Lake – Page 40

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – June 5

Friday, June 5, 2020

Our Weakness

Highlights God’s Glory

Psalm 42:4

These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

2 Corinthians 12:9

He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Words of Grace For Today

Weaknesses abound aplenty. We only fool ourselves if we try to say we have no weaknesses or that they do not compromise us severely, everyday.

We can join all great celebrations and festivals, shouting for joy and giving thanks. The real challenge though is when we think we need all the power of God to be with us to deal with threatening circumstances, and all we have to rely on is our own weaknesses and the Grace of God that gives us renewed life.

We think we have to bring the greatest defences available in all creation.

What we have is our weaknesses and God’s Grace. Seemingly that is not power at all.

Yet there is no power like the power of Grace.

It turns our world’s back as they were all along, as God created them to be.

Grace changes everything.

Grace is everything for us in God’s creation, and our weaknesses make God’s Grace obvious for all to see. It is how we share the news that God asks us to share, that Jesus came to exercise God’s Grace for us, by forgiving all of us all our sins.

Who would have thought that exactly what we find repulsive and weak, is how God makes us so useful.

We certainly cannot know how, yet God certainly uses Covid 19 to make us more aware of God’s grace and God’s will for us all.

It may be that somehow the disastrous care in senior facilities needed to be made known in a manner so that no one could ignore it any longer. It needed to be fixed.

It may be that working without a commute is what creation needs from us. It may be that creation needs less vehicles and more bicycles.

It may be that the stress level needed to be raise far enough that at the ‘routine’ death of a young black man, the nation to the south, and supporters around the world would rise up in protest! It is a tragedy that yet another black man died senselessly. It is a tragedy that violence erupts out of peaceful demonstrations. It is a tragedy that the responses are more violence from the police and national guard and hate language by the elected president.

The police in too many places are far beyond their rights and duties, abusing people at will. The courts have stood behind them or blind to them for so long, on the streets evil has no bounds.

This is not only the case for black men, or for vulnerable women, or for people of minority orientations, colours, creeds, it is full out already the case for good, honest white men, gaslit by misandrous women as if all men were misogynists and perpetrators of ill towards women, when they certainly are not.

Some have put it succinctly: Raaj Shetti: Misandry is growing like a wild fire in this world. support feminism, but not misandry.and M.F. Moonzajer: Misogyny or misandry is not a status or a belief; it is just a sickness.

If you still think that misandry is not a hidden, covered up, destructive force, also behind Geroge Floyd’s death and the countless deaths of young First Nations men (more numerous than female deaths) by both police and others, the see these two articles: Misandry: The Invisible Hatred of Men and Why Some People Have Issues With Men: Misandry.

How come we as a people always need to make scapegoats of real good, honest and innocent people … as if that would or could fix anything. Our misguided, hate-filled attempts to fix hate just makes things like racism, misogyny, misandry, bigotry, or simple hatred that much worse.

How come more police could not, as in one city in Michigan, take off their riot helmets and join in with the protesters? How come political leaders are not out in the protest lines, ensuring they are not hijacked by violence by ‘participants’ or police? How come more of us could not join in and ensure that the demonstrations were not pushed by unseen organizers of both extremes to fulfill Trump’s stupid prediction quoted from a tragic history?

This we do not know.

Still we pray: save the people from the temptations to Evil. Save all the people, including those in uniforms holding state authorized weapons with a task to hold back evil with more evil force. God, we pray, save us all!

Regardless, God will work with our weaknesses to bring blessings to all creation.

Small, Lonely Tracks

March on!

We may seem small, But God makes us Live eternally

Blessings Come even through this Pandemic

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – June 3

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Dead and Dying

Wonders of Creation

See What You Will

Beauty is Still There in Creation

Psalm 34:16

The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

Matthew 7:7

‘Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.

Words of Grace For Today

When instructing new skiers, it is important to teach them to fall first, then to ski. Falling is inevitable, especially as one learns, and for most skiers always. It is also important to teach them to focus on what they want to do, and where they want to go … not on what they do not want to do and where they do not want to go, like into a tree, other people, and obstructions of any kind.

