Sunset – Page 33

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – November 18

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Given this Beauty,

To be Ruled by God or by Humans,

For which do you think God created the universe?

For which do you think God created our hearts?

Isaiah 26:13

O Lord our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but we acknowledge your name alone.

Acts 5:29

Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than any human authority.’

Words of Grace For Today

Human history is filled with cruel rulers, greedy despots, and evil dictators.

Trump is only one of many alive and ‘ruling’ today.

How is it that so close to half of the 140 million people who voted in the States, voted for Trump?

What comes out of his mouth has been and is still hardly anything that is true, yet millions of people accept it as true.

If you doubt that they actually think it’s true, one only needs to hear about people in the Trump supporters’ Dakotas dying in the ICU from Covid 19, who refuse to accept that the pandemic is real. Instead they insist it is just a hoax. They refuse to acknowledge they are dying. They refuse to speak with their families. And they die, alone, still believing Trump’s lies.

How can this be?

We know that cognitive reality therapy works, works well, works fast. That is, if a person wants to believe (based on what they have already accepted as true), constant repetition of an alternate set of ‘reality statements’ will bring that person to accept that alternate reality as true.

Media that spew propaganda, and advertising focused at individuals is a danger to the continuation of civilization; they attack people’s understanding of the ‘social contract’ that holds barbarism at bay.

Trump is right that there is a lot of ‘false news’ out there. It’s the news that reports what he says, as if it were true. Ever since networks and news stations were no longer required to present both (really all) sides to a story, stations have been bought up in huge conglomerates to present an alternate reality to millions upon millions of people, over and over and over and over again.

People buy into the thin wedge of Querdenken, an apt German word for it. It means crooked-thinking, or cross-thinking, or contrarian-thinking (contrary to reality.) Those who buy into the less extreme ‘alternate reality’ easily buy into the next potion, and the next, and on and on, until what they perceive as real is so far from real it is scary. Thus they vote for Trump, deny Covid 19, and ‘drink the bleach Kool-aide.’

Words matter. It matters what people hear, read, say, and write. Words shape our perception of reality. That is why leaders target truth. Truth is the first victim of war, and of any evil ruler. That is why evil rulers try to control media, arrest dissidents, and exterminate anyone who questions their authority and means of maintaining power.

In countries that supposedly allows free speech, the dangers are very real. Truth is constantly under attack. Chaos is created to cover the huge lies and evil that is allowed to flow under the guise of ‘free’ speech.

One needs to be vigilant, so as not to accept false words and eventually make them into one’s own pseudo-reality. The Kool-aide is sweetened so that at first sip, it seems delightful. Evil always is so.

One needs to hear God’s Word, often, clearly, well stated, graciously presented. Repeating a sermon from decades or centuries ago may be instructive. It cannot replace a sermon written for now, in this place and time. God’s Word proclaimed needs to be written so that the current names of challenges to truth and all other evil as well are provided, and God’s Gracious response to evil is also stated in our terms.

Who will we serve today: human authorities, or God? Simple question; from our answers flow radical consequences for everything we do each day: who we listen to, what we hear, how we hear it.

We cannot hide in a bubble of holy talk. We need to hear the Querdenkers out there as well, so that we understand what God’s Grace needs to respond to. That is we need to know to what we need to respond with Grace.

Human history is filled with cruel rulers, greedy despots, and evil dictators.

Before and above all of them is our God, who did, does and will always create, redeem and renew all of Creation.

So what are you up to today:

drinking human authorities’ Kool-aide

or being God’s Grace for all people?

Facing Covid 19: Words of Grace – 17 November 2020

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Given this Beauty,

Grace or Law,

For which do you think God created the universe?

Isaiah 48:9

For my name’s sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, so that I may not cut you off.

2 Timothy 1:9

God saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.

Words of Grace For Today

It is a marvellous thing that God does for us, saving us and calling us (as God’s children) to a holy calling.

God does this for us.

We do not earn it, or deserve it. We can take no credit for it, not in the least.

