Geography – Page 13

Images of Blessings and Dangers to Life Itself

Thursday, April 7, 2022

Spring Snow Falls Heavy on Rust Leaves That Forgot To Let Go Last Fall

Are We Also Out of Sync with Creation

Has God Blessed Us Beyond All Imagination or Image of Blessing?

Genesis 49:22-26

‘Joseph is a fruitful bough,

a fruitful bough by a spring;

his branches run over the wall.

The archers fiercely attacked him;
they shot at him and pressed him hard.

Yet his bow remained taut,
and his arms were made agile

by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob,
by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,

by the God of your father, who will help you,
by the Almighty who will bless you
with blessings of heaven above,

blessings of the deep that lies beneath,
blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

The blessings of your father
are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains,

the bounties of the everlasting hills;
may they be on the head of Joseph,
on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.

by the God of your father, who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

1 John 3:18-20

Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

Words of Grace For Today

Images of God’s blessings reflect the world of the writer.

These passages from Genesis use the image of the bow held taut, arrows shot at one by one’s enemies who press hard against one (seeking one’s death), in counterpoint to God’s blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb, blessings that are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills.

The bow and arrow are no longer common in the arsenal used to kill us by our enemies. Mighty warships with great guns, fighter jets with smart missiles, drones for surveillance and armed with missiles and guns, automatic rifles, RPGs, tanks and artillery, fighter helicopters, nuclear submarines, silent submarines, radar, sonar, anti tank missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, and propaganda. Closer to home the weapons are hunting rifles, shotguns, poisons, deadly-wrongly-provided health care, webs of lies and deceptions, and corrupt police, lawyers, prosecutors and judges.

The deadliest, the least detected or spoken of, are always the psychological assaults, most destructively spun by one’s who have pursued, won, and spoken of love, though love is so far from their capability. Their self-interests are everything to them, and the lies told never end until one is dead and gone and hopefully forgotten … for if and when the truth is known the false-love persons are most detested and shamed … for they attack under the guise of what all know (even if they pretend not to accept): namely that love is the one precious piece of life that God gives us so that we can overcome all other challenges to life, and with love press on to live honest, honourable, and holy lives.

So we say with the writer of 1 John: Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

In love we see God’s attitude toward us and all creation, and by love we are emboldened to live and live abundantly, blessed with all blessings ever imagined, including God’s blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb, blessings that are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills.

God’s Music for Us All

Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Looking Up at The Iguazu Falls

Looking Down at The Largest Falls on Earth!

Barriers

Beauty:

Our Creator’s Visible Music

Ezra 3:11

They sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord, ‘For he is good, for his steadfast love endures for ever towards Israel.’ And all the people responded with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.

Mark 14:26

When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Words of Grace For Today

Music carries the human heart when all other modes of expression and communication fail.

A great moment is reached for the Israelis as Solomon has taken on the task of building a temple for their God, though God had many times said that there was to be no temple. Settling in the Promised Land transformed the people’s understanding of God’s needs (and their needs hidden therein). So Solomon starts building. Or rather a great number of the people, under orders from Solomon, start building, starting with the foundation.

Foundations are important not just in construction of buildings, but in life, and in relationships.

The 1986 movie The Mission portrays the Jesuit’s work to bring the Christian Gospel (as good news, life giving news) to the natives in South America where Brazil, northeastern Argentina and eastern Paraguayan meet today. Their outreach to the Guaraní natives, isolated beyond the Iguazu Falls, the largest falls in the world, has failed, resulting in the deaths of every priests who has ventured above the falls.

Father Gabriel, having ordered the last priest up the falls to his death, climbs the cliffs next to the falls, knowing full well he is likely to also be sent tied to a cross back down the falls to his death. He brings with him one more tool for outreach, his oboe. As he senses that he is being stalked by the Guaraní he pulls out his oboe and plays Morricone’s “Gabriel’s Oboe” (or Gabriel’s Oboe) a haunting, loving, profound piece of music. Father Gabriel’s stalkers are moved from aggression to curiosity to …. Though one warrior grabs the oboe and breaks it, the others take Gabriel and his broken oboe to their chief. Father Gabriel is left unharmed, and later one of the natives returns the oboe to him, repaired.