God created us able to love, and therefore also able to choose (otherwise it is not love since an essential part of love is one’s choice to love). Choice means there is something other than love to choose, which is hate, which is sin and evil.

That is a simple explanation, though helpful when we get frustrated that evil persists all around us.

God wants us to remember and focus on choosing the Goodness of life that God makes possible for us in creation. To accomplish this God turns away from evildoers (that part of each of us, not a ‘them’ vs. ‘us’ who supposedly do no evil), so that our memory of evil is cut off from all the earth going forward.

That starts with forgiveness.

God forgives us so that we deal with our sins:make confession and restitution … and then move on, focusing on the Goodness of creation, instead of focusing on our sins. Likewise God makes us then able to forgive others, so that we and they can move to focus on Goodness, instead of their sin and the evil it reflects and creates in the world.

Jesus sends us out to tell Jesus’ story, of forgiveness bought and paid for at huge cost to God. That story focuses us on what is Good in creation, and helps us minimize evil’s role.

While evil is eradicated from memory (or a good start towards that is made) Jesus assures us that the Holy Spirit is with us. When we need, desire, or hope for something, Jesus encourages us to ask, seek, and knock; The Holy Spirit will help us receive all that is given to us, find all that God has made for us, and the doors that lead to an abundant life in God’s creation will open to us.

Ask, it will be given; seek, you will find; knock, the door will open: all this does not apply to asking for, seeking out, and knocking at the door of evil. Thank God. What a mess we would make of the world … of course we’ve done just that anyway.

God gives us blessed things overflowing, to help us choose to leave evil alone to die on the vine.

Like a virus that will not go away, we remain infected with the desire for other than love, i.e. evil; thankfully God continually transforms us into saints, so that we can also, by the power of the Holy Spirit, embrace the Goodness of creation.

Ask to see beauty where you are, you will see it.

Seek out the wonders of God’s creation, and you will find them.

Knock on the door behind which blessings overflow, and that door will open with an outpouring of blessings flooding your life.

Thanks be to God.

Take that Covid 19.

By being respectful and kind to others we can choose the goodness of life without this virus infecting us, and through us others.

Mayor Nenshi, of Calgary, said on CBC: Don’t act like someone who doesn’t want to get sick. Act like someone who already has the virus and doesn’t want to spread it.

Act like everyone you come into contact with is your favourite 90 year old grandmother.

Remember clean hands, clear heads, open hearts, stay safe, be kind always!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – June 1

Monday, June 1, 2020

The Rock

Jesus, the only Rock of Salvation

Isaiah 44:8

Do not fear, or be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? You are my witnesses! Is there any god besides me? There is no other rock; I know not one.

Matthew 10:27

What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.

Words of Grace For Today

Whistle blowers are not generally well received or liked by others. People simply do not like to have their nefarious activities exposed to the light of the public’s scrutiny … and possibly to face criminal charges for crimes committed.

Investigative reporters put everything on the line to search out sources, for stories that people of power may not want to have published, and which usually some people of ordinary living desperately need to have published, so that things can be set right for them, at least somewhat.

We do not need to work investigating to get the story we live to tell. Jesus story is an old, old story. We can hear it in many different voices and settings.

The story has been told since the days of old.

Jesus tells us to tell the story again. And again.

And again!

We are God’s witnesses to other people that God sent Jesus to save us from our sins, to give us new life, and to show us we no longer need to scapegoat or gaslight others in order to gain peace for ourselves.

The Holy Spirit brings us peace. We reside in it, abide in it, and when we sojourn, it stays with us. It is as permanent with us as the cross on our foreheads at baptism that never goes away. Claimed as God’s children we need not fear anything.

Not a virus, not anything.

Which does not mean that we are stupid about protecting ourselves and others from the virus as so many people are, walking as close to others as is convenient, breathing on others without further thought, and loudly telling everyone that there is no virus here!