With Jesus’ life, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension we encounter God in a new way; yet God did not change to meet us in this new way, living the life of a human being. Indeed God’s Grace made so clear in Jesus’ story, was God’s Grace for us since the beginning of creation.

Why does God do this for us?

God does this because God chooses to do this; God defers God’s anger, restrains it toward us, so that we and the whole creation can sing God’s praise. Dead people do not sing. People who receive Grace have every reason to sing and sing at every opportunity!

Pastor Erin from Trinity Edmonton preached a sermon 15 November 2020 on Jesus’ parable of the talents given to three servants, and the condemnation of the servant who hid his talent in the ground, instead of investing it. Her point was that the traditional interpretation of this as a parable about ‘investing’ our gifts in order to return even more to God is wrong. Instead it is a parable about denouncing the greed and avarice of the owner that demands unfair use be made of millions given to the servants. The owner’s condemnation of the servant who ‘plants’ his owner’s talents in the ground is all wrong; in fact that servant rightly refused to participate in the avarice of using wealth against others to multiply one’s wealth. But Pastor Erin insisted, since the parable was told by Jesus long before capitalism it was not a parable against capitalism. She said the point of the parable was: we need to subvert systems that take advantage of poor people. We must tear down these systems and replace them with ways of being equitable and fair to all people.

Which is interesting if poorly stated. What’s missing is that as Lutherans we proclaim that we are saved by GRACE, and Grace alone. We are not save by what we do, or how we think rightly, or how we subvert unjust systems … nor MUST we do anything. Trouble is so many pastors are ready to ‘tell us’ what we ‘must do, think or believe.’

Worst of all, what Erin and others preach is simply another form of telling us what we must do in order to please Jesus and God and thereby earn God’s favour. It is a futile exercise in the ‘power’ of the office of ministry entrusted to a pastor. This is all Law, in the most destructive, subversive way: debunk traditional interpretation of scripture and then point to what Jesus ‘said’ with a parable (interpreted through one’s own eyes/history/perspective/drive/hates/self-chosen-life-purposes) we must do as Christians, so that people will make changes to the perverse and evil world order that we live under.

God, fortunately, does not wait for us to subvert unjust systems, as just as those actions may be; God acts first, not by overpowering or undercutting or destroying unjust systems and the people who support them and benefit from them. God acts by graciously forgiving, renewing and guiding us, all of us.

Therefore we are free to think differently about unjust systems, and in thinking differently we change how we interact with them; which forces the systems to change in response to us.

Jesus tells parables in such a way as to shock his listeners into imagining that something can be different, that God enables us to be different, that God enables us to be God’s Grace for all people. (That’s what any good sermon has at it’s core.)

God gives us ‘talents’ (i.e. gifts of a great variety) in an overabundant quantity and quality. Like money, we get opportunities to ‘invest’ our gifts in God’s kingdom. Our investing in God’s Kingdom (unlike investing in the unjust money systems humans always have had, which Jesus slams in his parable) reaps great increases in our gifts, of which we are only stewards All we are, have and can believe, think and do belongs to God. We ‘have’ it all only by Grace.

Wasting Grace by reducing life to what we must do, whether that is to believe the right things, to maintain a particular piety, or to work in whatever ways to subvert injustices, is a waste of the Grace given to us; it is like burying a great treasure in the ground, instead of using it to do God’s work in this world.

Why does God do anything for us? Why does God chose to exercise Grace for us?

Because God so chooses.

How can we respond?

By giving God thanks and praise!

Once we do that whole-heartedly, then God can use us in new ways to share God’s way of being, to share God’s Grace for everyone with everyone.

Why us? Because God so chooses! Despite our deserving only God’s anger.

Thanks be to God.

Now let us get on with giving God thanks and praise, by sharing Grace with all the people we meet … even if our pastor has forgotten the beginning and end of God’s Word is always GRACE.

Facing Covid 19: Words of Grace – November 16

Monday, November 16, 2020

Given this Beauty,

Love or Hate,

For which do you think God created the universe?

Leviticus 19:18

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord.

Hebrews 13:1-2

Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.

