Plymouth UMC

Plymouth UMC United Methodist Church

Sometimes I am knee deep in books and papers, studying, learning, chasing down an idea or another, going down rabbit hol...
09/10/2026

Sometimes I am knee deep in books and papers, studying, learning, chasing down an idea or another, going down rabbit holes.

And I love it.

Sometimes, I’m on a lawnmower. Or a tractor. Or the UTV. Or driving our old farm truck pulling a trailer.

Sometimes, I’m in board meetings, wrestling with schedules and and policy and concepts.

And sometimes I move chairs from one church to another, because they have chairs and we need more chairs.

Because this week, we’re celebrating two hundred years of Plymouth United Methodist Church.

When we first received a charter, John Quincy Adams was President of the United States.

And there were only twenty-four states.

People traveled on horseback, by carriage, on foot, on trains and by boat.

Electric lights had not yet been invented.

But in Plymouth North Carolina on Sunday morning, men and women and children met to worship together and to do their best to love God and to love each other as Jesus commanded.

And now, two hundred years later, we still do.

On Sunday mornings we still meet together and do our best to follow the teachings of Jesus, who said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘ You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22.37-40).

And you know, it really is that simple.

And that eternal.

Love.

Just, love.

Blessings,
Vickie

Life pulls me away from this old farm a lot of days. Work beckons, other commitments, sometimes. I am not often here for...
09/09/2026

Life pulls me away from this old farm a lot of days.

Work beckons, other commitments, sometimes.

I am not often here for both sunrise and sunset.

Usually I am on the porch for sunrise, and I was this day. I watched the east, watched dawn arrive and chase away darkness, saw sun overcome silver moonlight and spread westward over field and pasture.

Sugar and Roscoe slept on in the shelter, but the old rooster Hollywood, one of only two chickens who remain from The Old Farmer’s flocks, crowed in morning. He is old now, limping and feeble. His tail feathers droop, and he sleeps most of the day. But he loves blueberries and watermelon and fresh, cold water straight from the hose. He and I talk early in the day. Across the way, Admiral Halsey, our Barred Rock rooster, crows. He is always second to wake up, and truth, I don’t know if sun awakens him, or Hollywood.

It’s peaceful here in early hours. Dogs have been outside, eaten breakfast, and settled into soft beds for morning nap. In an hour or two they’ll be up again and like hobbits, find second breakfast.

But usually, work pulls me away and I don’t see Sun make its way across the sky. And so it was today. But by noon, the sun was directly over this space, and I was home again.

And this evening, I sit, rocking, on porch. My Boy is here, dogs are quiet around us, and Sun sinks down behind the trees west of us.

Every day, the same.

Sun rises in the east, settles in the west.

Morning chases evening, evening follows morning.

There is comfort in the promise of morning and evening, just as it has always been, from the beginning of time.

When I am here, sunrise and sunset.

And when I am not here, sunrise and sunset.

Each Sunday, we sing together that ancient praise, the Gloria Parti, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, amen. Amen.”

Blessings,
Vickie

He was on a piling out in the river, close enough I could see the wind ruffle his feathers, close enough I could see his...
09/09/2026

He was on a piling out in the river, close enough I could see the wind ruffle his feathers, close enough I could see his dark eyes, but far enough away from me he didn’t feel threatened.

He watched us, we watched him.

We watched him watch us.

My view of seagulls is shaped mostly by times on the beach when I see them wheel and turn, float on hidden air currents just above our heads. They are searching for food—and I am grateful just to share space with them, creatures of earth and sky and sea.

And I think, not for the first time, what a world we live in.

Seagulls and snails, platypus and rhinoceros, bacteria and cats and hummingbirds, all sharing this one home with us.

Psalm 150, the very last psalm of our psalter, reminds us that each of these creatures, in their own way, gives thanks to the Lord for life and health and strength and for purpose.

This night, with the psalmist I sing, “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150.6).

As our own Communion liturgy reminds us, “It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Almighty God.”

And it is.

Blessings,
Vickie

My Youngest Baby Girl inherited the decorating gene from her granny, my mama. She decorated for every holiday. Christmas...
09/07/2026

My Youngest Baby Girl inherited the decorating gene from her granny, my mama.

She decorated for every holiday.