This lays the foundation for a very fruitful relationship between Father Gabriel and the Guaraní … until, like all things good, the devil breaks it all to pieces. This time European and Papal politics, in the Treaty of Madrid (1750), transfer the area the Jesuits have worked in from the Spanish to the Portuguese. The Portuguese allow slavery. The Portuguese destroy the Jesuit Missions that, under the protection of the Spanish, have brought education and music as the bearers of Christian faith to the peoples below and above the falls.

Still, today, as in every generation, music carries the Gospel beyond what words and actions can. Music permeates our lives down to the foundations, and helps the Holy Spirit rebuild our foundations on that which created and sustains the universe, God’s unconditional steadfast love and generous Grace.

Exactly what so many poets and thinkers have expressed in words that have been put to music, for example Dietrich Bonhöffer’s Von Guten Mächten Wunderbar Verborgen to Siegfried Fietz’ music here Fietz’ limited English translation

Wenn sich die Stille nun tief um uns breitet,
so laß uns hören jenen vollen Klang
der Welt, die unsichtbar sich um uns weitet,
all deiner Kinder hohen Lobgesang.

(When now the silence permeates deep around us
let us hear those full sounds
of the world, invisibly spreading everywhere:
all your children’s hymns of high praise.)

…

So we raise our voices in the unending chorus ….

Covid Costs! Listening to Whom?

Monday, April 4, 2022

What Do We See?

What Do We Hear?

Whose Voice Do We Follow?

Psalm 23:2-3

He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

John 10:27-28

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.

Words of Grace For Today

Covid has exacted a huge cost on us. Not to mention the cost to global, national, and local economies. Not to mention the many people Covid has killed in one of the most excruciatingly painful ways. Not to mention many of those who survive serious Covid symptoms continue seemingly without end for years long-covid: fatigue, pains, circulation and nerve malfunctions, organ malfunction, brain fog, and depression. So much depression.

The greatest number of people suffer even though they have not had Covid, or the symptoms were so mild they barely noticed more than as if they had a light bout of the flu or a bad cold. The suffering is part and parcel, we are told, of living through a pandemic.

Mark Gollom described it this way:

“pandemic fatigue”
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney recently said that, despite the rapid spread of the Omicron variant across the country, Canadians may be at their “outer limits” of what further public-health restrictions they’re willing to accept.
While many people are “burnt out” on COVID and COVID-related news, many [say]
‘We’re sick of it. We hate it, but we’ve got to do it anyway.’
However, the researchers also discovered that pandemic fatigue affects “a substantial minority of people” who tended to have “greater levels of emotional burnout, pessimism, apathy, and cynical or negative beliefs” about the pandemic.
“In other words, pandemic fatigue was associated with heightened self-interest to the expense of community needs,”
That has led to a form of “systematic desensitization…. it’s as if we had built up antibodies against fear.”

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/pandemic-fatigue-omicron-covid-19-1.6290026 Dec 18, 2021

There are many, many more things going on with all of us, not all of us equally, and some of us to the point that we are nearly totally debilitated, unable to live anything like normal, even taking into account that we may be isolated physically from others.

The words that describe what we suffer go on and on like this: languishing, languor, lethargy, apathy, listlessness, supine (laying on one’s back), supineness, anxiety, fearlessness, angst, dread, disquiet, foolhardy, imprudent, reckless, irresponsible, depression, desolation, despondency, gloominess, dispirited, bleakness, Weltschmerz ….

Or as University of Calgary classics professor Peter Toohey put it in an interview with CBC’s Chattopadhyay: We’re experiencing the ancient state of “acedia”

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1800018499786 1 year ago

There are so many voices blaring all over the place, whispering in corners, projecting over crowds and chat rooms, telling us what to think, what to do, who to blame, how to ‘return to normal’, how to be done with Covid, how to cope with Covid, how to live with Covid, for while we may be done with Covid, Covid certainly is not done with us!

Which voices will we listen to?

Like never before, like always before for every person in every generation how we see the world greatly determines what we see, how we feel (the emotional response that takes in all our perceptions, mixes them up with our convolutions from our past experiences), which in turn forms our ‘take’ on the world happenings, which in large part determines how we respond.

So how do we start each day?

Do we enter the new day with angst, panic, depression, apathy, detachment and fear?

Do we listen to the voice that we know, the voice of the One who knows us completely, who created us and loves us and forgives us and renews us.