When we are not afraid, then we can be wise about protecting ourselves and those we live with from the virus. The recommended precautions are just a beginning. We are ever vigilant … and always we pray, God protect us, for you alone are God, the rock of our living, the rock of our salvation.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 30

Saturday, May 30, 2020

All the Gold in the World

Cannot Create God’s Beautiful Creation

Numbers 22:18

Balaam replied to the servants of Balak, ‘Although Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the command of the Lord my God, to do less or more.’

2 Corinthians 2:17

For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.

Words of Grace For Today

Human history is fouled with people using God’s name as a commodity, peddling it for sale, no matter the consequences. Or using it as a hammer to shame, condemn and control others. Or as a means to power.

The world today is built on globalized capitalism. Poor people living in conditions no human should have to endure, put their labour (time and energy and life-force) into the hands of wealthy multinational corporations to produce goods that rich people like us buy at great prices (for us), with the corporations taking more money from our purchase by far than the labourers receive for making the goods.

Everything can be bought and sold for a price. Leonard Cohen wrote that the Holy-Dove is bought and sold again. And while his poetry-words seem to refer to the process of Peace being sold and bought and sacrificed and sold and bought again, it is an image that applies to all that is good in life. Capitalism brings [in-]stability, false security, and irreverent comfort to a few people, while the great majority are kept in poverty, so as to be available for cheap labour, and so as not to consume what the few consider their zero-summed resources that support their comfortable, privileged lives.

It is not hard to write, read, or talk about the injustices in the economic systems of any age. It is dangerous to actually live so as to bring about a bit more justice, a little less injustice in one’s short time on earth.

Balaam speaks clearly to Balak (through his servants): Balaam is not for sale. God’s Word is not for sale. Balaam will not go against God’s Word, no matter the price paid by Balak. Telling power that it is corrupt and one does not and will not participate in that corruption is a good way to meet one’s maker more quickly, with a shorter sojourn on this earth than God may have made available to one otherwise.

Pastor Brian Rude, in El Salvador, reported that they are able to secure food for a few days. You think that your life is complicated a bit by Covid 19 restrictions. There most of the people do not have a secure food supply. They have no food supply, or water supply, or health care at all. Each day they need to venture out to find food, in the city, in the countryside. Most often water and food is there to be found, maybe … maybe enough to not die of starvation or illness from malnutrition. With Covid 19 if you venture out to secure food and water the police arrest you and place you in a quarantined area, which is more a prison than anything else, and the disease and death rates are astronomical. It’s a death sentence, slowly implemented.

What are your Covid 19 restrictions like? How are you coping? Do you have water and food enough, and the ability to secure more when you need them? Do you have the ability to worship as you choose? Do you have people who value you, whom you value, with whom you can speak freely, even if you cannot gather with them, cannot exchange hugs and handshakes, and cannot participate in food preparation and meals together?

Count your daily blessings!

Every challenge that we face (the real ones) is better met when one comes to each day thankful. A grateful heart and mind function better.

And as you meet others who are struggling, remember that you can be in much worse circumstances. The change can come as quickly as a day or less.

So be kind. You may be dependent on others’ kindness much sooner than you ever thought possible.

If you are one who cannot be kind, rather you are compelled to compete for as much as you can get and always demand more than you already have… if you are a greedy, covetous, dangerous, cruel person … well pray that you learn sooner than later, and before it is too late … that we are all in this together.

We are in this Covid 19 pandemic together. We are sojourning on earth as God’s people together.

What you do does come right around to you.

If you think that life is all zero-summed, then eventually that is all you will encounter, after you have ruined so many people it is impossible to count how many. And whether you get ‘enough’ of everyone else’s ‘share’ of what is available in goods, there will be no goodness in life left for you.

If you are kind and sacrificially generous with all that God has given into your care as a steward, then life will continue to be a blessing, and even if/when you do not have enough, or the vagaries of life catch you and you meet your Maker earlier than needed to have been: well every minute of your life will be an ever increasing overflowing abundance of gratitude and generosity. That is what life is about, that is what makes life good and worthwhile. The amount of goods you have and consume is not the measure of your worth, nor of the goodness of your life. Giving (and forgiving) to those in need is the measure of our worth before God.

One who stands in God’s presence, who with sincerity speaks God’s Word for others, will know first how to humbling fear and love God before anything else.

