And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.
Galatians 3:7
so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham.
Words of Grace For Today
Righteousness is, by definition, the quality attributed to someone who does this right. Or as Wikipedia has it (like many other dictionaries – no surprise) it is the quality or state of being morally correct and justifiable.
Further as Wikipedia has it: William Tyndale (Bible translator into English in 1526) remodelled the word after an earlier word rihtwis, which would have yielded modern English *rightwise or *rightways. He used it to translate the Hebrew root צדק tzedek, which appears over five hundred times in the Hebrew Bible, and the Greek word δίκαιος (dikaios), which appears more than two hundred times in the New Testament.
It is tzedek here in Genesis that is translated as righteousness. It is connected with justice, and not merely the dispensing of decisions (that may or may not be just) as courts do, but about ensuring that decisions are just before they are made and that after ensuring that injustices are corrected.
It is all about doing, and doing it right, or doing what is necessary to make sure what is done wrong is corrected to be that which is done right.
So how is it that Abraham gets off being called righteous! He was a man of God, but he was also a cheat, thief, and con man. For those who do not want us to forget (rightfully so) our female ancestors, Sarah was right there with Abraham, helping him with his cheating, thieving, and conning! Abraham, less Sarah on this one, was ready to kill his own son, until God stopped him. So he could be considered, in his heart, to be a murderer. How can one such person be considered righteous.
Consider for a moment what then it means to be called a descendant of Abraham because of what we believe!
How can Abraham be consider to be righteous?
By faith.
He believed the right things?
Or as the New Testament witness clarifies again and again, we are saved by God’s grace (gift), not by what we do, think, or believe, but by what the Holy Spirit brings us to do, think, and believe.
So we do not really ‘do’ any of this on our own, certainly not by our own ‘free’ will.
And neither did Abraham.
God made it so. We might say God justly did it so.
And that is where all righteousness comes from, from God justly doing it … to us.
We get to be called righteous and we get to be eternally grateful, for left on our own righteousness is impossible, as plenty of history and current events give witness to!
Let us begin the day, then, trusting that the Holy Spirit will bring us to do righteously, and always giving thanks that it is so, also this day for us.
This pine took about 15 years to grow to it’s six foot height. A quad (on private land beyond a barrier in the road to stop his all too frequent and intentionally extra noisy intrusions) took one roaring instant to run it over and kill it.
What was He thinking, when He created this quad-idiot?
Isaiah 66:2
All these things my hand has made, and so all these things are mine, says the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look, to the humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at my word.
John 17:17
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth
Words of Grace For Today
What a wonder God has created.
It is a privilege to be able to spend time of solitude and retreat among the trees, near and on and in (chillly!) the water, gather for stories around a campfire with it’s smoke scattering the mosquitoes when the wind is not strong enough blow them away and us free of them, and to sleep in the fresh air (as long as one ignores the pollution created by the oil processing plants not a half mile away.)
This long weekend after the rain storms let up, the campground was inundated with people seeking to be campers, bringing tents, campers, small yappy dogs, large constantly barking dogs and equipment, drinks and marijuana galore, kayaks, motorboats, and jetskis to ply the water with increasing fumes, oil on the water, and endless droning whines of engines, quads and motorbikes to rip up the ground and knock down trees, sound systems to pound out loud noise for miles … oh and a few fireworks. They sought out any open space to set up their campsites, making a veritable city in the woods.
So much for solitude, retreat, and time for quiet reflection in nature. Everything they do, other than being on the water, is more easily done at home in their own backyards, though bylaws restrict the extreme noise at the late hours.
Theirs is not a quest to enjoy nature. It is, apparently, to destroy nature, and their own bodies and minds.
God created all this: the wonders of nature, and the stupidity of humanity to destroy everything around them and themselves as well. What was God thinking?
God certainly created it all, and God looks not to those who destroy nature and themselves. Doch God looks to the humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at God’s word.
Were it so that those who came to this place of the wonders of creation would come to be humble and contrite, trembling at God’s word, respecting the land, the water, the trees, the wildlife, and the other guests.
Were it so that those who came to this place of wonders, consecrated holy and set apart as a retreat, would come to renew their spirits, instead of destroy their hearts, minds and souls with spirits and drugs.