The One who makes us lie down in green pastures; who leads us beside still waters; who restores our souls. Who leads us in right paths for God’s name’s sake.

Whatever else we know about this day, first and foremost we know that No one will snatch us out of Jesus’ hand.

With that assurance, we are ready come what may.

Mags and Hagar

Sunday, April 3, 2022

No Matter the Wilderness We Find Ourselves In

God is There with Us.

Genesis 21:17-18

God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, ‘What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.’

Hebrews 12:12-13

Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

Words of Grace For Today

Mags met Silvia at one of her first DNA and nanobot treatments. ‘Met’ is a bit much. Mags saw Silvia laying unconscious, her treatment almost done. Mags was next. Margaret was her real name, but that’s what they called her grandmother, and Maggie was her aunt, so she’d been tagged as Mags since she could remember.

Mags and Silvia had little in common. Where Silvia was single, Mags was married with three kids just pushing into teenage traumas. Where Silvia had years of treatments behind her, this was Mags first round of cancer. Where Silvia worked with refugees, Mags stayed home with the kids and volunteered at her church as the secretary, in the office two mornings and one afternoon a week and working from home the rest of the week.

Where Silvia doubted God more than trusted God, Mags was faithful in everything. She trusted God, thanked God for her blessings, her three kids and a wonderful husband.

Mags knew the Bible pretty well, and certainly the stories of Sarah and Abraham, and the ugliness of their stories, especially what they did to Hagar and her son. She could not imagine how anyone God chose could do such a thing to another person. Yet she trusted that God would do for many, many people what God did for Hagar and Ishmael; God encouraged them, strengthened them, guided them, and saved them. Mags trusted that God would continue to save her and her family. She had almost died as a teenager, stupid as she had been playing with dangerous drugs for the thrill of it. She hoped that her lesson would be clearly remembered by her kids.

A month ago her last physical showed something wrong in her blood, and the follow up was a chance discovery: even though she did not feel it, she was terribly sick, with less than a few months to live as cancer ran rampant through her blood, bones, nerves, muscles and all her connecting tissue. She’d been a bit tired, and then this news ran her into the ground. The treatments started, her Mondays and Tuesdays disappeared and she woke up in her bed on Wednesdays, unable to move even if she’d wanted to.

The day after Silvia received her shocking and wonderful ‘miracle’ news, the doctor sat next to Mags’ stretcher and explained that the treatments were working for her, but her body was falling apart faster than the treatments could rebuild it. He told her she might have a few more weeks. Certainly not more.

A few hours later Mags sat up to talk with her kids and her husband. Why not sit up, it would make no difference anyway. She encouraged her kids to trust God in everything, and to pray constantly. Her suffering from cancer would be short, her death quick. They planned her funeral together to be a simple worship service streamed and recorded for the congregation to take part in online. Her burial would be simple, since most of her organs and limbs were going to be used in science research for how the DNA manipulation and nanobots had worked and not worked for her. The little part of her body that was not taken would be cremated. They picked out a simple urn for her ashes. They bought a cemetery plot online. They would dig the little grave together. All ten family members would gather as their pastor led them in a short service of thanks.

When the kids were about to head off to bed after the funeral planning, she reminded them of Hagar and Ishmael’s story. If God could take care of those two in the dessert, certainly God would guide, provide for, and save them as well … after she was gone.

Roundabouts

Saturday, April 2, 2022

God Works in the Most Roundabout Ways to Bring Us New Life

Like Traffic Circles Now Called Roundabouts,

Moving Traffic Through Intersections Most Efficiently

Saving Fuel and Carbon Footprints

Exodus 13:18

So God led the people by the roundabout way of the wilderness towards the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of the land of Egypt prepared for battle.

Romans 8:28

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

Words of Grace For Today

Silvia lay, unable and unwilling to move for fear of what might happen next. Maybe everything would disappear and she’d find herself waking up in her own bed as the sun rose casting rays of warmth across her bed … and she’d still be unable to move … or would she, hope against hope, be able to get up out of bed and stand on her own two feet. The news was expected, feared, and finally hoped for. Even the worst news would be the best news. It’d be her last possible escape from the pain and spiralling descent into despair her life had become.

