Sunrise – Page 18

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – June 14

Sunday, June 14, 2020

Beavers build dams

We damn so much that God builds

Only the Holy Spirit can show us how love blesses everything and everyone.

Psalm 8:6

You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet

Ephesians 5:1-2

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Words of Grace For Today

God gave humans dominion over the works of God’s hands, over creation, putting all things under our feet.

It is true that we, humans, do appear to be able to work our will over many aspects and creatures in creation. Certainly we do not have dominion over everything in the universe.

Since we pretty much destroy so much of what we attempt to control, perverting even our own good intentions into things terrible beyond imagining (remember how nuclear bombs, declining faithfulness, and pastor shortages came to be), it is probably good we have not mastered the entire universe.

Where we show most fearfully our successes is in our efforts to control and/or destroy other people. Warfare has developed to the point where we can all too easily dispatch a drone to blow up a village, missiles from a plane, ship, submarine, or land based silo that can obliterate whole cities, or suicide bombers to blow up a crowd. Terrorist attacks come by land, sea, air, and cyber means delivering projectile, poisons, explosions. Infamous leaders turn words that have no bearing in reality into deadly weapons, inspiring hate crimes, that invite protests, that are hijacked as violent riots, which in turn are use as excuses for more hate crimes inspired by infamously dangerous and irrational power hungry leaders.

Where did all this hate come from?

From our fearful hearts!

We fear that our share of the pie is disappearing, so we want to blame someone else, instead of take our own responsibility for living lives that demand others destroy air, land, and sea … and people, in order to satisfy our insatiable appetites for things that do not satisfy the soul.

How different Jesus’ life story is, filled with healing words and touches, wise words that reach the soul with truth, actions that demonstrate God’s omi-present, all-powerful, self-sacrificial love.

Be imitators …

not of those who pursue dominion over creation and creatures, especially other people.

Be imitators …

of Jesus, extending love, especially to the strangers, to the ones who is different, to the ones who cannot return our love, to the most vulnerable, to the most needy and to our own selves.

You can tell, in a congregation, who the people are who do not love themselves as God loves them. They always worry and try to make something (usually something impossible) happen according to their own plans. They lie. They cheat. The sow chaos, trying to keep their plans in the dark until the destruction is beyond repair, as if they somehow win with their lies, secrets, and interpretations of constitutions, bylaws, and contracts that are only possible if one suspends normal manners of thinking. While they demand more and more of others, they produce less and less real, loving work. What appears as loving actions is really power games to gain influence in order to rise out of their own chaos as a saviour.

Unfortunately people always follow leaders who create chaos and false fears, like Hottelstedter, who will then say they really had no idea where all the people disappeared to, those the cattle cars carried through their village… on the way to the extermination camps.

One has to pity those who are so fearful that the best they can imagine for the future is to create chaos and false fears to drive people to do irrational and destructive things. Yes! the pitiful have exercised dominion, the kind of dominion the Devil tempts us to, the kind that eats out our own souls and corrupts each piece of creation it touches.

Thank God, Jesus’ love, which the Holy Spirit equips and empowers us to imitate and act out for all people, even the most pitifully corrupt, cannot be overpowered by the Devil and his evil work, no matter the guise they come in. We are not separated from the love of Christ, not even by the Devil himself, not as God’s love flows into us in overwhelming measures, nor as it flows over, around, and through us to everyone around us.

Thanks be to God.

Therefore we pause at all hours, to be astounded with gratitude for all God has done for us.

Therefore we pray each day: may we not forget the over-abundance of God’s Grace and Love which saves us, even from ourselves.

Therefore each day we pray: may this day bring us to share God’s love with those so thirsting and hungry that they succumb to the Devil’s empty promises.

Yes, let us have dominion over all creation, as we imitate Christ, for Jesus’ kind of dominion is to pour God’s unconditional, irrationally prodigal Love and Grace into life around us … at all costs to ourselves.

God has our backs. We need fear nothing.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – June 9

Tuesday, June 9, 2020

See the Light!

See the Beauty!

And Life will be profoundly enjoyable!

Exodus 20:15

You shall not steal.