Words of Grace For Today

Vengeance or bearing grudges take one’s soul for a ride into Hell. When we hang on to the desire for vengeance and grudges it anchors us in that Hell, and everything else we try to do is … hopeless.

Mutual love, especially for one’s enemies, has the opposite effect on our souls and the world around us. It brings us into harmony with the Light of the universe, the Word that created it all, and the Spirit that guides us forward as God’s own children.

Vengeance and grudges are the way of the world, and as our days progress forward in time again in again it seems we have little choice but to respond to the many attempts to do us in with schemes and memories that will even the score, secure our futures, and set things right.

Of course, no such evening of the score, security for our futures, and setting things right ever happens through vengeance and grudges. Instead we give our enemies cause for more vengeance and grudges, setting us all up for a never ending cycle of destruction and retribution.

So choose: vengeance and grudges … that will never end.

Or, by God’s Grace enabling us,

choose: mutual love, so that love may surround not only yourself and your own, but all those you come in contact with, and all those who encounter you even remotely.

…

Having chosen mutual love, then it will be obvious, when a stranger arrives, one receives them with the love that God extends to oneself.

Perhaps … just perhaps … we will thus entertain angels unawares. More likely we will provide a lovingly welcome for everyone … I mean EVERYONE who comes our way.

What a life!

On our own there is no way we can even attempt something so grand. With the gifts of the Holy Spirit, God working in and through us, it’s a piece of cake!

Well, it’s one of the most challenging and difficult cakes of the universe, but then … what else are we going to do with the time we have?

Facing Covid 19: Words of Grace – November 15

Sunday, November 15, 2020

The Wide View

of God’s Good Creation!

Gifts Fill Us All!

Micah 6:8

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

2 Timothy 2:22

Shun youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

Words of Grace For Today

God created us good.

Youthful passions and all. The question is not if we have ‘youthful passions’ at any age (in old age, what an extraordinary gift to receive!) it is what we do with them (no matter our age), and with all the other gifts God gives us. In baptism we name the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to us: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in your presence, both now and forever.

At the affirmation of baptism service we commit ourselves to living out these gifts, by promising:
to live among God’s faithful people,
to hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper,
to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed,
to serve all people, following the example of Jesus,
and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.

So what are we to do with these gifts that bring us to these commitments?

We are, simply, to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.

That precludes gaslighting others, bearing false witness, seeking (directly or indirectly) others’ death.

That precludes responding to misogyny with misandry.

That precludes accusing others of what you yourself has done.

That precludes [fill in a whole host of sins against God, God’s people, and God’s creation.]

I tell children I meet about town, in parting, with their parent(s) overhearing, ‘give your parents a little bit of trouble everyday. Most of us …’

Invariably the parent interjects here that they have no problem with that.

Then I continue, ‘most of us do not have any problem with the trouble part; it’s the little part that is a challenge!’

When we are humble, we recognize that we give God, God’s people, and God’s creation an overabundance of trouble everyday!

Loving kindness, we can laugh at ourselves, which immediately lessons much of the ‘trouble’ we give others and God.

Working for peace and justice for all people and all creation, we focus our energy on making good trouble the kind of trouble we mostly make.

Good Trouble is the kind that exposes injustice and evil, and offers in it’s place true peace.

Good Trouble is the kind that exposes the lies of people who, like Trump try to create reality out of fantasies that serve their selfish passions.

Good Trouble is the kind that takes an awful lot of ‘youthful passion’ for us to pull off.

Thank God for ‘youthful passions’ and the wisdom to know what to do with them!

Facing Covid 19: Words of Grace – November 14

Saturday, November 14, 2020

Little like a Leaf,

Grand like Light,

In a Minute, Forever!

Psalm 92:6

The dullard cannot know, the stupid cannot understand this.

1 Timothy 6:15-16

God will bring about the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ at the right time—God who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. It is God alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to God be honour and eternal dominion. Amen.

Words of Grace For Today

We see things, organize things, and know things in comparison.

We like to compare ourselves to others, especially if we can find a way to look better than the others.

So we can say the dullard and the stupid. They do not understand what we can understand.