Of course, not all who come, come to destroy. Some actually come to bask in the beauty, drink up the wonders and fresh air, and reconnect their bodies, minds, and souls with God’s good creation. It’s just they get drowned out by the destruction-seekers-doers.
Yet, here truth is rediscovered, rekindled, and nurtured, so that if one so chooses, one can find life abundant here, and say upon departing back to their everyday lives: God has sanctified us in the truth; God’s Word (evident in God’s creation) is truth.
So let it be also in this consecrated meadow, a holy hermitage, a place to live of last resort, and a resort of God’s many blessings, as with those who live elsewhere and only by reading experience a slice of the holy life lived here.
For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?
Matthew 9:22
Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, ‘Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.’ And instantly the woman was made well.
Words of Grace For Today
Life is full of challenges, suffering, and grief.
Life is full of memories for which we can give thanks, and praise God for God’s abundant goodness … even for us undeserving sinners.
Life is full of illnesses that divert all our energies from living fully, to trying to cope with this painful moment or that overwhelming demand on us, a demand we must meet if we want to survive.
God knows this. God knew this before God began to create the universe, and us in it.
God sends Jesus, and Jesus’ followers, to heal us, not just in body, but also in our minds and spirits, so that our faith will make us well.
Jesus and Jesus’ followers save us from death and from the places where/when we have no memories of God’s great works for us and our ancestors.
Like the woman, pushing through the crowd to get close to Jesus, to just ‘touch’ his garment, we often find ourselves pushing against the crowds of people that think they know all that is to be known about life and that they have the ‘keys to the cities’ or to the counties or countrysides (or as it is: municipal districts) in which we live. Then, when we finally reach through the mass of discontent and querdenkers and bullies, we feel the goodness and life-giving healing power of Jesus’ Word and Being.
We are instantly made well. Or sometimes over months or years we are made well. Or sometimes we get to go home to the dwelling Jesus has prepared for us, where no one forgets to give thanks and praise to God for all God’s goodness, grace, love, and mercy.
It’s a dance, to a lovely melody, with great harmonies in all the parts, with a great partner, with pauses when we get tired or stiff from arthritis, or simply tired of the foolishness of other people in this good creation.
So today, we dance on, to the beat of Jesus’ drum. (Some used to call it Thor’s hammer.)
The wedge is there on the side of the tree towards where it is markedly leaning, with a long back cut towards the other side. And there is a cut above it, made by poking the saw nose first through the tree! That’s an unusual, often dangerous cut to make, and completely unnecessary here. So what was he thinking?
Here you see clearly the angled cut made up into the top cut. What was that for? It guaranteed the saw would get clamped by 3000 lbs.
From the other side you see clearly the cut that was not made, which left the tree hanging and clamping his saw. When I arrived the idea they had tried was to ‘push’ the tree over. Really! Physics is pretty much unbiased: two people totally maybe 300 lbs are not going to break that much tree fibre by pushing with all their might. That’s what saws are for.
Exodus 15:2
Moses started off his recounting God’s great deliverance through the Red Sea: ‘The Lord is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.’
Luke 1:49
Mary said: ‘for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.’
Words of Grace For Today
Lordy, Lordy, what was he thinking?!!
Sometimes it is hard to figure out what motivates people or what they were thinking when the started down the road you find them on.
Take the man and the woman who found themselves cutting down a tree on private property (not their property at all) claiming they thought it was public land, as if that would make it better. His excuse was it was dead already.
(Now I was done for the day, tired and sore. There was just enough time before the late sunset at 22:00 ish to get a shower and be in bed to enjoy not being awake still for the almost as-late-as-it-gets-all-year sunset. Then I hear voices, excited, and a chainsaw revved up, working a cut, then another, then another, and then … hard to tell what that sound was, by then I’d found the three of them, and one was as it should be … the chainsaw, because even if it was stuck, it was doing exactly what it was designed to do, letting a fool get into trouble and saving his butt. My first question was, “What were you doing?” “Cutting down the tree.” “Yes, I see that, but what were you doing with those cuts? I’m curious and always willing to learn. I’ve been around a lot of tree felling and I’ve never seen any cuts like that?” To which he just got belligerent, swore and refused to talk, like a teenager caught in something stupid and inexplicable.)
Yes, the tree was dead, but what was he thinking going on private land to cut down even a dead tree.