Christmas trees and wreaths and Old World Santas.

Christmas crèches and nativities.

Valentine Day trees with splashy red hearts, Easter eggs and Easter bunnies and pastel grasses, Fourth of July flags and picnic baskets and watermelons.

I have a Christmas tree.

But my mama…she had an elaborate Christmas village with houses and shops and skaters who moved round and round a pond. The dentist shop had a backstory. The dance studio had a backstory. There was a church for me, a fire station, a police station, a Christmas tree in front of the courthouse.

And Halloween! My mama loved Halloween.

She decorated with scarecrows and jack-o’-lanterns.

When she lived in her farmhouse in town with the big front porch, she had lights and black cats, and she and her best friend always dressed up in their favorite costumes to hand out candy—Mama was a witch with a tall pointed hat and green skin and an eerie black gown, broomstick within reach.

Cleaning out her house after she died was hard. I had to dispose of a lifetime of things she loved that I simply had no room for. My two Baby Girls have some of her things, but truth, I still have a barn full of stuff—just stuff—I couldn’t bear to give away.

But my Tami has Mom’s jack-o’-lanterns. She has already decked out her front porch for Halloween, and this year, those funny pumpkins flank her front door.

That’s all tonight, just memory and celebration that somewhere down on Soundside, my mama’s jack-o’-lanterns are still making people smile.

That makes me smile, and I know it would make Mom happy.

Blessings,
Vickie

09/06/2026

September 6, 2026

Luke 10.25-37

And Who Is My Neighbor?

There is a storm blowing up north of us, across the Albemarle Sound. I’m having the hardest time getting my bearings up ...
09/04/2026

There is a storm blowing up north of us, across the Albemarle Sound.

I’m having the hardest time getting my bearings up here on the farm.

I’m disoriented.

For so many years of my life, I was able to locate where the sound is, where the river is.

I knew where the sun came up on Riverneck and where it set.

I knew what direction was town, what direction was Alligator, what direction was Gum Neck and then Kilkenny.

When clouds blew up, I knew to step out on my front porch and watch it roll in across Harry’s corn, growing green and tall in field. Rain always came from Tobi’s way, from the place I saw river water glint through trees in early morning.

Here, I’m still learning.

I grew up here, sort of, chasing down behind my grandma and my granddaddy, following them wherever I could go—to the old barn in morning to milk Grandma’s cow, to the chicken houses to feed and pick up eggs, to the barn where the old corn sheller was, to the pasture where beef cows grazed.

But I never bothered myself about where other places were when I was here.

Because I was where I wanted to be.

Now, it seems important to be able to point in the right cardinal direction when I talk about gong somewhere.

I’m not even sure why.

But I know there is a storm brewing north of us. Hummingbirds are eating almost faster than we can keep feeders full, and Roscoe and Sugar’s supper may be later than they like it to be.

And I can tell you, I am still right where I want to be.

Maybe you are, too.

Blessings,
Vickie

I have a tiny little pottery vase my Youngest Baby Girl gifted me for Christmas last year. It’s tiny, delicate. I love h...
09/04/2026

I have a tiny little pottery vase my Youngest Baby Girl gifted me for Christmas last year.

It’s tiny, delicate.

I love handmade things, and she knows it—she knows me well, and I love it.

It’s miniature.

I’ve tried putting a dandelion in it, one vibrant yellow dandelion, but they close quickly when they are picked and carried away from the earth that nourishes them. A day, and they close up, fade away.

There’s a lesson in there, I think.

I tried to think of what would fit, just right, in this perfect little vase.

And one day, I found a feather out in the grass here on the farm. It was close by a tree, sheltered from wind and rain. I marveled at how perfect it was. The shaft was straight; I think it’s a contour feather from one of the songbirds that grace us with music all through the day.

Maybe a mockingbird feather?

Maybe a catbird?

It fit perfectly in my vase.

Over the summer, I’ve found a couple more perfect feathers, and I save each one and tuck it away in the vase.

Once, My Boy found a single chicken feather, curly and dark. I’m sure it belonged to one our our Rhode Island Reds. It fits well in the vase and gives us a bit of variety.

Today I found a perfect feather in the churchyard.

Not the farm.

I smoothed it out, saved it, brought it home with me.

I like having a piece of the church here with me.

