes for days but they had not been beaten to within an inch of their lives prior to the crucifixion. Jesus listed for six hours before declaring “It is Finished” and brewing his last breath. Due to the rapidly approaching Sabbath his mourners had to take him down quickly from the cross if he were not to hang there for another 24 plus hours. Unfortunately they had no where to place his body, but as always, God intervened and a friendly Pharisee named Joseph of the town of Arimathea spoke up and obtained permission from Pilate to assume responsibility for the body and they placed Jesus temporarily in a grave belonging to Joseph. None of them knew just how temporary his stay would actually be. But —- that is another sermon for another day.

We had a wonderful Maundy Thursday service last evening. It was a combined parish event and was really well attended. We celebrated Holy Communion and also did a Tenebrae reading. All of the readers did a great job. It was also first communion for our two confirmation graduates and marks their first event as full members of the church. 

Now I look forward to Sunday. We’ll start the day with a “Sunrise service” and our parish choir doing an Easter Cantata. The choir has worked really hard and they are well prepared. The cantata is entitled “The Cross”. 

I did get much of my outside work done yesterday and today I really need to sty inside and finish up that sermon. 

If I don’t write tomorrow, I wish you a very blessed Easter. If you are a member of the Christian Faith —— this is the day that defines our very reason for our belief. I urge you to attend your house of worship and give God praise. Peace. 

 It may or may not surprise you that I like to listen to a little lite opera once in awhile. Well, I guess I you can’ call this opera, although this particular trust is doing part of the album in Italian. I pulled up one of my two Katherine Jenkins albums this morning to listen to. She was all the rage maybe five or six years ago. She has a beautiful operatic voice, she is a beautiful woman and not a bad dancer either. She was on Dancing With The Stars and although she didn’t win, she did very well. She also appears to be a very proud and good mom. She is worth listening to. You can pull her up on You Tube.

April 6th, it is Maundy Thursday. I don’t know if your particular church celebrates Maundy Thursday or not. We will have a Parish wide service this evening and include a Tenebrae service and Holy Communion.  We end the service in silence and begin an all night prayer vigil to honor the words of Jesus when he said “Can you not watch with me, even for one hour?” Our service commemorates the “Last Supper” and the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot. It is also the “first communion” for our confirmation graduates. It is an important service for us. We don’t do a Good Friday Service like a lot of churches do. I think there will be a Good Friday service somewhere but have not heard of one. Often the Protestant churches will join with their Catholic brothers and sisters in recognition of Good Friday. 

Sunday, I will have three services; 0700, 0900, and 1030. Then, I think I will take a long nap in the afternoon. Well, actually I take a nap every Sunday afternoon. So, there is that!

Ms. Kate had a bad day yesterday. Her two surgery incisions were bothering her and she had an upset stomach. That may have been because she got back on some of the medications that she had been required to stop taking before surgery. She got up in the middle of the night last night and moved to her recliner in order to get comfortable. But, she is feeling a little better this morning. 

I have bird feeders to fill, stick to pick up in the yard, and a lot of weed eating to do today. Jim hasn’t been over to put the mower deck on and the yard is getting tall. But, I really need to take some of it down with the weed eater. Oh, and I still have a sermon to finish. 

I guess that means I better get off of my chair and on to me feet getting busy. Have a very blessed day. Peace. 

 Good morning and happy April 5th. Once again we are under a tornado watch. Like most people, I tired of the weekly tornado/severe storm watch routine. We have been very lucky at least in our neighborhood that there has not been any significant damage because of storms etc. Just about seventy miles up the road there was a very destructive tornado that wiped out the southern half of the town. I pray for those folks and for the people that lost family members. I think there was another tornado over in Missouri last night and one or more lives were lost. 

I’m glad to say that Ms. Kate is doing very well, all things considered. She only has to take Tylenol tablets a couple of times a day. Last night I noticed that she even was able to sleep on her left side which is a big improvement. That is the side they did the surgery on. The incision on the breast doesn’t bother her near as much as the incision to remove a lymph node under her arm. That’s where her bra rubs and she has to continue to wear one for support. But she says it is a small price to pay to get rid of the cancer. 

I got a good start on my sermon for the 16th last night and I have learned a lot in the process of writing the sermon. It’s always amazing to me when I find new things from scripture that I have read before many times. Last night I had the opportunity to do a good comparison of the four gospels on a certain subject and it was very interesting to see the similarities and the differences. It becomes obvious what each gospel writer considered important and what their slant or view was on their writing of their particular gospel. Mark, was the first gospel written and Matthew copied so much of his gospel as did Luke. Luke did more research on Jesus and reports in a different style that Matthew or Mark. John is a different type of gospel altogether. He approaches the story of Christ from a divinity approach, meaning that he looks at everything through the thought of Christ being the Son of God and being a part of God. The other three work through the human issues associated  with Jesus. 

Okay, our cleaning lady is here and is ready to move in to the kitchen so I got to get out of the way. I hope you have a wonderful day. Peace. 

 Good morning, I hope your day is going great. I don’t have a lot to say today but I did want to update you on Ms. Kate. 

As I told you yesterday as an add-on, The surgery went well and the doctor was pleased. We got her home and she rested pretty well for the remainder of the day. Last night she kept like a log, as did we all. She said that she woke up a couple of time but went right back to sleep. She got up this morning around 0830 well rested but needing to take a Tylenol. It is a little after noon and she is napping again. Julie has gone home about 40 minutes ago. I went to the grocery store and picked up some items for supper. Later on I plan to put some chicken thighs on the grill. 

Wee are all so pleased that she is dog so well. We are even more pleased that it pears that the doctor was able to get all of the cancer out through a lumpectomy. She goes back to see her surgeon o the 20th and then her oncologist on the 24th to determine how much radiation she will have to have or whether or not chemo will be warranted. At this point, I can’t see that she will need chemo, but what ever the oncologist says is what we will do. 

So that’s it for today. My lady is doing well and that just makes it an extra Holy Week blessing.After all, no healing happens with out divine intervention. Have a blessed week. 

 Good Monday morning to you. It’s April 3rd and Holy Week began yesterday with the celebration of Palm Sunday. We had good attendance at both churches which is par for the course for the Christmas and Easter seasons. But with a confirmation ceremony as part of the service, we had a bigger than normal attendance.  Unfortunately the person that was running the video/audio stuff didn’t get it done right so we didn’t live stream or record the ceremony. 

We had a night of thunderstorms last night. I don’t know how much rain we got because I haven’t had time to check it out. But the thunder was loud and long and we had a pretty good light show gong on too. 

The big story of today of course is Ms. Kate’s breast lumpectomy surgery. We are at the hospital right now. They just took her back for surgery. The surgery should take about 45 minutes and then she will be in recovery for another 45 minutes. It is almost 1100 now. We had to be here at 0615 for some reason. They had to take her for another mammogram for any last minute checks on the size and placement of the cancer. So that is part of the reason for the early arrival.. But, if all goes well, we should be able to take her her home by around 1330. I imagine she will be sleeping most of the afternoon, which is fine. Julie and I are ready for a nap too. LOL We have had several texts this morning from well wishers and if you are one of them, we thank you. Kate and I re not worried about tis and anticipate that everything is going to be fine.  That’s what you do when you decide to turn your worries over to God. 

So, I’ll let y’all know to morrow how things went. Until then, this is Holy Week. Stay close to Christ this week. Peace.