Animals – Page 56

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 10

Monday, August 10, 2020

Holy Spirit

Holy Fire

Holy Wild Ride

Through Light and Life

Judges 8:23

Gideon said to them, ‘I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.’

2 Corinthians 10:18

For it is not those who commend themselves that are approved, but those whom the Lord commends.

Words of Grace For Today

Many strive to achieve for themselves great position of authority and power. For example one needs only look at all the bishops our church has had who seriously wanted to become bishops. They were disastrous for the church, each in their own special corrupt way.

The best bishops were those who did not want the work, nor the honour, nor the heartache of presiding over a church in decline.

The church remains in decline.

What does that say to us other than God has plans that are not those of the church which wants to grow … according to our measure of growth.

There is no shortage of people trying way too hard to make their plans into God’s plans for the church. All are dangerous and destructive.

What we need is leaders like Gideon, who though offered control and rule, chose instead that the people would be ruled by God.

To be ruled by God is something, not anything like being ruled by a code of what someone has determined is ‘for sure’ God’s will (though it looks like a terrible subset of faith, reduced so that that it is worthless.)

To be ruled by God is something, not anything like being ruled by a person who supposedly can speak God’s will. We’ve had no end of despots, also in the church.

To be ruled by God is something that will lead us in places we cannot anticipate, into adventures we cannot imagine, and to share life with people we had never known before as God’s people. It’s a wild ride.

Hang on tight

to the Holy Spirit’s fire and breath.

That’s all God gives us most of the time, everything else we see as solid is an illusion we create for our own sense of (false) security.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 8

Saturday, August 8, 2020

A Rose

also has thorns,

Only Grace can save us from the Evil One

Psalm 25:15

My eyes are ever towards the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

2 Thessalonians 3:1-3

Finally, brothers and sisters, pray for us, so that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified everywhere, just as it is among you, and that we may be rescued from wicked and evil people; for not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful; he will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.

Words of Grace For Today

Yes, how true it always is that not all people have faith. There are evil people.

Some are grand, like despots who use the cover of Covid 19 to take life and freedom and power from their enemies. Others appear in every way to be ordinary people, but they work only to get ahead for themselves and have no sense that this is a shared experience.

Some are just stupidly ignorant and therein destructive. It reminds me of the store clerk who does nothing sufficient to protect people who come in to the store, a drug store and post office. Lots of sick people come in and out. Lots of healthy people come to check their mail. Yet there is no attention to cleansing, protecting customers, or actual providing for physical distancing, other than dots of the floor, which people ignore. Instead she mocks me, calls attention to me that I bring a bottle of diluted bleach to cleanse my way in and out of many places where protection is insufficient.

This last time, having not seen me come in she yelled at me while 25 feet away that I better not ‘bleach’ her door, loudly so many other customers heard it as well, and then she saw I had no bleach bottle (I’d biked to town and not packed it along with everything else), exclaimed how good it was I had no bleach bottle. Actually it was much more dangerous for me that I did not have it. Makes one want to carry a water bottle that squirts 6 feet, to spray her as she always steps much closer than six feet. Of course not with bleach, but with plain water, to shock her to her senses. Probably would not work, for lack of sense.

But we do not need to save ourselves from any evil. God has already done all that.

We can stay focused on sharing the good news that God has already provided us protection from dangerous, evil people. The protection is not that others will not exercise evil against us or that they cannot do much to destroy us. God’s promised protection is that nothing will separate us from the love of God.

Therefore we are free. Free always to be gracious, and to work to help others engage in justice based on truth, righteousness based on God’s grace, and commitment based on sharing everything God has given us.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 7

Friday, August 7, 2020

No Matter How Dark the Road

God comes to rescue us

again.

Zechariah 1:17

Proclaim further: Thus says the Lord of hosts: My cities shall again overflow with prosperity; the Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.

2 Corinthians 1:10

He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again.

Words of Grace For Today

We all would like to know that we have dealt with a challenge in our lives, settled it, and made it possible to move on … to move on to better things.