Pray that you are that person who is grateful and generous, and not the person who is greedy and covetous.

Covid 19 makes our choices to be blessed to be a blessing, OR

to greedily take what we can from everyone else

that much more obvious.

Learn, reflect, and grow in Christ.

God’s Wealth is In Light and Grace

Grace is Beyond Compare

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 28

Thursday, May 28, 2020

No one to bring me to the water

and it’s all frozen hard.

Help.

Help us all through the ice of sin and shame.

Psalms 25:16

Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.

John 5:7-8

The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’

Words of Grace For Today

If ever there were a time when loneliness and afflictions were shared by so many people, even those who are not caught alone by the Covid 19 restrictions!

So we pray: God turn to us/to me, be gracious to us/to me. We’ve waited years for someone to carry us to the living water and immerse us in it so that our body, mind, and soul could be healed. Now we know, we only need Jesus to speak a Word, and we will be made whole again.

…

We are, since our baptisms, the hands, feet, and voice of Christ, anointed to bring the living Word to those in need.

Stand up, be counted among the saints, and speak.

Today speak with the holy healing whispers of the wind as the Spirit inspires you.

So many people thirst for the water that will make them whole.

Today speak of the water that overflows our cups giving all more than enough to drink.

So many people hunger to hear the word that will make them whole.

Today speak simple words of Jesus’ love renewed yet again in us, for all people.

Today, be God’s grace for others. ‘Pay the rent on the air you breathe’ today by doing Grace.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 27

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Light in the Cracks

Light in the Breaks

God’s Light always finds a way in.

Psalms 138:8

The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures for ever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.

Philippians 1:6

I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

The work of God’s hands is us and all of creation around us.

How marvellous it is, too. I look outside my window, no matter the weather, and see the wonders that God created. In winter the cold clear air fills in between the space between the sky and then snow, broken by trees dormant, waiting; and between the trees the lake ice extends for square kilometres. In spring the emerging green pushes up between the dead brown grass and pushes out at the top of the canopy on top the woods, as the rains feed the thirsty land. Summer heat brings out the bugs and people to enjoy the warm air around the cool water of the lake, as breezes across the water refresh the air at night giving relief from the swelter for sleep, and the odd thunderstorm with lightning and thunder strike down the heat with cool sheets of wind driven rain. When fall comes the cool air returns ending the summer greening along with the bugs making work outside possible again as time melds slowly into the joints between what must be done to prepare and the thanks one has for all that has been … both those things enjoyed and those things to come in the freeze that’s a’coming, which one has prepared for.

Sachemo sang What a Wonderful World, seeing love in every smile and greeting, “How are you.” Israel Kamakawiwo’ole sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow, seeing the dreams come true that make life so gorgeous as trouble melts away like lemon drops. Leonard Cohen sang of love filling life and love lost borne repeatedly, and of the Alleluia we sing with our lives and loves, and of the Anthem of God’s Light reaching us through all the cracks in our lives. Gabriel played his Oboe to communicate God’s love and trust to a South American First Nations people hunted and enslaved, whom the church then condemned to genocide in order to buy peace in Europe.

God made creation beautiful.

Repeatedly we destroy it with greed, violence, and corruption.

Yet, God will complete the work God has begun through Jesus Christ, the redemption of all creation (including the most destructive animals, those greedy, violent, and corrupt 2-legged animals.)

In us, through the work of the Holy Spirit, God works to grow God’s Word in us, so that no matter what the weather of our times is (the political, environmental, global ‘weather’), for example the Covid 19 pandemic, we will reflect the wonders of creation in all we think, say and do.

No matter who the person is, with the right light, their photo will reflect the wonders of their creator.

It’s through our cracks that the Light of Christ shines into and back out of us, so we sing alleluia, what a wonderful world, and what promise there is over every rainbow.

Like love and joy lost, forgotten, and renewed our life-songs are played best in the key of H#, for Hope+ by the melancholy, mournful, hopeful oboe and bassoon, and at times heralded by the trumpet, trombone and tuba.