Silvia had heard that God works in roundabout ways, almost always. That our challenge is to trust that God works for our good as those God has called to love God and all God’s people and all of creation. She had heard that so long ago in a different lifetime, but she had not been able to believe it, back when the world made sense. Back then she’d worked to help refugees settle in safety in her neighbourhood and across her city, and prayed every opportunity she could for them and for the many refugees who never found their way to safety, and for the millions who never escaped the violence that ruined their neighbourhoods and cities. She knew that some people ruined life for so many other. She figured she had to undo their destruction, at least the little bit she could. It was all up to her and people like her. God may well save people, but she could never figure out how one could believe that. That was back then.

For almost a decade now she had given her body every chance to survive it’s own battle with itself. Cancer had seemed someone else’s concern … before that day back then, so vividly burned in her memory: a call from the nurse asking her to come see her doctor that day. Could she make it in an hour. He would be free for a few minutes. …

And then the news:

‘youhavestage4melanomaradiationshouldstartthisafternoonfollowedbychemotherapy.’ It was all a blur from then on, the IV’s, the nausea and pain, the fatigue and insomnia, the loss of hair, skiing, tennis, hiking and even walks in the parks, and the puking her guts out, the weight loss until she was a thin pencilled in skeleton on a two dimensional bed sheet. There were breaks in those ten years. Breaks from the chemo and from the despair and from the puking. There was even a temporary bit of weight gain. But there were also bone breaks, and spirit breaks, as the cancer showed up in her bones, more chemo and radiation and then it showed up in her muscles, and then in her stomach, then in her everything.

‘In everything’ was just 3 months ago. The doctors, for there were three of them that time sitting next to her wheelchair, … the doctors said radiation and chemo were out of the question. She was not strong enough and the cancer was growing too fast to wait again for her to rebound enough from the last treatment regimes. But …

But there was an experimental treatment in the first stages of human trials, and since she was terminal with less than a few months to live she would probably qualify. It involved DNA manipulation and nanobots and … That’s all Silvia heard before she passed out. She woke hooked up to what looked like an octopus coming out of a dialysis machine with tubes running in and out of each of her legs and both sides of her neck pumping blood in and out of her. More tubes ran in and out of her stomach, her nose, and other places she could not see or feel anymore. She blinked, the nurse noticed, the doctor came and she was put back under.

When they were done with her she was carted off home to recover. Safer than being in the hospital. A nurse watched her round the clock. A week later they did the same thing all over again. She felt weak. But at least it was not like radiation. Her hair continued to grow back. There was a quarter inch on her head now. And it was not like chemo. She could sleep, eat, and her strength continued to return. She remember that first Wednesday waking up and the sun warmed her face and she did not need to puke. It was by comparison heaven!

Each week it was the same. Her Mondays disappeared in the hospital and Wednesdays she woke up at home. Three months she had not seen a Tuesday. The snow was surely melted and the trees would be budding. But she could not stand and walk. Not that she did not have the strength, but the protocol was she had to remain sedate, quiet, relaxed at all times, or they would sedate her to ensure she stayed still … but the less medications the better for the experiment. This week, after her ‘dialysis disappearing Monday’ wrapped up they’d carted her up to a hospital room and, while she was still unconscious all day long on Tuesday they did thorough blood tests, biopsies and imaging.

Now Wednesday afternoon, the doctor called and asked her to come in. It really wasn’t up to her. The nurse had all the work of prepping her for and loading her on to the stretcher and into the ‘ambulance’ (actually an empty van with anchors for her special stretcher was all it was) for the ride to the hospital.

She remembered that first call by the doctor to come to the office as soon as possible. Could she make it in an hour!

And then the shock of the deadly news.

The doctor said this time, ‘There is no sign of cancer anywhere. The treatment seems to be working. Even better: some of the damage to your heart, liver and kidneys seems to be repairing itself! We want you to start physio with the nurse at home. Come in each week for continued treatments, though you will not be unconscious. Let’s see if we can get you walking this week, and jogging a bit again before the end of the month. You should be able to ski again next winter.’

After the shock subsided, Silvia prayed with thanks, something she’d not been able to do for years. Before this shocking news holiness was all that had remained for her. She had hoped to die, to be done with the suffering, and to walk with Jesus into her eternal home. Now she could hope that she would walk, jog, and ski again. She understood how roundabout God could work, how roundabout God had worked in her life. She wondered what God had in mind for her next. Whatever it was, she prayed she’d be up for it.