1 Corinthians 10:24

Do not seek your own advantage, but that of others.

Words of Grace For Today

This is simple.

Do Not Do What Is Wrong.

Do not steal from others.

Do not seek your own advantage but that of others.

…

except the world certainly does not work that way.

Lesson upon lesson teaches us that we need to take every advantage for ourselves and even then there will not be enough for us to enjoy life.

We must work hard, even if that means at cheating, lying, stealing, but …

but we just cannot get caught.

Really!?

Well, that is the world’s way, and the way our children are taught … by all those who lie, cheat, are rich, and still they do not enjoy life!

The basic of Jesus’ story is that the world rejects generosity, and God builds God’s Kingdom on it. God is generous with forgiveness.

So can we.

God is generous in giving new chances to sinners who deserve condemnation.

So can we.

God wondrously offers life that is abundant and overflowing,

with challenges, rewards, and purpose.

Most of all God freely gives us (at great cost, God’s Son’s own life) the ability to fully enjoy life, and the freedom to live in God’s generosity that is not dependent on material things, so that we can seek other’s advantages, and trust we will have enough to enjoy life, no matter our circumstances.

Do not steal only starts with not taking other’s property.

It is also not taking one’s reputation by lying about them. (Further, Martin Luther referred to bearing false witness as worse than just stealing one’s reputation, it is to actually murder that person because they are left with such a reduced possibility of living well. – so to not steal one’s reputation is to not murder.)

It is also not taking other’s opportunities.

…

Most of all it is to create opportunities for others, even if it costs us greatly.

The opportunities we strive to create for others is for them to learn that life is not dependent on things, but on trusting God’s Love and Grace.

To do that we need to trust that what truly has value for us in life is always free.

It comes down to the mysteries that God provides for us to live in awe of: beauty, truth, hope beyond hope, genuine love, grace, and forgiveness.

Look to see those beauties all around us each day and we will learn to enjoy life, one minute at a time.

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 4

Thursday, June 4, 2020

We are but Grass, Blown in the Wind

While our Enemies Stand like Trees

Doch, God Ensures We are Victors

Eternally

1 Samuel 17:45

But David said to the Philistine, ‘You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

Ephesians 6:14-15

Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace.

Words of Grace For Today

It’s war:

The Philistines with Israel.

Goliath versus David.

The Devil and all his powers to destroy versus the Disciples of Jesus proclaiming peace.

Covid 19 versus us, the whole population of earth.

The whole human population of earth versus all life for the survival of planet earth.

The Devil and all his deceiving followers versus the people of God who rely on truth, forgiveness and love, which is a battle with ourselves sinner-saints that we are.

… and all the other battles and wars we are caught up in.

The battles we enter in the wars we are a part of, whether we choose to be or not, are never among equal parties.

It appears that our enemies, like Israel’s and David’s (the Philistine giant Goliath), are much more powerful than we are. It seems futile to engage in what seems to be a battle to them with assured victory, when we insist it will be peace.

Like David (we hope) we are equipped with nothing great, perhaps just a slingshot and a few pebbles, or more likely just a heart filled with gratitude, joy, and hope.

Our enemies have great arsenals:

The Devil has hoards of followers and a long track record of winning and destroying those he conquers. He has the record of setting the world standards in such a way as to make life impossible unless one cheats, lies and destroys others by taking from them what one wants.

Goliath has already scared the entire Israeli army into retreating from fighting with him.

Covid 19 works in stealth mode, catching us when we are unaware, and recruiting us to spread it to others even before we know we are ill. It attacks in many and various ways, depending on the health and genes of the person invaded. We cannot see the enemy until it may be too late.

Maybe we have water and soap, sometimes hand sanitizer, and orders to stay away from others, and to stay the blazes home, but we have no idea if all that actually works, or if we can do that long enough before the virus destroys our economies so far that there is not much left of us.

Doch.

We stand in God’s presence everyday. God stands with us. We need not fight at all. We humbly submit to God’s will, confess our sins and receive forgiveness, new and abundant life, and a calling to spread the news of God’s love in Jesus, which saves us all.