Now Your on,

Sing it with all your heart …

5, 6, 7, 8 –

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 25

Monday, May 25, 2020

We sojourn in these,

God in these [below]

pure clear beauty reflected in the weeds

Evil is not seen in the beauty of God’s Creation

But God is reflected even in the weeds of Creation

Psalms 5:4

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil will not sojourn with you.

Ephesians 6:18

Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.

Words of Grace For Today

God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

God is merciful and gracious.

God delights in forgiving and receiving home the sinner.

God delights not in wickedness. Evil does not travel to stay temporarily with God.

Evil, and we are that when we sin, tend to run from God. We do not travel to stay with God even temporarily. We want to hide from God’s view, God’s judgment, and our shame.

God though stays with us, no matter where we go. Evil does not stay with God, because God forgives it and transforms it, by the sacrifice of Jesus and through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Evil in God’s presence is transformed so that the evil is eradicated and God’s good creation abides with God.

That is really good news. It’s exactly as if God stayed with us when we venture out to places with people we are not supposed to be near, and we spread Covid 19 and are silent about where we’ve been so others are infect unawares, until there is another outbreak with no known source.

Except God’s presence eradicates the virus from us and from everyone else that would have been infected. And all is well, not because we’ve done the right things, but because God works for us in all things.

Except God does not eradicate Covid 19 or any other disease, contaminant, or destructive organisms that we can encounter in the world. God is with us, and suffers with us. God gives us eternal life starting the day we are baptized, but God does not make life free of danger for us.

God does send the Holy Spirit to guide us, inspire us, and to light a fire (under us, mostly).

Therefore each day we can pray as the Holy Spirit moves us, for all the other saints struggling, and all others, so that God will also transform their lives to be lives of purpose reflecting Christ’s sacrifice to bring life to so many.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Devotions – May 23

Saturday, May 23, 2020

Lost but Now Found Again! and Again! … and Again!

This photo somehow ended up in a folder it had no business being in.

Why? Don’t know.

Like us, when we are lost, though God claims us, we need to be put back online where we belong.

Being on track doesn’t make us God’s children, being God’s children gets us back on track, sometimes.

Deuteronomy 11:26-28

Moses said, “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn from the way that I am commanding you today, to follow other gods that you have not known.”

Colossians 3:24-25

Since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong has been done, and there is no partiality.

Words of Grace For Today

Blessing for obedience. Curse for disobedience. Payback for doing wrong. Serving in order to gain an inheritance.

All of this is religious language of coercion; a well organized chorus of controlling others.

It frames life as nothing more than doing what is right and being rewarded; or doing what is wrong and being punished. This is the thought of a two year old, dressed up to look like an adult’s thinking. It is the most common thought pattern applied in most every situation and from nearly all perspectives. It is still childish and falls short of the reality of life as God created us to live it. It is the perversion of the Devil that takes something profoundly good and turns it just a few degrees and lets it loose on us, until down the road we are light years away from the goal God has set for our life on earth: to give God glory in all we do, bringing abundant life to the poor, disadvantaged, and outcasts; and bringing a life of God’s meaning and worthy purpose to the wealthy, privileged and powerful.

Before we get too far along uncovering this devilish perversion of life’s meaning, let us affirm that there is a blessing and a curse in obedience or disobedience. Obeying God does bring blessings to others (rarely to ourselves), and disobeying brings curses to others ( most often to ourselves as well.)

The reality of God’s creation is that God rewards us with an inheritance as God’s own adopted children, and therefore we serve Christ. The direction of causation between our behaviour and God’s rewards correctly stated is simple. Because God acts, rewarding us with blessings, therefore we serve and obey.

The devilish perversion is to think and live as if we act either obeying and serving or disobeying then on the basis of our thoughts and actions God either rewards us with blessings or punishes us with curses.

It is a childish approach to life to think and live as if one’s actions determined God’s blessings and curses. On first blush we might well wish that our thoughts and actions had such influence on God’s response to us. An honest appraisal of human history and our own experiences lays bare the reality that we can never do enough things well enough to please God, or event o accomplish something profoundly good enough to actually FIX a problem the world faces. Every good thing we do is tainted by incompleteness and unintended disastrous consequences … and sinful motivations and results.