Broken and Contrite Hearts

Friday, April 1, 2022

God Starts With Contrite and Broken Hearts

And Teaches Us to See

Wonders upon Wonders.

Psalm 51:17

The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

1 John 1:3

We declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

It is a difficult row to hoe.

Offering God one’s broken spirit, one’s broken and contrite heart is an extremely difficult row to hoe.

After 12 years serving in the navy Lt.-Cmdr. Nicole Dugas has resigned. Lt.-Cmdr. Jennifer McGean has resigned in support of her friend. CBC reports: Cmdr. Ian Bye, sexually harassed her and abused his position of power as a senior officer in charge of base administration. He was charged with making a sexual comment in the mess on Oct. 22, 2020, given a written warning and fined $1,500. The navy released Bye in July 2021 as “unsuitable for further service” following an administrative review, according to a letter sent to Dugas. Three other senior, male officers involved in the handling of Dugas’s misconduct case were not held accountable, Dugas and McGean claim.

No one is surprised.

The military has long been an institution based on abuse. We not only expect it, we condone it and demand it. Basic training is designed to break the spirit of a young soldier to be, so that under fire in the field (and in all other aspects of military life) the young person will obey orders without hesitation and without questioning them. That has changed sort of maybe: soldiers are not to follow illegal orders, but then we expect them to anyway. We demand this, so that our soldiers can fight when told to, supposedly to protect our freedoms.

Anyone with a head on their shoulder knows, though, that soldiers are ordered to fight most often in order to guarantee the continued wealth and power and privilege of very few. Today that most often means huge corporations that are larger than most countries.

Since we know the military very rarely is put into action to protect our freedoms …

Since we know basic training is designed to break the spirit of soldiers so they will do the unthinkable for really bad reasons …

Since we know that the commanders of soldiers were all soldiers (even if never less than officers) who were broken in basic training …

Since we know that being broken in basic training really is to be abused and not to have a choice then or forever after to be free of it …

Since we know that those who are abused almost always become abusers given any chance of power over others …

Since we know that abusers rarely contain their abuse to one specific kind of abuse but rather spread abuse like a sawed off shotgun …

It therefore does not surprise us that abusive commanders also sexually abuse those under their command, that women are readily made targets of this abuse, and that those higher up in command have a difficult time dealing with abuse of any kind at all, since climbing the command structure seems to require one to be an abuser grown out of being abused.

It will not, or should not, surprise us, when we start to read how female commanders abuse those under their commands, and that their abuse is of all kinds including sexual abuse.

Given that, we ought to do everything we can to stop the abuse … but we’ve boxed ourselves in a pretty deep, cavernous, in nearly inescapable hole.

…

For generation upon generation humans approached God, hoping to control God’s power over them and their surroundings and their enemies, or at least to sway God to act a bit in their favour every once and a while. The standard approach was to bring God a sacrifice, always a sacrifice of some other animal’s life, or (horrors of horrors, as it is still done today on the altar of capitalism to the god of greed) … or the life of another human (or as is done today still, the lives of many, many other human lives.)

It did not take long for intelligent and insightful and inspired humans to recognize how dangerous and destructive this ‘sacrifice’ mentality was, as they knew that God was not to be controlled or swayed by the killing of others. What people will come up with, when the Devil takes control! Wise people knew that God asked for the spirit (built up by the Devil’s deceptions) of proud humans to be broken, so that they recognized their privileged place in creation as those loved by God. So the Psalmist writes even to us today: The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Most humans set on making their way up in the world view contrite and broken hearts as the debilitating destruction of their core and their way upwards.

God’s ways are not human ways, to be sure, for God starts with our contrite and broken hearts, forgives with unconditional love, and restores us to a fullness of life that cannot be achieved on our own, and cannot be taken from us.

For we live in fellowship with the saints of all time, with Jesus our Saviour, and with God the Creator, and with the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps some of us, in the right positions of command in the military, can start to overcome their own being abused, and the abuse that is all around them.

This we hope for, and pray for. Also that the abuse and bullying in the police and in the courts (for they are as horrendously swallowed by abuse coming from the top down to all people) will be overcome as well, by God’s immeasurable power of Grace and steadfast, unconditional love.

Not even a fool would pray for anything else, not even on April Fools’ Day.

Snatched from the Burning Coals

Thursday, March 31, 2022

Cool, Clear, Water

of Life.

