See Reality, Choose, and Do
In darkness of our enemies’ making
we are yearning for the light,
for the moon to shine,
for the end of night.
We are yearning for things
Skewed by the Devil’s might
to be put back right.
Christ alone can douse us rags
in the Spirit’s precious light,
safe in God’s forgiving crags,
resetting all things coloured bright.
A Rose by any name is still a Rose
even if we have a daffodile
Nehemiah 9:17
You are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and you did not forsake them.
2 Timothy 2:13
If we are faithless, God remains faithful – for God cannot deny Godself.
Words of Grace For Today
God is often seen (as God is reflected often in Scripture) as a wrathful, judging, and destroying God … God who we need fear, obey, and worship.
Amidst this rough view of God, a reflection of our image of ourselves on to God, these words of God’s character repeat often in scripture:
God is ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
These words are taken up into our liturgy. We repeat them Sunday after Sunday (perhaps not every Sunday if our congregation uses many of the liturgies available to keep our hearts and minds freshly engaged by the Word, also the Word in liturgies.) That is one of the benefits of liturgies moulded for centuries on scripture, repeated and repeated and repeated … the words are so familiar that we know them as our Good Shepherd’s voice for us!
This promise of God is … amazing!
It is filled with that amazing grace that saves wretches like us!
We all need forgiveness, from God and countless other people. We need God to be gracious and merciful to us, to be slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
As God is to us, God creates us, Jesus calls us, and the Holy Spirit equips and inspires us to be to all other people:
forgiving,
gracious and merciful,
slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love!
Even when we no longer have even a tiny trace of faith or hope or love or mercy or grace or forgiveness in us, (due to whatever Evil or stress, even Covid 19 and it’s side effects on us all) God is still faithful.
God is still faithful!
God remains always faithful to even the most terrible wretches, like us.
God is always faithful,
simply because that is who God is!
A Rose
In darkness of our own making
we are yearning for the light,
for the moon to shine,
for the end of night.
We are yearning for things
Skewed by the Devil’s might
to be put back right.
Christ alone can douse us rags
in the Spirit’s precious light,
safe in God’s forgiving crags,
resetting all things coloured bright.
Caught in Darkness?
The Light will Shine
And be reflected by all water and life in Creation
Isaiah 42:16
I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.
Luke 1:78-79
By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Words of Grace For Today
Darkness. Total, deep, profound darkness of the soul. No light at the end of the tunnel.
When we find ourselves there, to put it into cosmic terms, in a black hole that pulls everything around it into nothingness …
When we find ourselves there it seems that everything is lost, not only things that build a sense of continuity and security (like jobs, homes, family, church, and even the tool that enables one to create – a camera, a pencil, a computer, a canvas), not just life and all good life at that for us and for creation, but meaning, history, presence and future ….
When time and hope are lost into the void and emptiness that is left to us, then only memory of, or re-spoken promises made in the past, or that little light at the end of the vortex can save us from going totally bonkers.
Covid 19’s threat (the lock-down, our isolations, our ‘staying the blazes home’, our financial concerns, the risk to our and our loved ones’ health and lives), for most of us does not approach the vortex of a black hole where no light exists. For some of us it does.
Whether its a total black out, or a brown out, or we have already gone a bit bonkers so that it all looks like dark colours everywhere …
However this affects us,
We yearn for Light, if yearning is still possible.
God promises to turn darkness into light, rough places into level ground. The dawn from on high breaks in on us in darkness, in the shadow of death, and guides us in the way of peace.
That’s the promise that we can remember … if we can remember.
That’s the promise that we can re-speak for others … when they cannot remember, we can, and we can still speak.
That’s the promise that we need to re-speak, to proclaim with all the vivid colours of the rainbow splashing about …
because even if we do not notice them, there is someone onto whom those colours (carrying Light) will splash.
And they will be saved from the vortex of absolute darkness, by our generous, reckless, prodigal re-speaking a promise that created, redeemed, and guides this whole universe of creation to be able to seek peace.
Peace is not something we attain and hold on to.