It does not matter how hard or diligently we try, or how much self -disciplined we apply to our attempts, one just has to read the honest words written by good thinkers to realize … every human attempt to FIX a problem is a failure. Self-discipline and self improvement is only a mad dash from one hot issue slightly tamed to the next hot issue, only to have a host of previously tames issues raise their hot little heads as major impediments to our living well.

The project of being good enough in life is a futile chasing of one’s tail to no good end, or worse to the destruction of one’s self and many others.

If our actions determined God’s response to us, there would be no hope for us at all! Thank God our actions do not determine God’s response to us!

An old pastor spoke up at a cigar smoke filled room with Scotch glasses set next to the second deck of cards: Looking back at my ministry I pray mostly that I have not harmed anyone.

Relatively young (in my 40’s) at the time I thought it was an odd prayer. Why not pray that the good one did would actually bear fruit in a cascading style through many generations?

Now I understand all too well. Life is really not about how much good we can accomplish, if one is (trying to be) a good and kind person. Doing Good is wholly dependent upon God working in and through us, so that we get good things done almost by accident (actually its by the Holy Spirit ‘accidentally’ getting good things out of us.) Not doing intentional harm to others is something that is much more in the realm of our possible control. The old pastor’s prayer though deals with the unintentional harm one can hardly avoid doing, and from which only God can save us and those whom we have offered ministry to and still harmed.

The true project of human life is simple: to Give God Glory, by

1. confessing one needs saving, cannot save oneself, and God has through Jesus’ sacrifice redeemed us and set us free to …

2. sacrifice what may be seen as ‘our‘ ‘rights’ and ‘possessions’, so that others will experience through us Christ’s redemption of them, and God’s love that holds the universe together.

The world thinks reality is: IF we x, THEN God y.

God’s reality is this:

BECAUSE God blesses us, THEREFORE we can offer ourselves as servants who joyfully obey God’s commandments, loving God with all our heart, mind and strength: particularly obeying Jesus’ command to love our neighbour as ourselves, and even our enemy.

There is great blessing in obeying God, it is that God gets more done through us for others. There is great curse in disobeying God, and it is that we have failed to recognize the blessing God has already given us.

The challenges of Covid 19 intensify the need for us to see reality clearly, to trust God’s Blessings, and to listen to creation groaning under and rebelling because of our disobedience to God’s commands to love and protect all of creation, as stewards which God has made us to be.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Devotions – May 21

Thursday, May 21, 2020

Evil Uses Imperfect Reflections of God’s Will

to Guide Us to Our Destruction

Psalms 97:10

The Lord loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of his faithful; he rescues them from the hand of the wicked.

Ephesians 4:15

Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

How does one say this: some people are stupid. In Canada, one does not say this in polite company. Is this right? Or maybe the question is wrong. It should be: Is this the best we can say?

This past week campers have gathered as every year for the first weekend of the summer. In the random camping area where I live on crown land, there were no restrictions possible to limit units to every other campsite, since no official campsites are designated. There are unofficial ‘campsites’ well established though. Established enough that they are named.

Doublesite is the first site on the left as one enters the area. It has the end of the circle-road bisecting, after it loops through to the main campsites and just before it joins the entrance road again. It’s large enough open space to easily fit three (four are tight) camper units on one side of the road and two units and two large tents on the other side, though more are possible. This weekend three units circled tightly the central campfire (not fired up, thankfully with the fire ban on). Tents were pitched on the other side, but only one or two. People and especially the half dozen pre-teen children freely mingled and met around the toys and food tables.

There seemed to be little concern for Covid 19 physical distance restrictions. Someone will get killed from Covid 19 because of their carelessness.

Rightsite is the first site on the right as one enters the camping area. It has a 100 metre separate roadway through trees into it’s wide opening around a huge campfire pit. A favourite site, it is usually occupied by one unit, maybe two units. There are two pathways/roadways leading away from it where other units can fit into, though it’s not all that optimal. It can work though as a group campsite and occasionally it is just that.