Amos 4:11

I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a brand snatched from the fire; yet you did not return to me, says the Lord.

2 Timothy 2:13

Even if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.

Words of Grace For Today

God works in all sorts of ways to bring us to participate in creation the way God created us to fit into creation.

We seldom cooperate, so driven are we to get somewhere in life. We turn what is good and blessed into trouble upon trouble for ourselves. We build castles and kingdoms, enslaving others to produce bread and wine for us.

God takes our castles and kingdoms, and our schemes of enslaving God’s people and overthrows them, so that we have nothing left. In that nothingness God demonstrates to us how much God has given us. God takes our self-assuredness and faithlessness to God and offers us a new beginning. Always God remains faithful to us, to what we need in life.

God’s faithfulness is the one sure thing in life, and most of us wave it off as easily as waving away a beggar or a homeless family or a refugee.

As sure as a day’s worth of steady spring snow covers everything with a fresh and pristine blanket that glistens in the next day’s sun, so God spreads blessings to everyone.

The faithful are those who notice, and share the blessings with others. The rest melt in the brilliant light of Christ faster than the snow on a warm spring day.

When the fires we create would consume us quicker than a dry log in the hot coals of a wood stove, Christ reaches in and delivers us, renews us, refreshes us with clear water, and sends us out to share the cooling water of life.

Plans and Plans

Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Beauty and Blessings

Nehemiah 13:2

They did not meet the Israelites with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them—yet our God turned the curse into a blessing.

2 Corinthians 5:19

In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

Words of Grace For Today

Ah, the plans and schemes of mice and men … and women and … well, all the plans of pretty much all of us.

They just are not anything like God’s plans for us before creation, and for every day of our lives.

We try hard to make life on our own, and our enemies try hard to undo our plans with their plans.

Thankfully God’s plans prevail.

God turns our enemies efforts to curse us into blessings for us.

God turns our many trespasses into renewed life, by the work of Jesus who reconciles the whole world (even us) to himself.

Of course, each day, we still need bread and water … and every once and a while we need something a bit more nutritious, and every day we need something to feed the rest of us.

More than food, we need to have our souls fed and nourished.

We need to be nourished so that even in the darkest darkness of life we can remember the work that Christ has completed for us, the work of reconciling us to God.

No matter what happens, God always has work for us, carrying the message of Christ’ reconciliation to all whom we meet.

Busy with that work we can surrender our plans so that we can fit into God’s plan for us, and all God’s people, and all of creation.

Nice as it is to try to work our own way forward, there is no better life than to spread God’s reconciliation wherever we go, however we go, no matter what challenges we face.

Only What We Have Seen and Heard

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Coals That Bring Warmth to Hearts and Minds

Blessed by God!

Numbers 23:12

He answered, ‘Must I not take care to say what the Lord puts into my mouth?’

Acts 4:20

We cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.

Words of Grace For Today

Balak and Balaam: it’s quite the story. Look back a bit into Numbers 22: Now Balak son of Zippor was king of Moab at that time. He sent messengers to Balaam son of Beor at Pethor, which is on the Euphrates, in the land of Amaw, to summon him, saying, ‘A people has come out of Egypt; they have spread over the face of the earth, and they have settled next to me. Come now, curse this people for me, since they are stronger than I; perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them from the land; for I know that whomsoever you bless is blessed, and whomsoever you curse is cursed.’

Balaam repeats what God provides as God’s Word for Balak. It is not a curse, but a blessing of Isreal, the people who have come out of Egypt and spread, strong and mighty, over the face of the earth. Three times Balak tries to bring Balaam to curse Israel and three times Balaam repeats the word that God provides: Israel is blessed.

Waking to 10⁰ in the shelter, 11⁰ at the bed, and the propane furnace kicking in and then off before it’s 13⁰ at bed level tends to put a chill on things that reaches into one’s heart slowing down to a crawl in reverse any emerging eagerness to enter the day with hope.

…

Sliding back away from the urgencies of cold mornings … that bone chilling reality sits there a bit until one’s toes and lips crack from impending frostbite,

Forcing one to dress in a rush before arthritic joints freeze up one last time … and then venture out to the stove.