It would be good to know that the bear that came snooping around last spring, at whom I yelled at the top of my lungs and who ran off, would not be a problem. It would be good to know that the bear who ran from a woman out on a walk, not once but twice, as she yelled at it, would no longer be a problem. It would be good to know that the bear who came snooping around the tent the other night, not just once but twice, is now gone and will not be a problem again. But it’s the same bear, and it will be back. Someone has left food out and it has learned that people mean food. It will be back, and again until someone is hurt badly or killed and the bear is moved away, or it is killed. Humans and bears don’t mix well, but humans make good bear meals, and bear meat makes good supper. And there will be other bears and other stupid humans to teach them that humans mean food.

Weeds grow madly with rain and sunny heat. All efforts at picking them, cutting them, digging them up, or tilling the ground to be rid of them at best produces short terms results. Weeds are plants that have developed better survival methods than other plants. Weeds will come back … again and again even if you salt the earth, some weeds will return.

So it is with destructive habits of each and every one of us humans. Our destructive habits become habits because we learn they provide us a short-term benefit (the cost to others we learn to ignore) and we learn to ignore the long-term cost to us and others, until the long-term cost starts to disrupt our ability to carry on with our destructive habits.

It is good to know and trust that God will save us from ourselves, and from each other.

He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again.

When we live, enabled by the Holy Spirit to trust God’s deliverance, to trust that God will provide more than we need, to trust that God’s favour rests on us, then we may be able to break some of our destructive habits.

We will never be able to be rid of all our destructive habits (our sins), and God will again and again come to rescue us from ourselves and from each other.

Thanks be to God that others’ lies about us do not define reality; God’s Grace does.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 6

Thursday, August 6, 2020

The corner?

What’s there, around the corner?

Life, with all it’s challenges and opportunities!

Psalm 103:10

He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.

Acts 15:11

On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.’

Words of Grace For Today

If we are honest with ourselves and each other, we know our participation in original sin.

It is the opposite of what we wish well for ourselves and others, that we would consider the goodness of life, and what we understand God intends for us.

We know that we deserve all judgments of God made against us, and all punishments and consequences we may encounter.

So it is of the greatest consequence that we know God promises to deal with us NOT according to what we deserve, not according to our iniquities. How wonderful it is that we understand, on the contrary, that we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as all people will be saved by grace.

Now that our salvation is secured, what can we do about all those iniquities that keep piling up? Can we stop increasing them? Unfortunately not, but we ought try with grace and gratitude with all our mind, body and strength.

We can offer grace to all other living people. We can breathe and love and hope.

Life is messy, and we can live with confidence and courage in the face of all kinds of evil knowing God has already dealt with it all. So onward, with what this day has to offer; countering all evil and sin as we can, and bringing God’s grace to bear on all that we can.

Hallelujah!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 5

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Crooked Tree!

Even crooked trees have a place in God’s Kingdom.

2 Chronicles 30:18-19

For a multitude of the people, many of them from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover otherwise than as prescribed. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, ‘The good Lord pardon all who set their hearts to seek God, the Lord the God of their ancestors, even though not in accordance with the sanctuary’s rules of cleanness.’

Luke 19:2-3

A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.

Words of Grace For Today

There is ample Grace in God’s history dealing with us people, so that we may have no doubts that God may choose to be gracious with people whom we may think would not be God’s favoured people.

We codify faith, and move it from being living faith to dead faith, and then judge others as being unacceptable (ourselves included) because they/us do not practice the demands of the codes we have made.

Living faith lives with codes as important, instructive, but not indelibly correct or wise. Living faith is above all else, unconditionally loving of all people, as God is for us … all of us wretched sinners.

We do not defy the codes of faith practices adopted by our faith communities. We practice codes to express our thanks to God for all God gives us. But we do not demand of others that they practice any specific code. We allow God’s Grace to guide our response to their keeping or not keeping the codes of our faith community.