This weekend a bus and three camper units, plus three tents were squeezed in around the campfire pit. Set off by itself it was hard to see whether a fire was lit. But the space hardly allowed for anything but absurdly normal interactions between the people with so many units filling the area, with no concern for Covid 19 restrictions of any kind. Someone will get killed from Covid 19 because of their carelessness.

Along the loop further past the winter landing for ice fishers, two sites (Lake 1 and Lake 2) sit between the road and the lake, within 5 metres of the water. This weekend the first was empty, but the second was occupied by one unit, a truck, a truck pulling a boat, and a third crossover vehicle.

Around at the end of the loop, before it returns through Doublesite a number of roadways intertwine between the trees making up Website. Usually one or sometimes two units fit back there, not necessarily camping together. This weekend it hosted three camper units and three tents, and twice that many vehicles, with vehicles coming and going all weekend long. The older teenagers and early 20-year-olds carried on like it was a regular bush party, drinking, making lots of noise, louder as the night wore on, tossing frisbees, and setting up drinking games (with shared bottles). After they left there were a number of areas a short ways into the woods with used toilet paper and not quite empty toilet paper rolls strewn about. Someone will get killed from Covid 19 because of their carelessness. Can you spell Darwin Awards?

And at night, the perpetrators unknown, someone lit off a series of fireworks, despite the fire-ban. If they had started a wildfire the dry conditions and the huge amount of dry junk brush in the woods and dead trees would have sent an inferno rolling through and out of here.

Can one say ‘stupid’ loud enough and long enough? With Covid 19 restrictions, who knows when firefighters enough may appear to control it! Who knows how much property would have been destroyed and how many lives would have been lost!

In Cold Lake itself, when I go shopping typically people breach a one metre physical distance from me on a regular basis despite my best efforts to avoid them, forget about 2 metres. I sat at the tailgate of the borrowed truck picking up hardware from Canadian Tire. No less than a dozen people walked past me, all within a foot, two at the most. I finally pulled out a 6 foot stick that I use to pull things out of the 6 foot truck-bed and propped it against the tailgate out onto the pavement easily covering the area where all those people had walked. It forced the next dozen to walk at least 1 metre away from me, and most did that and no more, cutting from the corner right past me at the tailgate.

I’ve heard people foolishly say that there is no Covid 19 in Cold Lake. 2 tested cases were reported, but the military do not report their cases, nor could Cold Lake report an outbreak or real numbers lest threats to Canada could know our military is unable to respond due to illness.

Can one say ‘stupid’ loud enough and long enough? Someone will get killed from Covid 19 because of their carelessness.

As Monday noon rolled around the vehicle noise from that end of the camp area increased, then settled down. I sat writing and out the window off to one side I saw a black something move across the narrow view. I stood up and peered out the window where I might see the whatever if it kept moving the same direction. Nothing, then from behind the borrowed truck meandered a young adult black bear, nosing about for food. Coming right toward me, it was no more than 3 metres away, through the window.

I grabbed a camera to get a few shots. Then as the bear continued to poke about and started toward the camper itself I started shouting. At first there was no response, then the bear slowly changed it’s slow meandering course away from the camper back toward where it had emerged from the roadway to the rest of the camp area.

This young bear has already learned that human campsites are a source of food. That makes for a dangerous bear, one that is not afraid of humans, one that will easily attack humans. Someone is going to get hurt, badly and likely killed eventually, before this bear’s life ends. Who left food out and when so that this bear learned humans are a source of food?

Someone Taught this Bear

Humans Mean Food!

Can one say ‘stupid’ loud enough and long enough?

One can, but is it the wisest or best thing to say?

As we grow up into Christ we learn to hate evil, but to speak graciously and gently about others sinfulness. We remember our own and all that Christ forgives us. We extend that grace towards other sinners.

We speak the truth (about our and their sinfulness) with love (the same love God exercises for us in Christ, that erases those sins.)

The truth is, the population is rebelling against the present restrictions. Even the restrictions are not strong enough to stop Covid 19 from spreading; they will just slow it down to avoid spikes in cases that overwhelm the health care system. If we were under restrictions strong enough to stop Covid 19 from spreading, we would be in full rebellion.

