SOLON & BEYOND, Week of December 7, 2017

by Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

Good morning, dear friends. Don’t worry, be happy!

The L.C. Bates Museum, in Hinckley, has received a grant which is benefiting students at Solon Elementary School this fall. Elizabeth Comstock of the museum staff visited the school once a week for six weeks to present natural history outreach programs to students in second and fourth grades. Topics for these presentations were wetland habitat, forest habitat, ocean habitat, Maine birds, bugs, and pollination.

The L.C. Bates Museum and the Colby College Museum of Art invited the school’s second and third graders to participate in a “Bird Day” on October 24. Then they went to the Colby College Museum of Art where they took a “nature walk” through the museum galleries, compared and drew bird bills, feet, and feathers in the Audubon exhibit, The grant paid the cost of the bussing, the museum programs, and lunch for the students, staff, and chaperones.

Lief and I attended the seventh annual Christmas Program, (along with a large crowd, even though I neglected to write that it was going to be held at the North Anson Congregational Church).

The audience was invited to sing several of the old familiar Christmas hymns, followed by a special Christmas Pageant Mary Walz organized this event and in mind, anyway, it was a great success!

Lief and I were blessed with two Thanksgivings this year. We were invited over to Andrew and Ashley Higgins’ home, in Skowhegan, on the weekend that Dean and Cheryl were here from Georgia. Others present were Cynthia and Allen Fitzmaurice, Hailey, Aaron and Jessica.

Received an e-mail recently about the Embden Historical Society having the following items for sale: “Embden Town of Yore,” they have recently reduced the price from $60 to $40, plus shipping if necessary. “South of Lost Nation,” $20 plus shipping if necessary. An Embden afghan which has been reduced from $50 to $25 plus shipping.

And so for Percy’s memoir, which is a great one! “Faith Is A Mighty Fortress.”

We look ahead through each changing year
With mixed emotions of Hope and Fear,
Hope for The Peace we long have sought,
Fear that Our Hopes will come to naught…
Unwilling to trust in the Father’s Will,
We count on our logic and shallow skill
And in our arrogance and pride,
Man is no longer satisfied
To place his confidence and love
With Childlike Faith in God above…
But tiny hands and tousled heads
That kneel in prayer by little beds
Are closer to the dear Lord’s heart
And of His Kingdom more a part
Than we who search and never find
The answers to our questioning mind,
For faith in things we cannot see
Requires a child’s simplicity…
Oh, Father, grant once more to men
A simple Childlike Faith again,
Forgetting Color, Race and Creed
And seeing only the heart’s deep need…
For Faith alone can save man’s soul
And lead him to a Higher Goal,
For there’s but one unfailing course
We win by Faith and Not by Force.