Peace is a manner of being in this universe, when participated in brings us to reflect God’s intent for us, but which is lost as quickly as a candle is snuffed out by even a gentle breeze.
Peace be with you, also this day, whatever this day is for you.
Splash and be splashed by the Light and Colours of the rainbow, God’s rainbow of promise, faith, hope, love, grace, and life – abundant life.
We may be off kilter a bit
Doch God’s Light Shines
in full colour for even us!
In darkness of our own making
we are yearning for the light,
for the moon to shine,
for the end of night.
We are yearning for things to be put right.
Christ alone can put us
in the light,
safe,
and right.
.
.
.
Sometimes everything is off kilter
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The expected tilts so wrong, undermined.
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We want some light, even reflected light, to find our way
.
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We want earth to reflect the rightness of heaven
.
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We want the Light, Right?
Based on the Truth!
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Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth, the Life.
God Created Wondrously and Created us in God’s own Image
Job 9:8 – 9
God alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea; God made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south.
Colossians 1:15-16
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.
Words of Grace For Today
There are endless wonders visible to us in creation.
Covid 19 has throttled back our use of fossil fuels. Out of country flights are cancelled across the planet. In country travel is limited to essential movement only.
Gasoline sells for on average between 71.6 and 94.9 per litre. I bought gas for $.43 last week! The price I used to pay was as high as $1.20, and usually around $.95. Oil sold last week under $13 a barrel. It was as high as $113 in 2011 and from 2010 to 2019 averaged $72.5.
This virus has given us a reason to give creation a reprieve from our onslaught of carbon emissions. Areas that have had impossible air pollution over the past decades are showing air qualities the likes of which 40 year-olds have never seen there! That certainly is not the intent, but it’s likely a better reason for the global economic lock-down!
See https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/covid-19-air-pollution-1.5501810 for some astounding images of air pollution clearing.
The real connection is interesting. Air pollution taxes our immune systems, making us more vulnerable, also to viruses like the corona virus of Covid 19.
The wonders of creation in Canada are all around us, especially if you live outside the cities, near a real lake or near the mountains. Others cannot travel to enjoy this, but even in the cities there are parks where one can (still) walk by yourself or with your family, as long as one keeps physical distance from others.
The greatest marvel is that of all the wonders God created, God created us humans in God’s own image. We are not to try to be gods as if we were creators or controllers or destroyers of all creation. The later we’ve come close enough to accomplishing in this last century. This is the evil in us destroying all things around us, as we rationalize that we are doing what is necessary and good.
Humans are again and again capable of extra-ordinarily reflecting God’s Grace for each other, and for creation.
We notice these. Celebrate these. Share these. And we overflow with thanks and gratitude for the wonders of all creation, from sky to sea, to mountains, to the sinner/saints we see each day.
Open water is nice.
Canoe come ply the deep and shallow alike.
Drat that buzzing buggy mosquito, and that and millions more
sent to feed the birds, and eat my blood, leaving a terrible reaction
that sends my eyes, nose, and throat into conniptions.
Oh give me ice, that would be nice!
Touched with scrambled ice left overs
Our World – Our Tracks – Beautiful
God’s Light on God’s World – Wonderful
God’s Light on Our Tracks – Awesome
Psalms 107:2 & 8
Let the redeemed of the Lord, … those he redeemed from trouble … thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.
Luke 14:22-23
The slave said, “Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.” Then the master said to the slave, “Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled.
Words of Grace For Today
How wonderful, awesome (the real meaning of awesome is: profound awe at the ‘out of this world’, divine presence encountered in the mundane),
How awesome it is to have these two verses side by side.
First we, the redeemed from trouble …
And OH how the trouble is that we’ve been in! Our enemies (if we’ve lived a life worth something we’ve made plenty of enemies) have done us in … or if they have not we’ve done them in. Either way, how we’ve treated our enemies, and/or how they have treated us is nothing to be proud of in the presence of God! No hiding, no lies, no messing the truth with spin. We’ve been in great trouble, most everyday a little bit. And in lives where we’ve stood for something honourable, then we’ve been in a lot of trouble at different times. The evil in humanity cannot stand someone being honourable. It puts a spotlight on the evil, the spotlight of Christ’s light of truth.