Speaking the truth in love sometimes meaning saying what can be said to get people to do what can be done, and not trying to do what cannot be done, so that people rebel and do nothing to help reduce the dangers we face.

Lake 2 was the only campsite where a bunch of garbage was left scattered behind, (if one does not mention the used toilet paper around Website) though the fire-pits everywhere seem to be treated as if they were garbage cans. So there is that to thank all these campers for: comparatively little mess to clean up after them!

Now feeding that bear, intentionally or inadvertently by leaving food or garbage out for it to find … there just is no excuse for that.

Come to think of it, there is no real excuse for any sin, or for any of us to participate in evil. Yet we keep doing it, thinking it will bring us life.

Only life lived out of God’s Grace brings us and others life.

Be everything good and gracious you can be. At your worst, be kind. That will get you and yours through every challenge in these times when we are ripe pickings for the Devil’s temptations to call others ‘stupid’.

Perfectly Created

Facing Covid 19: Daily Devotions – May 20

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Struggle to Survive as They are Able

Like the Poor

Need to be Recognized

First

Proverbs 29:7

The righteous know the rights of the poor; the wicked have no such understanding.

Hebrews 6:10

For God is not unjust; he will not overlook your work and the love that you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do.

Words of Grace For Today

The rights of the poor

are known by those who are righteous, who seek to do God’s will,

but they are unrecognized by those who are wicked, who turn from God’s will.

This is a statement about what we now call universal human rights: that all people, wealthy or poor, powerful or weak, privileged or disadvantaged all have the same rights. These rights are everyone’s simply because they exist. They are inherent rights.

No one can give these rights, nor can anyone take them away or assign them to someone else. They are inalienable rights.

These do not fully exist. For the sinfulness of humans always leave those who are privileged and powerful to ignore or pervert the rights of others, poor or wealthy, in order to gain an advantage for themselves. Though our Canadian court system is supposed to uphold these inalienable rights, they tromp all over the rights of the disadvantaged. Minorities, especially First Nations and Metis are dis-proportionally convicted and incarcerated. Decades ago men used to bring their wives to court and have them convicted or worse detained in psychiatric facilities (drugged out of their minds) for years without end. Now women can do this to men, and the police, the churches, and the courts oblige them convicting on lies and against hard evidence, using W.D. as a full means to override truths with the biased will to convict no matter, just as long as the woman will lie somewhat convincingly under oath.

Those who are wicked, who think that since they break the laws and act in blatantly unethical manners, therefore everyone does, easily dismiss false convictions as if they are not a concern, or rather false convictions are SOP.

Those who strive to do God’s will, do recognize that even the courts are corrupt, falsely convicting innocent poor people routinely. And with the routine false conviction, courts blatantly invite police and women to freely lie in court. Worse they are free to gaslight their chosen victims, and to invite other bystanders to do the same.

Covid 19 makes this blatant perversion less of a priority to be dealt with than it ever was. Good people turn their eyes to ‘more important things, like the community surviving this pandemic.

Doch the righteous always recognize, work to protect, and struggle to uncover the abuses of universal human rights.

Who do we choose to be today? We will not always choose to deal with injustice and follow through, sinners as we remain. The beginning, and sometimes the best we can do is to remember. Remember how God saved us, and how God desires to use us to save others from injustices, and abuses of their basic rights.

God does recognize and reward our efforts. God already gives us salvation, freely, overwhelmingly, without reserve. We are in God’s family, God’s own people. God recognizes and rewards our efforts to support the saints (the God-made saint in each of us baptized people.) The rewards never end, and include contentment with life, a clear conscience, a pure heart, loving empathy, and renewed energy for life.

These rewards are part of the abundant life God promises us.

Rest in God’s promise, and work like the dickens to protect and keep everyone aware that universal, inherent and inalienable rights for everyone always need protecting.

This will inform our efforts to deal with Covid 19, as well. We bring protection, treatment, and (eventually) the ‘cure’/vaccine equally to everyone.

God’s Rewards

Abound for Those

Who Recognize Universal Rights also for the Poor