They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split open the rock and the water gushed out.
John 7:37-38
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.
Words of Grace For Today
While climate change has brought us to experience first-, second-, and internet-hand drought like never before, and likewise floods, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, drechos, and disasters like glaciers and mountains collapsing on pristine areas, towns, and people, Jesus still stands up in the busy festivals and market places and cries out to us:
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Come all you who are thirsty, come drink your fill.
Right, that was not Jesus, that was Isaiah 55.1.
The theme of thirst and of God providing water is often repeated in scriptures, as well it may be since water is essential for life and it is a symbol of God’s providing for us in all ways (not just physical water) when we are in need.
Isaiah 48 recounts how God provided water for the people during the Exodus, their fleeing from slavery in Egypt into the wilderness. Rocks usually do not provide water, but with God all things are possible.
So, how do you thirst this day?
For Justice?
For Truth?
For water or hunger for food?
For a faith strong enough to see past this day’s challenges and pitfalls to the blessings God pours over you?
I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says the Lord; I will kindle a fire in its forest, and it shall devour all that is around it.
Galatians 6:9
So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.
Words of Grace For Today
When it comes to our enemies we jump on the band wagon and toot our horn: go God, get ‘em! Give ‘em what they deserve! We are more than ready to see our enemies (who would do us in) get their just desserts.
We re-write Jeremiah to read: “I will punish them according to the fruit of their doings”, says the Lord; “I will kindle a fire in their forest and it shall devour them and all that is theirs!”
But that is not quite Jeremiah, now is it.
We don’t get to see our enemies burn to the ground.
We don’t get to see God devouring them for the evil they have done.
God’s hope, and ours as well (if we’ve matured enough for it to be so) is that God will finally reach our enemies’ hearts, they will confess, amend their lives and live justly and graciously the rest of their days. We’d like some restitution, but if they amended their lives, we could even forgive them almost everything they’ve done so far, almost everything.
Meanwhile, we hear Paul loud and clear: do “not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.” Actually we hope we do not reap all that we have sown, for all of us have enough sins in our past to earn eternal damnation (we’ve just not earned it so clearly so many times over as our enemies who seek our death.) We trust that God’s promises to be gracious with us, already since our baptisms, are sure, uncompromisable, and … well life-giving, not only for us, but as a witness to all people how gracious and generous God is with us, so just maybe for many people, even our enemies perhaps?
This day we work again, in spite of being very weary, at doing all that is good and right, so that God’s harvest will be gathered in with great abundance, and all people will have life, living in Christ’ light.
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.
If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
Matthew 28:19-20
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And
Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Words of Grace For Today
Some mornings the joy of life permeates everything (despite all the possibilities of so much shtako colouring the view)!
Everything is wonderful today. The monster has eaten it’s fill of dry wood and produces in return warm dry heat to dry out the wet towels and clothes that need drying every day. Outside the rain falls on and off heavy, pounding the air clear, washing the camp clean. The rain is cool. The air is fresh, refreshing coming in the windows, countering the intense heat available from the monster (the wood stove that eats so much wood in the cold winter weeks). I pull two spoons full from a newly opened can of coffee and the aroma fills the small living space. The water boils briskly on the monster so I need not spend propane for that this morning, a savings when every savings is life. Great creamy Silk half-n-half with coffee coffee in the mug warms my hands, minimizing the arthritic pains, and soothing my throat all the way down! Creamy tart berries wait on my cereal where every spoonful is both smooth and crunchy, sweat-creamy and biting with Vitamin C in the black berries.
It’s a new month. The start of the second half the year, so it’s a new log file, crisp and clean. The calendar pages get turned up and held with tape for the small calendar, and up and over the board for the large calendar.
Since it’s not cold outside freezing the living daylights out of everything, I need no monster heat to survive. It’s like grits, ‘its extra, only 25 cents.’ And that (the gathering of an armful of small wood sticks) I can afford today. Maybe not in four months, but today I’ll burn this resource, upon which my life depends in the winter.
The heavy rain lets up, the sun shines in the windows, the birds start to sing and the stupid squirrels (and 2-legged animals) are silent so far this day. All seems just right.
I’ll take it. It’s rare.
Today, a holiday weekend, I’ll take a break from ‘going to the nations, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey.’ Or maybe I’ll be able to, we will see what this day brings.
These are small celebrations of life, enjoyed fully, before it is taken, shaken, and made nearly impossible by my ex’s lies (added to by so many, even the judges) in court. (What illness, evil, and cruelty bring people to lie so profusely and then defend the lies as if they had become truth? Some say it is the necessity of relieving conflict by scapegoating innocent people. Some say it is as good as it gets. Some say the lies do become truth. Most people bury their heads in the sand, unwilling to realize that this kind of lying in court is what brings violence to the doors of governments and courts and individuals. When you live by the lie, unfortunately you will die by the lie as well. If you are to uphold justice and you dispense injustice based on lies, allowing that barbarism to play a part in so many people’s lives – those that benefit and those destroyed by your lies – really a barbarism in themselves – then it should be no surprise that those who are violent will rise up and cut out of society those liars and injustice-dispensers. Once barbarism is in play, it will dominate, as easily and surely as Omicron.)
But let’s set that aside for a few more days, and not let the evil of it ruin these days. It will have it’s deadly effect soon enough.
Now and always, I rest in the peace of knowing that Jesus is with me always, to the end of the age
This morning I’ll take the wings of the morning and sing with the Psalmist:
If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
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.
I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Acts 26:22
To this day I have had help from God, and so I stand here, testifying to both small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would take place: ….
Words of Grace For Today
It is like us humans, to say that we keep God ….
Knowing that we keep God always before us should give us little comfort, for what we do can be changed in an instant, and then God would no longer be our right hand, and we would be moved, and moved so far the universe would appear to have disappeared to be replaced by something entirely different and unimaginable.
Thank God, it is not so for us.
God keeps God always before us, and therefore God is always at our right hand (and in our minds, in our spirits, and in our hands and feet … and everywhere else – and we cannot change any of that!) We shall not be moved except by God’s choosing to move us or allow us to move, or by allowing others to move us (for good or evil.)
There is great comfort in knowing that what one proclaims is what the saints in light through the generations have proclaimed: God is steadfast in love and mercy for us, whatever comes at us, and since the beginning of time God has planned that Jesus would be born to demonstrate to us God’s steadfast love and mercy, and not just to us but to demonstrate to all people. And God’s love and mercy are not just steadfast for us, but also for all people, especially the worst sinners. (We worst sinners make God’s demonstration of love and mercy all that more obvious to even the thick-headed, hard-hearted, and dark spirited people.
Ours is therefore a life of celebrating with gratitude all that God does for us, even in the midst of the worst our enemies can throw at us. We also get to celebrate what God does for our enemies who would kills us or have us killed: God provides steadfast love and mercy, and if they refuse God’s work for and in them, then God’s justice and judgment will prevail for them. That will be a loss in God’s Kingdom, but it is what will be.
So we stand to proclaim what the prophets and Moses said would take place, the work of God in Jesus (born, ministering and healing, harassed, falsely accused, arrested, convicted, tortured, and killed … and risen back to life) to demonstrate God’s will to save us all.
And we shall not be moved, not by any lie or attempt to bring us to our deaths.
Today, it’s just another day, doing God’s work … as best we can, assured that God keeps God with us, no matter what comes our way, bringing us to celebrate with thanks all things good and wonderful.
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?