And when we’ve been in trouble, done in by our enemies, or worse that we’ve treated our enemies with anything less than the grace of God, God has paid a terrible price to redeem us!
So …
First we, the redeemed from trouble, thank the Lord …
Now that’s a wonderful response to God’s awesome intervention in the messes of trouble that we get into! We turn into vessels overflowing with gratitude, spilling it across our paths as we proceed through the day.
We leave a trail of awesome gratitude and witness to God’s great mercy and grace! That’s what we spill out into the world – even if we also spew out sin, evil and a deadly virus.
We overflow with thanks for all God has done, out of love. This is thanks not just for God’s acting for us, but God acting for all humanity! No one is left out of God’s Grace and Love!
Then in the second verse, we read how when Jesus puts on a feast of celebration, and there are empty seats …
Don’t we know empty seats in our churches today as we put on feasts of Christ’s Body and Blood!
When there are empty seats, Jesus, our redeemer and saviour, sends us faithful servants out into the world around us to invite in everyone found in the lanes and alleys … the street people, the disadvantaged, the outcasts, … in other words all the people who need a good hot meal, all the people the world has turned against, all the people who’ve been left on the way side to suffer while others have trampled on to riches undeserved, on the backs of so many.
These are the people we, the redeemed, turn to in order to fulfill our Lord and Master’s command: Compel them to come!
Well, we are not to kidnap or force, but we have the words of Grace and Love of God to share with all those who are outcast, disadvantaged, suffering and could use a good, honourable, glorious feast! The words of Grace that we have … especially as Lutherans (though we’ve no copyright on them, they are for all Christians to embrace), that Jesus came into the world not to condemn but to save all people! … The words of Grace we have reach deep in the heart and soul of each person who will listen. We’ve experienced it ourselves and seen it in countless people. …
So we, who God has redeemed and saved from the trouble we are in, as we give undying thanks to God, turn as Jesus commands us, to invite the outcast, those whom Jesus also redeems, into a feast of celebrating.
The feast is Jesus last meal, the Eucharist, to sustain the soul. The feast is more. It’s a hot meal to sustain the body. It’s a gathering of redeemed people, overflowing with thanks, which sustains the heart and mind.
Except we cannot gather with more than 15 people, and not with anyone outside our core family, or maybe our ‘cohort’ family. Thanks Covid 19! [emoji of disgust.]
But we’ve been redeemed! We overflow with gratitude!
Certainly we can figure out how to share this feast of Christ’s Eucharist and Hot and Cold food, and of sharing each other’s presence, so that we can follow Jesus’ command to compel people from the roads and lanes to come. It may take a football stadium size area. Maybe an 80 acre farm so that no street person or family is closer than 8 metres to any other person or family.
That might take a bit of government approval, a careful plan for serving, and a few extra dollars … but in this time surely someone could put all that together!
Or on a smaller scale, any of us could invite an online meeting of families and street people to join together for the Eucharist and a real home cooked meal! Why not?
Do we or do we not overflow with gratitude?!
Or on an individual scale, we can always call others on the phone! And when needed deliver a home-cooked meal. Why not?
Balance is not easy to find.
Beauty and Peace are as difficult.
God guides us to both, as gift and blessing unearned.
2 Samuel 2:26
Then Abner called to Joab, ‘Is the sword to keep devouring for ever? Do you not know that the end will be bitter? How long will it be before you order your people to turn from the pursuit of their kinsmen?’
1 Corinthians 7:15
But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. It is to peace that God has called you.
Words of Grace For Today
God calls us to peace.
Peace between nations, between people, between spouses, and peace within ourselves.
Peace is much more than the absence of conflict.
Given merely the absence of conflict we humans always find our way into open conflict quite easily. It is because everyone is wrong about something, and they still think they are right. [Except of course me. I’m always right. Right?]