So great it is to compare favourable.

Then we try to compare anything, including ourselves, to God.

There is no comparison.

God alone has immortality, God has eternal dominion.

In terms of time, we get to live about 60 to 100 years. As our quality of life increases, which we somehow claim is our own doing, we live longer. So our 60 years is ‘our great accomplishment’ because we live longer than many who expect only to live 30 or 40 years.

God lives beyond time. By comparison to our 60 to 100 years, God has more years than we can even imagine!

God, who dwells in unapproachable light, chooses to adopt us as children.

We inherit life abundant in our 30-100 years, and then we inherit eternal life after our deaths in this wonderfully created universe.

So much for comparisons.

When we move beyond needing to falsely bolster our own status, we can claim to be the dullards and the stupid … compared to God.

Thankfully God speaks to us in many and various ways, most clearly in the life of Jesus Christ, whose light we get to reflect.

What a life!

Facing Covid 19 and Arrogance: Daily Words of Grace – November 12

Thursday, November 12, 2020

Sometimes bending low, we see more of our path ahead

in the woods

and in life.

Psalm 79:13

Then we your people, the flock of your pasture, will give thanks to you for ever; from generation to generation we will recount your praise.

Hebrews 13:15

Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.

Words of Grace For Today

Humble thanks and praise, these we have plenty cause to give to God. Not only for today, this day of -20⁰ and a bike ride home as it got colder and colder, for in the end all is well, all is well.

We have many things to give God thanks, in each generation, since the beginning of time, and for every future generation until there is no more time or a universe for us.

The thanks and praise we offer God is simple, and costly.

It is to give everything we are and have to respond to all other people as God has responded to us: with unconditional grace.

God has gathered us in, adopted us as children, and promised us life abundant. Life abundant is not one that overflows with comforts and luxuries, privileges and power, or ways and means. Life abundant is one that is lived fulfilling God’s purpose for us, which is to reflect God’s way with all people, to be Christ’s feet, hands, and voice for all people.

We confess our belief with words from our mouths, and it is affirmed by how we live. We do not live perfectly or better than others. We live for others.

It is like wearing a mask during this pandemic. One does it not for oneself, but for everyone else.

We do not live as God created us to be, so that we benefit, but that others benefit from God’s Grace.

That is simple and costly and priceless.

Like humbling oneself to give children affirming attention so that they understand they are valuable as people, we humble ourselves and give each person due attention and respect, so that all people understand that they are valuable as people, especially to God.

Trumpism, the manner of Gaslighting everyone to try to make some fiction become real, trying to get some advantage for oneself or ones own, has nothing to do with being in God’s flock. It is what destroys individuals, families, and countries. It is what threatens to sink the whole world into war.

From Nazis, to Stasi, to Trumpites, to those who bear false witness in courts, to those who defend their lies with more lies in daily life, and to lots and lots of others who work us woe: these are the way of the Devil.

When we humble ourselves and practice kindness, we start to see God’s way.

Kindness is at the root of due attention and respect; and clarity when one does something wrong.

Kindness, praise, and thanks: these fill our days with living beauty.

No pandemic, no -20⁰C weather, no gaslighting can change that.

God’s way is from generation to generation assured.

Facing Covid 19 and inherent Evil: Daily Words of Grace – November 11 – Lest We Forget

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

The Light of the Sun Reflected

We get to reflect the Light of the Son

Why Pursue Anything Else?

Proverbs 15:16

Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it.

Mark 8:36

For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

Words of Grace For Today

Remember lest we forget those who sacrificed that we might live without overt fascism!

Covid 19 is in it’s second wave, and it runs rampant through Alberta (as many other places). Officially the word is that people are partying. This can be taken to be true … and stupid if understandable. There is likely more … also stupid and somehow some of it is less understandable.

Caution is thrown to the wind in so many ways in Alberta. Premier Kenny refuses to do more than make suggestions to people in order to stop the wave that is well on its way to overrunning the health care system. Cities and local governments have led the way mandating masks.