Jesus welcomed Zacchaeus, and invited himself to join Zacchaeus at his home, even though the crowd knew Zacchaeus as a terrible cheat and tax collector who exploited them to make himself rich.

Jesus always sees something good … in each and every one of us.

It is the least we can do for each other.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 4

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Standing on level ground

as God’s mysteries pour in

Psalm 26:12

My foot stands on level ground; in the great congregation I will bless the Lord.

1 Corinthians 14:26

What should be done then, my friends? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.

Words of Grace For Today

Standing on level ground: building up the gathering of followers.

Out hiking in the mountains, more so as the years accumulate on one’s frame, one needs to take breaks from the steady walking forward, upward in order to catch one’s breath, to regroup one’s commitment and to let one’s body catch up on the energy output so slight for each step, yet so great for hours and hours of steps forward and upward.

A cool drink of water, or juice, and a handful of trailmix or cheese or pemmican helps the body and the spirit rejuvenate.

While one rests it is the first obvious thing, one seeks out a level spot, perhaps with a log or rock on which one may sit to rest. Experience will teach one that sitting is best kept brief, and that standing or walking easily about, catching any great view available, is the best way to rejuvenate one’s spirit for the arduous labour of one step times thousands per hour.

So also it is best to find one’s place in the congregation standing on level ground, orienting oneself to the view, toward God in our midst, and toward the people gathered, and toward all the people who are not present but are out there. So oriented one can assess the circumstances and discern God’s work, and with all that one brings to the congregation one can ensure it will build up the congregation, each person and all of us together.

What does not build up has no place in the congregation.

Paul had an earful of what the people in the congregation at Corinth were capable of, which did not build up, but rather divided the congregation.

Paul did not give up on the congregation, nor anyone person in it. He writes with clarity about the divisions and actions of the congregation that tear the congregation apart, that tear it down. And he points to ways the congregation can work to build each other up, to provide for each person, and not to continue hubris practices that divide and destroy the congregation.

For generations now those words, and unfortunately those circumstances, resonate as people stand against each other, against faith with integrity, and for their own limited vision of what the church is. We still pray: God save us from division. God grant us unity.

and then we whisper: my kind of unity, thank you God.

We really need to take a break, on level ground, give God thanks, and celebrate what the Holy Spirit has made of each person.

Together we can pray: God save us from temptation and deliver us from Evil.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 2

Sunday, August 2, 2020

Light

Love

Hope

Even in the dark woods of life.

Deuteronomy 32:7

Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father, and he will inform you; your elders, and they will tell you.

2 Timothy 1:13

Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

Words of Grace For Today

We do not face these days on our own.

We have not come all on our own to believe the old, old story of Jesus and his love for all creation and trust the work of the Holy Spirit. We have received for many generations the Word that gives life, the living water that quenches all thirst, and the bread of life that sustains us no matter what comes our way.

Remember.

It is a powerful ability that humans have, to remember the things of yesterday, of yesteryear, or yester-eon. We have words of language, spoken and written, heard and read, conceived and understood. The words we share carry meaning and portent beyond just themselves, for as poetry, the words of everyday communicate far more than just their meanings strung together. Our words communicate spirit, yearnings, hopes, visions … and love.

When all other necessities are provided for life, or even before, we need two things uncommonly considered the basic needs of life (Sölle): meaningful labour and love (the ability to love others unconditionally and to be loved unconditionally.)

It is part of our human drive to grasp beyond what is obvious, to create standards and rules and guides and codifications of things of meaning from our past. These cannot carry the meaning of spirit and love, but they can hint at what people of yesteryear encountered as the Holy Spirit guided them.

The worship of the standard, the piety, the rule, the guide, the codification is a natural decay of living faith. It moves us into a realm of false comfort wherein we chase control of faith.

Faith with integrity, before it decays and is still living faith, is beyond our control. Living faith, carried by living Word, is a wild ride through the pitfalls of life.

