Welcome to Black History Month! We will be honoring this month in a number of ways. For starters -- in the pulpit on Sunday mornings, the topics this month will all have to do with Black History. For example, on February 20, I will be preaching about Howard Thurman. We will additionally have a "Did You Know" segment lasting 2-3 minutes each service.

I'm going to cheat a little bit this week - it's not really an all that difficult to translate word, but it is one that is...close to my heart, I suppose. Morgenstern is possibly a word some of you will be familiar with - it's also a last name, and a historical weapon, but it means 'morning star', referring to Venus (or sometimes another planet, but most commonly Venus), which for part of the year is very bright, and the last 'star' to fade from the sky in the morning.
 

I grew up, mostly, in the woods in North Georgia, and spent a lot of time running around those woods. I spent even more time in the woods when I was in college, working as a counselor at a summer camp.  When it's sunny, and in the summer when there are leaves, the sunlight filters down through the trees and creates cool dappled patterns on the ground, as well as making obvious beams that are, themselves, rather beautiful when you see them from just the right angle.