In Cold Lake nothing is mandated by the city. Stores with headquarters elsewhere have mandated masks and hand sanitizing upon entry. Guides are in place for physical distancing and in some stores for one way aisles. Nothing is done to mitigate aerosol transmission, which evidence shows is a likely path of transmission. That means unless huge volume air ventilation systems are in place an infected person can spread the virus in the air for 10 or more metres and leave the virus hanging in the air for hours.

The measures in place are of little use since there is no enforcement past the entrance doors. People remove their masks when they are away from the door, wear their masks so as to cover just their mouths or just their chins. People regularly touch their masks pulling them up or down and then touch products they do not buy. Everyone, store staff included, walk wherever they please, against the one way arrows, with no thought of physical distancing, regularly passing within inches of other people.

The majority of people speak volumes with their reckless behaviour, and their tolerance of other people’s reckless behaviour: they are ready to forfeit their life, or rather someone else’s life.

God created us to live as Jesus set the example: with grace forgiving, healing, and welcoming all people, sacrificing ourselves in order to bring other the abundance of life that God has provided for all people.

After SARS in Canada the recommendation for future pandemics was clear: the government should act quickly, decisively, and strictly, long before the evidence is in what the minimum is that is required. Immediate, maximum restrictions should have been in place long ago.

Now with the second wave, again slow minimal responses continue to be the norm, and the new case numbers are skyrocketing. Why the slow ineffective responses, last January and now this fall? Because the maximum restrictions cost the economy hugely, and it’s all about money for the rich, though the story now is that it robs ordinary people of their income. That it does. But a quick decisive response costs everyone less in the long term than slow minimal responses do!

Decisive maximum responses can cost politicians in the polls, but the record shows that lack of action, like Kenny’s, costs them more.

So why this slow, ineffective response?

Who is to profit from it? What kind of dictatorial interests are at play to trade people’s health and lives for their profit, power, and privilege?

Then one reads today: what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? or rather our lives. – Though we understand clearly to forfeit others lives is to forfeit everything about one’s own life that God created us to be: reflectors of Christ’s Light.

It is simply better to live with very little, fearing and loving God; than it is to live with a great deal of wealth, power, influence, status, and/or fame and have a great deal of trouble with it.

So what are we to do. Dr. Tam almost said it: We should do EVERY LITTLE THING we can think of to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and EVERYONE ELSE.

We are in this together, and the virus does not distinguish it’s victims according to wealth, power, influence, status, and/or fame. It just needs a live human, and healthy, young, minimally affected are the best for transmitting it to many others.

Every live human counts equally.

We are all in this together.

So let’s ALL start behaving like there are a lot of LITTLE THINGS we can do, and start doing them!

Facing Covid 19 and Evil: Daily Words of Grace – November 10

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

It’s an empty bird house.

God has a Home for Us All,

Each of Us, and

It’s Not an Empty Bird House.

Psalm 86:16

Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant; save the child of your serving-maid.

Philippians 4:19

My God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to God’s riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Words of Grace For Today

There are so many things to ask God for.

There always have been so many things to ask God for.

There always will be so many things to ask God for.

Our pleas have filled the nights and days since we first imagined that God existed. From the comfort of our palatial homes, the likes of which Pharaohs, Caesars, Kings, and Queens could hardly dream, we plead with God for yet more.

In Palestine the church pleas for basic human rights, where a home is for most people a dream unattainable. Where refugee camps are the norm. Where violence and ensuing death is inevitable, it’s only a matter of when. Where clean water, nutritious food, adequate clothing and shelter, meaningful labour and the freedom to love and be loved unconditionally are all in short supply, if attainable at all.

God will fully satisfy every need of yours ….

This is blatantly not so, not today, not in all our yesterdays, and not for all our tomorrows.

God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to God’s riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

… ‘according to’ these are the modifying words that make this true, as part of God’s promise to provide for all God’s people.

God does not promise that everyone will receive the basic requirements of life, nor the recognition of their human rights. God promises to provide everything for us according to God’s riches in glory in Jesus Christ. Which means according to God’s Good News, that God loves us unconditionally, frees us from our sins so that we may live in grace and be that same grace for others.