He challenged the information I gave him that this was private land he was cutting down a dead tree on. He asked about all the other campers out here.
Well, that’s hard to figure since the neighbouring piece of land is public land, either crown land or municipal district land, that people have used and abused for generations as a camp and drink and drug and bush party place. Admittedly consumption of marijuana is legal and the current government has made it legal to drink in the provincial campgrounds, and then only at your own campsite. It’s still illegal to use other recreational drugs anywhere (well almost, since there are safe sites and cities where possession of small amounts is still illegal but they have permission from the government of Canada not to enforce those laws) and it’s still illegal to walk away from your own camp and drink, or to drink on public land without a campsite of your own. Which means that Uncle Bill cannot come visit you where you are camping and legally down a beer with you, or smoke a joint, or shoot up some ‘joy’.
That all said, the neighbouring piece of land is public land and it is illegal to cut down a standing tree (living or dead) on public land (unless you have bought and paid for a permit to do explicitly that.)
So what were these people thinking or planning?
More concerning is, if one takes a look at the cuts the guy made with the chainsaw, why did he intentionally get the chainsaw clamped in the tree?
There are lots of ways to bring down a tree, many of them very dangerous that you can get away with until that last time when you don’t and that’s the last thing you do in this life. These kind of cuts are like that: intended to get someone killed.
He was luck, extremely lucky. He went to fetch and axe to cut the last few inches that held the tree up. I went and brought back the chainsaw I borrow and waited. I offered to cut it carefully while he held his saw. No, bravado and stupidity won out and he proceeded to whack at it with his dull axe until the tree fell, all ~3000 lbs of it and his chainsaw hit the ground, luckily clear of the tree.
And there the dead, felled tree sits, 200 yards from the property line, in the middle of the woods, not even near a road. It’s pine so it’s not safe to burn in a stove unless one cleans the chimney very often, like every two weeks at least. Lots of fuel (with that sap that sticks around) to burn, but there’s no good use for it.
This guy is one of God’s creatures. What was God thinking when this guy was created?
As for me, like Mary, I can say for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And with Moses: The Lord is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
But what was God thinking? And what was that guy thinking: ‘gonna test God’s ability to save me?’
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
John 17:3
[Referring to himself in the third person, Jesus prays:] Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Words of Grace For Today
Sophie was old and tired, worn right out, leaking where leaking definitely should not happen. Through the years so many different people had taken her out to the most remote places, far away places, beautiful places in the wonderful creation of God, and used her and abused her, and then dragged her back home and left her and ignored her until the next time they wanted to drag her out again. Then she would be sold to others who would do the same to her, over and over. She could barely stand up right anymore. It’s as if someone had taken her spring right out of her step, if she had had a step left at all. While she had been all cut up to fit someone’s fantasy, it had not worked too well. Most of all that pesty leak grew into a big leak, and a second started, and her pretty skin started to turn black, oozing with stink.
Gillis was smaller than Sophie, but his history was pretty much the same, though more extreme. He’d been jacked all around, dragged through all kinds of mud, out into the boonies far from civilization, and there used and abused, smeared with mud, gunk, and all kinds of unspeakables. Lucky for Gillis, though he too was worn right out and had started to leak where leaks should not happen, his did not progress to the stinking, oozing stage that Sophie’s had.
Both Gillis and Sophie came to the hermitage in the meadow, bought to give them their freedom, to be fixed up well for their last years. In the peaceful surroundings, with much time, soothing talk, hard work using the tools of a counsellor and healer-fixer-whatnot, at least Gillis became something. First his leak was dealt with, cured and healed with barely a scar left. Then he was treated and cured and fixed up from the inside out, given a new look, if not new, at least respectable. Even his water works were fixed and started to flow as they should.
Sophie sat, waiting her turn, her leaks bandaged up for the time being, the black oozing stopped so that more damage would not take her down. Some of her parts that she could not use were transplanted into Gillis to give him new life. When her time came, she would get brand new organs, parts and pieces until she, too, could go out, if not new, then respectably providing for at least a few people.
Moses puts before the people, after reminding them of the wondrous works of God to bring them to where they are, alive and free, ready to enter the Promised Land, that they have a choice: to serve God who has provided for them and their ancestors following God’s Law provided to them, or to turn to other gods, and other ways of living, cursed ways. They get to choose: blessings or curses.