…

A bit of wood is shoved from the frosty, icy pile into the monster’s pie hole (though no pies but dried cow pies pass its lips). Ashes get dumped. Bits and pieces of leftovers of logs get whittled in beside the wood and miraculously there’s combustion, the chemical reaction of fuel, air and heat producing, unfortunately, more smoke than heat.

Then one retreats in haste back to the dream world’s place holder beneath the down duvet where one reads, waits, observes the thermometer and waits for a pressing reason or freedom to emerge again into the reality that awaits.

The wondrous miracle emerges eventually: 67⁰ is recorded in the shelter above the fire, some of it reaches to near the bed so that one’s arms stop aching on top the covers, and one’s heart starts to thaw along with one’s lips and toes, and one’s brain starts to complete a few wayward synapse firings. One starts to think …

To think sporadically wild and incomplete thoughts like the day ahead may give some basis for getting out of bed and hoping to ….

Hoping to eat and drink, and have a future of eating and drinking for a few more years.

Marvellous what a little heat can do. 19⁰ at the bed. Warm enough to get sleepy as the sun rises and hides beyond the clouds threatening to drop frosty snow and ice everywhere.

Then it all vanishes into vivid dreams of a fantastic life in a warm (bug free) and perfect paradise….

Until reality once again demands attention be paid… lest the stove, so nicely heated will otherwise then overheat and burn everything to the ground.

…

Just another typical day in God’s country begins beautifully blessed.

Like Balak my enemies have gathered many times to bring a curse on me, and failed. They have, with lies and corruption beyond most people’s imaginations, stripped me of every penny and driven me into debt from which I will likely never emerge. They have left me homeless. They have left me dependent on the food bank and government supports for those in poverty. They have spread false rumours about me, and left me isolated from my friends and my church. They have maintained their churches, their wealth, their position, and their smug self-righteousness, justifying their evil by pointing to records filled with lies.

Yet, I remain blessed, for what is any person of God, who brings God’s Word to the ears of others, to say, when God has spoken a blessing eternal upon me?

And how shall I respond?

How shall anyone respond?

What else would we say, other than to join the writer of Acts: We cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.

For we have seen through the lies and corruption.

For we have heard God’s Word, and seen the results of God’s mighty acts of unconditional love, mercy, renewal, and provision for daily life, for daily life that is blessed by God’s presence.

So this day, what else shall we do other than speak of what we’ve seen and heard of God’s mighty works, in our midst, across the earth, and from the beginning of time?

So this day, what else shall we do other than be God’s Grace for others?

So this day, what else shall we do other than give God thanks for God’s blessings, beginning with the warmth of a wood stove, a mind that can think, and hearts that God has filled with faith, love and hope!

The Power of the Sound of Sheer Silence

Monday, March 28, 2022

Where Do We Find God?

Nowhere!

God Is There

And by Faith Shows Us

God in Us,

God among Us, and

God Everywhere around Us

1 Kings 19:11-12

He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

John 3:7-8

Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’

Words of Grace For Today

People have tried, in vain, to locate and control God since the beginning of time.

We’d expect, given the traditions that swirl about, that God is present in demonstrations of power:

in mountain and rock smashing winds, or

in ground splitting earthquakes, or

in the fires after the earthquakes.

God simply is not to ‘be found’ anywhere, or in anything.

God instead continually surprises us, demonstrating God’s wondrous power and might in unconditional love, a love that reaches so far beyond our tit for tat reckoning among people and our evil efforts to stand high in comforts, status, ‘power’, and wealth, standing high on the backs and heads of those we’ve stomped on to force them below us!

So we are reborn.

How it that possible? …

Well …

It really isn’t, unless, like the wind that we cannot see except in the effect it has on trees, flags, water, and dirt (and sometimes objects like vehicles tossed off highways, or houses shredded into the skies), …

Being born again is not possible unless like the wind the Holy Spirit comes and works God’s Will in us and among us, and then we see how much power the unconditional love of God has … for our hearts, minds and hopes find their focus in being God’s unconditional love for others!

Now that is a miracle, as powerful as the sheer stillness in which God appears to Elijah at Mount Horeb and as the bush that burns without being consumed when God appeared to Moses on that same mountain generations earlier.

It is a miracle that God works every day in us, and among us, and whose effects cannot be ignored, though only faith will help us understand what plays out in us and among us, and around the world, from the beginning of time to the end of time.

Breathe!

Breathe and get ready

to see God! Everywhere!