God’s riches in glory in Jesus Christ are beyond our imaginations, and yet Jesus lived out them in his life, ministry of healing, welcoming all especially the outcast and sinners, and sacrificing himself so that the whole creation would be redeemed and re-newed, that is re-created pure and righteous and holy.

God does not come to save us from our trials. That happens rarely. God comes to save us in our trials, suffering with us, giving us God’s strength to endure and still be gracious, with ourselves and with others.

We may well wish others to evaporate from the face of the earth when they cause our suffering, and others’ suffering, especially when there seems to be no end or limit to the suffering. God prefers to save these enemies of ours, for they are also God’s creatures, just as we are.

Hang on then. Pray for everything we need. Hope for justice based on truth for all. Expect daily bread. Prepare for unending suffering.

We are all in this together, oppressor and oppressed, privileged and deprived, faithful and evil. Just as Covid 19 can get any of us, evil can take any of us under, and only God can save any of us.

God’s promise is that, through Jesus Christ, God saves us all, unconditionally.

Now we get to live out of that promise, bringing that promise to bear on the lives of everyone we encounter in anyway, every day.

What a life!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – November 9

Monday, November 9, 2020

See God Calls

Isaiah 65:1

I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am’, to a nation that did not call on my name.

Romans 3:28

For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.

Words of Grace For Today

Not only do we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law, but we believe that even that faith is not an act of a person, nor can it be. Faith is a gift created for us and given to us by God, and God alone. We do, say, think or believe nothing that contributes to this gift nor earns it in anyway.

We hold that we are justified only by Grace, which is God’s gift freely given to us.

How many times have we striven to reach God, with no success.

Our only hope is that God is ready to be sought out by those who did not ask, to be found by those who did not seek. Indeed God walks with us always, saying ‘Here I am, here I am’ to us even when we do not call out God’s name.

This is the mystery of life: that God gives everything even when we deserve nothing. God promises to give us life abundant, even when we expect and experience everything but life abundant. God’s promises are sure, most often hidden in plain site.

God calls out, from the beauty of nature, through the unconditional love of God’s children, with the voices of those most in need of the basics of life.

Time to trust those promises and answer God’s call to enact God’s will with all our hearts, mind and strength.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – November 6

Friday, November 6, 2020

All Creation bends to honour Christ,

The Light of the World.

It’s there for the seeing!

Isaiah 45:6-7

So that they may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is no one besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things.

2 Thessalonians 3:5

May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

The constant question that a thinking, self-aware, honest, and inquisitive mind asks is what are miracles?

Are they the power of God above all else, to form light and create darkness, or make weal and create woe, making God’s ultimate absolute power over reality known from the rising of the sun and from the west?

Or are miracles the power of God to transform hearts and minds so that we people actually do some good in our small lives?

The question is then also, do miracles happen, or are they just things of the past? Does God exist? or is God dead? or a figment of our imaginations? and are we creatures or mistakes or happenstance in an ever changing universe?

The answer depends much on what one wants in and from life. If one wants to play godlet over others, then God cannot exist or God is just an imagination used to control other people. This manner of living provides great rewards, if one can stomach the dissonance in one’s heart and mind and conscience.

If one wants to be what everyone says what they want; peace, love, happiness and true prosperity, or at least giving lip service to the idea, then one cannot greedily work to secure life and privilege and comfort for oneself. One needs be comfort, compassion, and breath for the most downtrodden, outcasts that the rest of the world would ignore.

One’s experience in life is determined by how we choose to live … at least until we notice God knocking at the door to our hearts, minds and strength … from the inside, asking us, begging us, to open up to the whole of creation.

That’s where true joy is hidden in plain site.

So where do you want to go today, tonight, tomorrow and each day and night thereafter? Into your own self created hell, or into God’s city and into the wilderness of miracles in every little mundane thing and event?

Wherever you choose, God walks with you, waiting for you to ask what you can do for God, carrying you when you cannot even walk, and reminding you of God’s love and Christ’s steadfastness.