It reminds me my life here and my life there are all of a piece, and that who I am here is the same as who I am there, when I spend my days and my time in the shadow of the house of God.

There was an old sci-fi movie in the mid eighties that because a cult classic with a main character who said, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

It’s a truth.

Wherever we go, we take who we are with us, what we believe with us, how we behave with us.

That’s a pretty sobering thought.

We’re always us.

But pretty feathers.

Blessings,
Vickie

I remember digging ditches and canals in the dirt here on this old farm. I used a spoon from my grandma’s kitchen, and a...
09/02/2026

I remember digging ditches and canals in the dirt here on this old farm. I used a spoon from my grandma’s kitchen, and an old coffee can, the kind that held a real pound of coffee, not the twelve ounces we get in the grocery store today.

I dug ditches and canals around imaginary fields.

I planted pretend corn, soybeans, hay.

I harvested hay for my pastures full of pretend cows, stored it in barns I tucked under porches and among the roots of this old sycamore tree.

The Old Farmer would sometimes look over my work and tell me I needed to plow a straighter row or store my hay closer to the pasture so I wouldn’t have to move it so far to feed.

Constructive advice. He gave me me good, constructive advice.

And I learned from him.

I learned what was important on a farm.

I learned how to tend animals, I learned wheat follows corn in crop rotations, I learned that after beans are harvested, the land lies fallow for a time and heals.

A friend of mine sent me a beautiful picture this afternoon of her husband and her grandsons, playing in soil, intent on the work at hand.

I know it was an afternoon’s diversion for them all, a way to keep little boys busy and happy and engaged with grandparents, but this? I remember all those hours spent on my knees, grounded, touching soil, moving soil, deeply engaged with God’s Creation and learning what mattered from The Old Farmer.

I’ve never forgotten those hours.

I’ve never forgotten that time.

Now, in these years, I’m back here where I learned those lessons, where I learned to love the men who taught me and where I learned to love this simpler life.

Nor will these boys—or any children whose families farm—they will never forget what they learned today.

In Sunday school this past week, we made passing reference to Proverbs 22.6, which says “Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray.”

This.

Blessings,
Vickie

I almost missed it. I was in the truck, sitting in the cool, working. Roscoe and Sugar’s feed was in the back. Chicken f...
09/02/2026

I almost missed it.

I was in the truck, sitting in the cool, working. Roscoe and Sugar’s feed was in the back.

Chicken feed was in the back.

Cat food was in the back.

But I was absorbed in answering emails. I answered messages. I looked at work I needed to do.

And I almost missed it.

The sky was gorgeous.

Dramatic.

Sky was bluer than blue, light shone through cloud, startling, brilliant, white in intensity.

And I almost missed it because I was so tied to the work I thought was important.

But by the grace of God, I looked up.

I did see.

May we always look up.

May we always see the beauty that is close by, all around us, softly surrounding us, reminding us there is holiness in beauty, a sacredness there that draws us closer to our God.

Look up.

Blessings,
Vickie

We look hot and tired, because we were hot and tired. Ninety degree temperatures have returned to us here in eastern Nor...
08/31/2026

We look hot and tired, because we were hot and tired.

Ninety degree temperatures have returned to us here in eastern North Carolina, and truth, we shouldn’t be surprised. It is only the last day of August.

School began again last week, and even though it feels like it must be Autumn, it really isn’t.

Not yet.

She and I had worked at our food pantry for a bit this afternoon, outside in the heat and full sun, and we were hot.

Sweaty.

And we needed things from the grocery store.

She went there directly, I made a couple of phone calls, but still, there we were in the produce section, beside the apples, cooling off.

Chatting about supper.

About our upcoming Homecoming at Plymouth United Methodist Church.

About hotdogs.

About making a feed run for Roscoe and Sugar and the chickens tomorrow.

About friends and daughters, and about her grandchildren.

Wherever we have a chance for a good conversation with a friend, we are in the right place, and it is the right time.

We didn’t solve any world problems, but we did cool off, and we do have plans for our day tomorrow.

I have good work to look forward to, and good friends to look forward to; and that tonight, makes me of all women most fortunate.

Blessings,
Vickie

Address

109 E 3rd Street , PO BOX 734
Plymouth, NC
27962

Telephone

+12527932549

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