Girard provides that it is more complex than that, involving mimetic desires that lead to competition, which is ‘resolved’ through scapegoating. We compete with each other for what we see as limited resources/things. Aware we cannot afford open conflict with our closest friends we project our conflict on to some innocent, vulnerable bystander. Seeing that innocent as the source of our problem we destroy that person. Our urge to compete and destroy is ‘satisfied’, the thing we competed for becomes insignificant, and we are able to return to a ‘peaceful’ co-existence.
Except for the innocent person we’ve gaslit, attacked, destroyed and most often exiled or killed.
And except that, since we are not entirely oblivious to reality, we know we are now guilty of ruining an innocent person, of not working out our conflict with each other, and the root cause of that conflict is not addressed. It just goes underground in both of us, in our relationship, only to re-emerge at a later date. Then it will be an even less comprehensible conflict, which we will ‘resolve’ by destroying yet another innocent bystander.
Peace must be diligently sought anew each hour of each day, or it is lost. And it is lost long before anyone notices any conflict arising.
Peace is lost when we no longer see the souls of other people, for whom Jesus died, as the most important part of our own lives, when we no longer give everything we are to provide care for those in our daily lives, or when we no longer work to meet the needs and satisfy the yearnings of those with whom our lives are intertwined.
Peace is a marvellous way of being. It is fragile and can disappear in an instant with a [wrong] word or deed. It is threatened most by an errant thought.
God gives us peace. We can treasure it, with our hearts, minds, and strength.
Saturday, May 2, 2020
Out of Darkness
Jesus saves us
so that we can contribute to the Kingdom
sacrificing ourselves that others may live abundantly.
Psalms 51:13
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
Colossians 1:3.13
In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ … He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son
Words of Grace For Today
Rescued from the darkness
It was cold and dark. Dangerously dark, though not even winter cold, yet. Spending the night in the woods miles from anywhere was not the plan.
It was just a hike on a trail being developed, this portion already well planned, if not clearly marked. We arrived climbing up the side of the huge rock to our right, on to the second level of that rock as it overlooked a small lake below. The trail seemed to peter out across the gentle downward slope of the rock face toward the lake and further to the right around that side of the lake.
But then there was just a sheer drop of a few metres into the lake, or the effectively solid wall of trees to the right barring any progress on that side of the lake. There were no signs of a trail around the left side of the lake either and other large rocks jutted out over the lake around that side.
The danger from the dark was not that it was pitch black. It was already dusk and we had miles to go. I was experienced outdoors, but the three with me were not and two were young children. Dark, the real dark that was coming, meant stumbling lost all night, or bedding down in the wet and cold. It had just started to rain as I searched for the trail forward from that rock we ended up on.
Finally I came up with a plan. I’d walk back two miles to where the trail took a turn and was well marked. With flashlight in hand I would retrace our steps.
Huffing, tired, and being spit on from above, cold, I trudged back step by step through the miles, and then returned. Nothing. The obvious trail had no other possible turns as it joined a creek that ran into the lake we had stopped at. As the hard face of that huge rock came up to shoulder height I saw to the left the creek water through the underbrush. It was maybe, yes, it was sort of a path, and then there on the tree on the left side of the trail was a trail-marker arrow. A turn back to the left and quickly down, with a quick switchback to the right and one arrived at a bridge of two logs over the creek.
I lifted my feet as my spirits were lifted. We were not lost. I found the others on the rock overlooking the lake, huddled together for warmth under a rain poncho to keep themselves dry.
We worked our way, sometimes with flashlights down over the creek and up high on the huge rocks along the lake and back down near the wet outflow on the far side of that lake, and onward over roots, and around huge 5 foot diameter trees, through the rain forest, back to the vehicle we’d parked near northwest edge of the small town we called home.
A hot shower, prayers of thanks.
We were rescued, once again, from the darkness by the Grace of God.
It is as easy to lose ourselves in the forest of challenges presented to us, now also because of Covid 19. It is easy to miss an obvious turn because we’ve lost ourselves in the darkness of despair or exhaustion or laziness or disorientation.
Always, God sends us others, or sometimes a clear plan, to help us find our way forward, so that we are there for others as well tomorrow.