Whether we prevail as David did with just a pebble, God ensures that our efforts as part of God’s Kingdom bring peace to earth, in God’s time and in God’s manner.

God ensures, despite our efforts, our successes, or our failures, that there is peace for us and for all others who call on God’s name.

That outcome is why it is possible for us to engage, against all odds, to bring truth and Christ’s light to bear on all evil.

Covid 19 may not be easy to battle, yet we are on the winning side, even if it ends our lives or the lives of our loved ones here and now.

God has overcome death with Jesus’ resurrection. This we can trust.

Prayer: For Trinity Sunday & Everyday

Our Breastplate Prayer for Today

tip of the hat to St. Patrick and his Breastplate Prayer (see below)

Caught in the Mists

of Mystery, Doubt, and Threats,

We Invoke

The Trinity, 3in1

As I arise from the healing mists of rest, to face the mountains, mysteries and doubts in the morning light and the Devil’s wiles, I pray:

by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Communion of the Holy Spirit,

Lord, protect me from all dangers that would be my undoing.

As the saints before me faced these same battles, help me persevere giving God the Glory, even under threat of death.

Help me remember all that God has given us:
the Goodness of Creation, the Law, the Prophets,
the Psalms, the Gospels, the Epistles, and more
to revive my weary spirit and sagging strength.

Jesus came to tell God’s story most plainly: God is always for us, claiming us, forgiving us at great cost, sending us out to share the story of Jesus’ Grace, God’s Love and the power of the Holy Spirit, bringing together people of all kinds.

Seeing the wonders of creation that the last centuries of progress have laid to waste, I still affirm: God wants this all to be GOOD again, including all that I do.

Yet, the Devil would have me filled with fear.

Name the fears of this day:

Fear of a virus called Covid 19.

Fear of being alone and forgotten.

Fear of deadly and destructive riots hijacked from peaceful protests against police abuses (as if God does not treasure young black and young First Nations’ men as much as us!)

Fear of police power and martial law abused.

Doch!

God, you have promised again and again I do not need to be afraid!

Christ sent the Holy Spirit, the mysterious, powerful fire of God, to envelop, motivate, and protect me:

up, down,

to the left, to the right,

in front of me, and behind me

(making sure I am not lazy in the calling Christ sends me to!)

As I arise from the healing mists of rest, to face the mountains, mysteries and doubts in the morning light and the Devil’s wiles, I pray:

by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Communion of the Holy Spirit,

Lord, protect me from all dangers that would be my undoing.

Now as I raise my hands from the bed, make them work for Christ.

As I put my feet to the floor, make them move for Christ.

As I warm up my voice to speak, use my voice to proclaim the power of the Trinity: Creator, Redeemer, Holy Maker and Guide.

Amen

…

St Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer Information

These words came to us as part of a collection, published in 1903, of hymns found in two old manuscripts. With this hymn/prayer were these words: Saint Patrick sang this when an ambush was laid against his coming by Loegaire, that he might not go to Tara to sow the faith. And then it appeared before those lying in ambush that [Saint Patrick and his monks] were wild deer with a fawn following them. [‘Wild deer’ can also mean they were hidden in a thick mist, something well-known in Ireland.] see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick’s_Breastplate

St Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity.

Through the belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness

Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today

Through the strength of Christ’s birth with his baptism.

Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,

Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,

Through the strength of his descent for the judgment of Doom.

I arise today

Through the strength of the love Cherubim,

In obedience of angels,

In the service of archangels,

In hope of resurrection met with reward,

In prayers of patriarchs,

In predictions of prophets,

In preaching of apostles,

In faith of confessors,

In innocence of holy virgins,

In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven:

Light of sun,

Radiance of moon,

Splendour of fire,

Speed of lightening,

Swiftness of wind,

Depth of sea,

Stability of earth,

Firmness of rock.