We, too, even today, are free to choose to either serve God and enjoy blessings unending or to turn to other gods and to serve the Devil in all his many guises, bringing curses down upon us and ours.
We have free choice.
Jesus comes to save us from our choices to turn from God, to renew for us the possiblities to choose God, and to follow God’s Law, updated as it needed to be, from the many hundreds of thousand of words to a concise comprehensible ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself, loving especially your enemy.’ Of course this Law, Jesus’ law taking into it all the Law of Moses and all the commentaries and guides provided to it, is just as impossible for us to keep.
We with free choice, can only ‘choose’ to serve God and keep God’s Law, when the Holy Spirit brings us to so choose and live. A bit of a paradox: free but not able to be free. Martin Luther held it to be single predestination: We can fully choose to turn from God, but only God can and does save us.
This is life, and we have, by the blessing poured over us by the Holy Spirit and the gift of renewed free choice, the ability to choose to ‘try’ to serve God.
Sophie and Gillis, part of God’s good creation and having brought great joy to so many people, now entering their last years of useful life, have no such choice. They are, as one might suspect, merely recreational vehicles, camper trailers, small campers 14’ and 12’ respectively, both built in the 70’s and now near 50 years old. People have used and abused them to camp in. Some with some respect for the camper and creation that the camper made them able to visit and overnight in, some not with tremendous abuse of camper and creation.
Let us give God thanks, this day again, for all that God has made us to be, even if we are old and worn and have sprung leaks and, and, and ….
It’s another day in God’s Promised Land, the wonders always before us, the blessings flowing freely over us, the work never ending.
And No One Is Falsely Accused, Not People, Not God,
but it is not so beyond this small refuge.
Ezekiel 33:17
Your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just’, when it is their own way that is not just.
Ephesians 5:10
Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.
Words of Grace For Today
A common illness among humans is to know full well something is wrong, but somehow be unable to identify oneself as the source. Instead we blame others, believing the fault cannot possibly be ourselves. Innocent people are blamed. It may be simple scapegoating. The blamed person never even knows they are blamed. Seems innocent way to deflect responsibility for one’s sins.
Until it is not so simple, for one has been doing this for so long one does not know when one is blaming others for one’s own sins, and when others actually are the wrongdoers, and one carries on, driving people out of town with their reputations ruined, taking people to court, fully perjurying oneself, and sending innocent people to jail. These things just get out of hand.
Lawyers, Prosecutors, Clerks and Judges see this so often and care not one wit, simply carrying, knowing full well innocent people are accused and then convicted, and very not innocent people blatantly lie under oath in court. The courts care not one bit because they, too, add their lies on top of the perjury provided, in order to convict innocent, unfavoured people, and giving guilty, favoured people the privilege of destroying other people, as the courts themselves participate. There must be some kind of reward for the courts, prosecutors, lawyers, rcmp, and the actually guilty people who perjure themselves. It’s the reward all bullies enjoy as they beat up others who certainly do not deserve to be beaten.
It is an easy step to blaming God for one’s own sins, claiming God is unjust, when the guilty and unjust player is oneself.
Against this there is little defence.
There is only the comfort in knowing that saints of all generations have suffered the same kind of injustice, and even Jesus himself was falsely accused and convicted, and killed in a most torturous way, by crucifixion. The comfort comes in knowing that one is not the only person so unjustly dealt with, and that through the generations, God has always accompanied those falsely accused and convicted, and killed.
While we live, we pray, God save us from such injustice, from such blind and sick people.
While we live, we pray, God helps us each day to find what pleases you, and to think, speak, and do as you would have us.
You, who have made me see many troubles and calamities, will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again.
John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
Words of Grace For Today
For generations people have gathered at the smaller lakes surrounding the larger Cold Lake. Cold Lake’s 210 square miles of water surface stretches for 21 km and it’s 142 meters depth keep it cold even in the hot short summers. While it has a great variety of fish, it’s catch and release today. Back as long as memory serves (some days that’s just hours) people of the area have gravitated to the many smaller lakes that dot the bush around Cold Lake. They warm up in the summer making swimming a real possibility (sort of) and freeze over sooner in the winter making ice fishing possible much earlier. Their smaller size also means that storms year around and the cold winds of winter are less drastic. Sometimes that’s a real factor when out fishing. And it makes for a better camping experience when camping, which usually means June through August, and maybe also September and May, for most people. Only the hardiest camp earlier in March and April and later in October and November. Only the real desperate homeless or the most die-hard campers stay at all in or through the winter.
