September 26, 2021 a thought for today, The world of humans is divided by lines, but the mind knows no limits, the heart no barriers. Moroccan Proverb

I left for church very early this morning. I wanted to get a bit of a head start on printing the newsletter before I meet Dorothy tomorrow to finish it. I didn’t know if I would run into some problems with the copier. Fortunately, there wasn’t too much of a problem to start with. The formatting was off kilter, as has been the habit for the part month or so, lines cut off and out of format. The stapling that has been off was working ...... for the first fifty copies. There was a paper jam, after that the stapling didn’t work. I finished printing without the stapling (I will do the ones I copied without staples by hand tomorrow). I want to see if maybe the paper jam upset the timing on the stapling. I will test that theory tomorrow. If it is still off, I guess we will have to call for repair. I had copied about seventy-five copies when it was time too quick for church service. 

Our photo theme for yesterday was “rows”. I couldn’t immediately come up with an idea for an image of rows. I thought of the slats in the porch swing or the slats in the neighbors’ fence and the row of plants along the side of my house. Then I thought of the row of beautiful houses along my neighborhood street. So I went out to take that shot, and found the row of cars along the curb so I used that image for my submission. 

My favorite minister gave the sermon this morning. As usual his sermon was quite meaningful for me. Our returning numbers are still low. Hopefully we will fill more of the pews at some point soon. 

Sue needs to run some errands this week so when I got home from church I asked if she would want to get one of them out of the way today. She said she would like that so I dropped her off at a thrift store for some shopping. I will pick her up when she calls. In the mean time I can get some things chalked off my to-do list (which is short due to this being Sunday). 

The word for today is finished. Art is never finished, only abandoned. Leonardo da Vinci. There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory. Francis Drake. What is not started today is never finished tomorrow. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  When you're finished changing, you're finished, Benjamin Franklin. The wise man, the true friend, the finished character, we seek everywhere, and only find in fragments. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Half finished work generally proves to be labor lost, Abraham Lincoln. The problem with doing nothing is not knowing when you're finished, Benjamin Franklin.  What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books. Thomas Carlyle. Now let us find solace in the finished work of our Lord Jesus. Everything is fully done: justice demands no more, Charles Spurgeon. Beauty is part of the finished language by which goodness speaks, George Eliot. While a man is stringing a harp, he tries the strings, not for music, but for construction. When it is finished it shall be played for melodies. God is fashioning the human heart for future joy. He only sounds a string here and there to see how far His work has progressed, Henry Ward Beecher.  

The photo challenge for today is “ behind me”. Before church started I took a partial selfie of the side of my face with the rest of the church behind me. Later, when I stopped at McDonalds, I took this shot out the back window of my car.

Lets learn about some of Columbus neighborhoods. Here’s Italian Village, a historic district of Columbus and part of the Short North area. It is located close to the downtown so has access to work, culture, education and entertainment. Eighty percent of the buildings are residential with other commercial structures. According to the article, Italian Village was one of the first suburbs in Columbus. In 1823 the Columbus-Worthington Pike (High Street) was built. This road is what precipitated residential growth in the Italian Village area.  In 1862 the Italian Village was annexed to Columbus. With the advent of street systems and alleys “that serviced horse stables behind residences” the village grew. In the 1900s Italian Village was a well established “residential community”. The village was an immigrant neighborhood concentrating on Italian immigrants in the beginning. However, from 1850-1870 the Irish made up part of the village. There was a street there nicknamed “Irish Broadway”. African Americans moved in for work prospects, railroad machinery and iron works. They established the Bethany Baptist Colored Church in 1882. The village continued to grow into the 1940s then it declined after World War II. Many of the residents moved to the suburbs and lower income families moved in. The larger homes were converted into multiple family homes. Due to low income families not being able to support the businesses in the village it continued to decline and became a “slum clearance program for construction of the inner belt and urban renewal”. The article related: “Concerned with the destruction of historic buildings, neighborhood residents and property owners began to take action”. In 1973 a group was formed to “preserve the historic value of the district”. Middle income families moved back to the neighborhood. New churches were built, catholic churches as well as others become landmarks. St. John the Baptist Italian Catholic Church, founded in 1896, flourished and drew members, mostly Italian immigrants, is still there with the sound of Italian spoken throughout the halls after Mass.  Today there are many restaurants and bars in Italian Village along with art galleries. The Short North entertainments are close by with theaters, farmers markets and parks. This particular article was quite lengthy so if you are interested in more information about the Italian Village in Columbus Ohio do a search through Google. 

Taco Bell for dinner. 

Joy

a peaceful walk in a beautiful park with an extra dropping along the path