I arise today

Through God’s strength to pilot me:

God’s might to uphold me,

God’s wisdom to guide me,

God’s eye to look before me,

God’s ear to hear me,

God’s word to speak for me,

God’s hand to guard me,

God’s way to lie before me,

God’s shield to protect me,

God’s host to save me

From snares of devils,

From temptations of vices,

From everyone who shall wish me ill,

Afar and anear,

Alone and in multitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and those evils,

Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul,

Against incantations of false prophets,

Against black laws of pagandom

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolatry,

Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,

Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul.

Christ to shield me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

So that there may come to me abundance of reward.

Christ with me,

Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me,

Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness,

Of the Creator of Creation.

Amen!

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 31

Sunday, May 31, 2020

Living Here is a Little Tents, no Covid though.

Better than some

Temporarily Good Enough

It’s Inhabited by Grace

Isaiah 5:8

Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land! The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing: Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.

1 Corinthians 12:13

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Words of Grace For Today

Those who greedily gather more and more for themselves, though they have many houses, even if the are physically in one of those houses, that house is desolate and uninhabited; for it takes a person of gratitude and generosity to inhabit even a small house, and it takes yet more grace, gratitude and generosity to inhabit a large house, yet alone a mansion.

Row after row of BIG BOX HOUSES line the new subdivisions. Families move in and the houses are left without inhabitants.

To be a person … a person at all and more-so a person in God’s Kingdom … one needs to rely on the Holy Spirit gifts given at baptism …

One needs to drink the Holy Spirit and become one of the saints connected with the other saints through every generation …

working with the gifts the Holy Spirit gives you to build up the people of God

and as the Spirit makes one able, to call upon the Lord in humble confession and profound gratitude for the forgiveness given, the new life received, and the Grace enabled in one’s heart, mind and strength.

There is no person who is not offered these gifts from the Spirit of God, all Greeks, Jews, Gentiles, Free and Slave (to the powers that be), of whatever gender or preference of drink or joy, whatever generation from whatever family. All are equal. All receive precious gifts. All can accept them with gratitude and live to build up instead of tear down the people of God.

From the gift of true soul-peace we gain the ability to generate external peace for those around us.

We pray, may our living spaces (some of us have no home) be inhabited with God’s people of Grace.

Charlotte is not Home

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 29

Friday, May 29, 2020

Bare Bear

Face one of these up close without a wall and window between you

and you may give thanks for weeks.

Face the devil as we do each day

and there is cause to give thanks our whole life long.

Psalms 35:28

Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness and of your praise all day long.

Luke 24:52-53

They worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

Words of Grace For Today

If you have ever faced death, like in a car accident that should have killed you, and recovered from the shock, you may be familiar with that overwhelming feeling of joy and gratitude at being alive!

On a late winter day we set out to a study conference. Unknown to us … well wait for that. Climbing a hill to a right full speed bend in the highway down to the hotel and lake that we would continue by on our way … with no warning the minivan started to fishtail.

The opposing lane was suddenly filled with vehicles and a semi. I held just a touch of power and barely held the van from spinning out. The turn finished I caught the fishtailing and it was just one moment from ending … when we hit the bridge over the railroad track very far below the van lost it completely as the tail end slowly spun counter clockwise, crossing the opposing lane, missing the railing on the far side of the bridge by less than a foot.

It hit the hard snow bank a few feet high already facing backwards and did a full flip in the air down the steep embankment, rolled twice more and stopped against the tree line at the bottom.

We walked to the hotel and when the highway patrol arrived he stayed only as long as it took to ensure we were okay and to share the news that he had 75 calls due to the ice storm that covered roads with black ice for hundreds of miles. Our near death accident was nothing compared to many fatalities that morning.

The next day, sore and stiff, with cuts on our hands and faces, we progressed through the usual work day … until … about supper time … we both told the other how fully alive, engaged and joyful we were. The day before we were not depressed but we had great cause to see life dimly, for the congregation we served had served up a real sour douzer.

This joy lasted for weeks.

This kind of surviving is exactly what Jesus does for us each day, forgiving us and setting us loose, free in the world to share the Good News … of Jesus’ forgiveness for everyone!

We get to be the feet, hands and voice of Jesus freely dispensing forgiveness that brings new life to everyone.

Give praise and worship God each day, all day long, even as we work, play, and relax.

This is what God created us to do.

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.