The problem with the campers through the generations is that, while camping in a number of areas is by reservation and with payment only, there are plenty of ‘free’ places to camp, some even legally. That ‘free’ cost has meant that a number of people, incapable of caring for the land or water or other people have gravitated to these ‘free’ sites. During Covid restrictions they were abused as places to gather huge numbers of people to party, drink, eat, and drug up with no measures for anyone’s safety. Long before Covid the ‘bush party’ attitude descended on a number of these sites as well. Annual ‘Grad Parties’, organized by parents and grandparents descend on these sites, bringing hundreds of young people to drink, drug, and music their sanity into oblivion, as if that were the best life had to offer them. While a 14 day limit exists, there are many who claim the ‘right’ to camp for months on end. Among the many who have shown up and still do camp more discreetly are known drug dealers. The traffic in to their campsites to share a drink and buy supplies is constant. Now it’s into the third and fourth generations of people who show up, demanding that they have a heritage right to party away, without any limit, their brains, bodies and souls. To hell with the land, the trees, the animals, the water, or other people. Their claim extends to the surrounding privately owned land as well. They bring the loudest ‘toys’ to rip up the ground, traverse the private lands, belching noise and fumes as much as possible, exercising their ‘rights’ and demonstrating the value of their lives.
The land, the water, the animals, the trees, the sane people ask: where is peace to be found? Those with enough money find a quieter lake, buy property, and secure their piece of paradise with their money and ability to pay taxes, build cabins, and fence out intruders. Those without any money or choice to live elsewhere wonder aloud: how long oh Lord, how long, before peace is possible, not only when the bitter cold keeps the most dangerous of animals away?!
Would it not be nice to know that blatant disregard for life is only present here? It is everywhere. It is obvious here because there are fewer things that provide ‘cover’ for the abuses of life.
Yet, when the abuse subsides for a few hours, a day, or a week, even though nature may storm away, biting bitterly cold or thrashing wildly with ferocious winds, the beauty of God’s creation not visibly overwhelmed by human domination renews one’s spirit.
The unrelenting human need to draw out energy from the ground is all around: with bitumen drilled for, extracted, processed and shipped out. Though in the woods one can ignore it for the most part. Knowing eyes and ears discern the mark oil extraction has made everywhere.
So we pray: “Lord, when will peace come to this land, and to it’s people?”
Even if we are not afraid, how long before the nights are not broken by loud ‘music’ or exhaust pipes untamed? How long before drugs, alcohol, ‘music’, and sex are not constant escapes for so many people who might otherwise have lived productive lives? How long before … before your blessings flow to these people so far lost from life as you created us to live it?
How long, Lord, before, You, who have made me see many troubles and calamities, revive me again?
How long before your peace is apparent each day?
Or is it enough that it is only occasionally to be found here?
For thus says the Lord: Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel.’
Acts 4:29
And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness.
Words of Grace For Today
The people are just returned from exile and Jeremiah wants them to sing with loud gladness, to give praise as they beg God to save the remnant, what little remained after yet another attempt to wipe out God’s people.
Wiping out peoples is as old as it gets. Erase them. Eradicated them. Burn them to the ground. Be rid of them.
Not hard to feel that way. I get that way about wasps that are so plentiful out my door that it’s hard to get anything done. Let them be no more! All of them, Gone!
God does not guide us, God’s people, to be so with our enemies. Instead, God calls us to extend God’s mercy even to them.
That’s a bold move in a world that eats you alive when you are merciful. That’s as old as it gets, too.
So we pray often, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness.
The courage to know that grace is the only way to live a life that is abundant as God created us to live, even when that may well mean the backlash is enough to wipe one out.
To have that courage requires that one know how, when one has almost been wiped off the face of the earth, to give God praise and thanks with great gladness.
To whom else are we going to turn for life abundant?
How else are we going to enjoy it, if not celebrating in the face of adversity?
Today is another one of those days: lots of challenges, many from our enemies; lots of cause for thanks and praise given to God, and overwhelming joy.
Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’
Words of Grace For Today
It’s all too easy to say, ‘Yes, I have God before all other gods!’ And then run off to serve the requirements and demands of life as we have chosen to put together for ourselves of those promoted or sloughed off on or left for the dregs by this society. Still we choose a life, and it’s demands are ‘other gods’ to us, taking our lives and life energies and time, so that we barely have anything left for God.
But we still say, ‘I have no other gods before God!’
Everyone agrees with us, because they do the same deceptive dance.
This civilization, it can be argued, requires this of us. God will have to make do. So we choose this civilization that is more barbaric behind the scenes, behind closed doors, in dark alleys, and all too often in the open bright of the day for all to see. Then we are aghast at the barbarism displayed. We demand better gun control. We demand better care in senior’s homes. We demand more housing for the homeless. We demand fairer taxes. We demand sanctions against the unwarranted aggressors.
There is nothing we are able to do, because we are not willing to pay the price of eliminating all barbarism, for it would take too much from us.
Which, if the cost would be nuclear bombs going off in North America near cities and military bases, I guess I’m not quite willing to pay that price either (since I live near the biggest air base in Canada).
So how can we honestly, wholeheartedly, say with Peter, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’
How can we honestly and wholeheartedly follow the first commandment, putting God before all else, and not allowing anything else to gain the stature of a god in our lives?
We cannot.
Thank God, God knows this long before we figure it out.
God planned before time for this, too.
God forgives, cleanses, and renews us, and sends us out to tell of God’s great mercy and bountiful grace that saves us again and again from ourselves and all evil … and God gives us the Holy Spirit to guide us so that we can at least strive and somewhat have no other gods before God, and know that only Jesus has the words of eternal life. So we turn again, to Jesus, in prayer begging for forgiveness and life, and in thanks for the promise of life abundant.
Just another day, God watching our every thought, cheering us on to blessed living sharing God’s wonders with all people.
Some give freely, yet grow all the richer; others withhold what is due, and only suffer want.
Acts 20:35
In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Words of Grace For Today
Give to the poor?
Keep for one’s own future, security, and dependants or descendants?
Give to get rich?
Hoard to avoid starvation?
Help others a little?
Make it look like one is generous while really being careful to keep enough for oneself and one’s future?
There are all sorts of attitudes to have concerning the poor.
The greatest difference is whether one considers oneself poor. The richest people worry that they are not rich enough, do not have enough, are barely making it, can be wiped out in a day or year. The poorest people can live generously sharing what little they have.
In three small villages in Africa, a place close to my heart, the people were not rich by any standards. Many years ago a wise elder saw how the wet seasons were sometimes sufficient to provide water and growth and food to carry them through the dry season, and sometimes not. That elder had brought his village together and convinced them that they would better survive and even all thrive if through the times of plenty and hard times they would share among all members of the village. For decades the village survived and often had enough to share or trade with neighbouring villages.
A descendent of that wise man grew up not knowing hunger and was able to paint on dik dik skins scenes from their life high on the plateau. She also dreamed. One day she set out to realize her dream. She travelled away from her village for days to ‘see the world.’ She arrived at the ocean, where fishers plied the sea in small outriggers bringing in their catch to feed their families. She befriended one family and offered the small gifts, her paintings, she had brought along on her ‘adventure of a lifetime’.
When she returned she had a greater gift to offer her village. It was such a great gift that she shared it with a neighbouring village, and they shared it with yet one more. The fisher’s family also received this gift and shared it with their village and they shared it with two more villages. The gift was simple: they would come together, all six villages, as one village. Their children would travel to the other villages high on the plateau or down to the sea. Perhaps they would find mates there. The bonds would grow. They would share what gave them joy where they lived and in the other villages. And they would share what they could to feed, clothe and sustain each other in a bond of cooperation.
Now centuries later there are twenty villages, for the people have had more than a few children. These villages are known for miles and miles around. The people are generally happier than others around them. When difficulties arise, they respond more graciously with each other and with the real unsolvable problems of life. And, above all, the children grow up knowing that they will always have enough because they and all the villages together will share among themselves, and even with outsiders, all they have.
The attitude that sets these people apart from their good neighbours is one of gratitude.
This is the gift that the wise elder gave and shared with that one family by the sea, which they shared with their villages and with two more villages.
Today, have we the possibility of sharing this attitude with everyone we encounter?