We are left …

We are left to remember what we have been taught and …

… and to encounter the Spirit anew for ourselves and …

… and we trust, hope, yearn, envision and love for ourselves all that God has given us.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 29

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Wood

for

Winter

Survival

Job 1:21

He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’

1 Timothy 6:7-8

For we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.

Words of Grace For Today

One cannot be sure to leave anything of material worth to one’s children, but give them an education and no one can take that away from them.

Or so one thinks.

And similarly people strive to achieve – for themselves and their children … and their friends and their own – something that will be a legacy.

Legacies are remarkable … usually in how inconsequential they are.

Two things seem significant: The first one is that we recognize that we are born with nothing, we die with nothing, and nothing we can do will ever change that, for us or for anyone else.

The second one is that everything we have is a gift from God for which we can give God thanks and praise. Even the drive to work hard to accomplish and accumulate something that may be a security for us … that drive is God’s gift, and the result may or may not provide security.

We should not therefore cease to work to provide security for ourselves and our own, and our neighbours. ‘Winter’ is coming, and ‘wood‘ needs be collected to ‘keep the fires going’.

We can therefore remember to enjoy each person along the journey, and to provide as we can for those less fortunate than us … as God has provided for us, freely and graciously.

No matter the challenges, disappointments, and ever-present stinking ‘rot’ in situations and people, we are not driven to despair.

We give God thanks in all things. We wake rested, we work like dervishes noticing all of life around us, and we end the day with gratitude and contentment, for we have done as we could to respond to God’s gift of breath in this day.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 28

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

It’s hot this end of July,

It’s cold that end of October,

No matter the challenge,

God is with us.

1 Samuel 7:12

Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah, and named it Ebenezer; for he said, ‘Thus far the Lord has helped us.’

2 Corinthians 4:8

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;

Words of Grace For Today

In the midst of Covid 19 challenges, easing restrictions, and great losses already it is not hard to feel the pinch of everything else in life that goes wrong or is done against one just that much more intensely.

Rates of infection climb in the US. Riots and violent confrontation with police continue. Lies continue to have devastating effects on scapegoats. Children get hurt, invisibly and visibly, by parents who disregard them as humans. Despots use anything, Covid 19 as well, for cover for their unjust efforts to maintain control and carry out their destructive plans in countries around the world and even in churches in the local community. Business people make plans to ‘contribute’, which is hardly contributing but will net them an unfair profit.

Even amidst all this, God has equipped Jesus’ followers with wisdom to see not only the truth behind the attempts to deceive and destroy. God gives us the wisdom to see the Holy Spirit at work all around us. Real efforts in many long term care facilities net joy and contentment as unusual plans and policies allow families to reunite for visits. From declining resources families find ways to ‘visit’ with each other across thousands of miles and just across town. Neighbours pay attention and chip in to ensure everyone has enough food, supplies, and regular conversation. Churches, stuck in the mud of privilege and wealth for decades, actually start to care for the homeless in their own communities. Parents develop summer opportunities for children to encounter nature in ways not possible before, now that the ‘regular’ summer activities are not possible.

God has even given us plenty of rainwater, and a cool July … until now!

(Well the last is from my perspective where anything over 25⁰ creates real hardships. Not that I’ll melt like chocolate. I just run out of steam, and the mosquito bites seem to be tiny neutron bombs irradiating the life right out of me.)

Thus far the Lord has helped us.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 27

Monday, July 27, 2020

Moon

See all that is,

God given.

Proverbs 2:6

For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;

James 1:5

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.

Words of Grace For Today

Wisdom.

Wisdom is that mix of knowledge, comprehension, insight and vision. It is to see the past clearly, the present starkly, and the future vaguely … and to know one’s limits as well as possibilities, probabilities, and outcomes.

And to have a good heart, one that accepts the sinful condition of each human, trusts God’s transforming grace for each great sinner, and hopes fervently for the Holy Spirit’s work in us and in the world around us.

There is no wisdom that does not come from God. There are all sorts of knock-offs, devil rooted, beguiling and destructive, and costly to acquire. True wisdom begins with the fear of God (Psalm 1). True wisdom begins with us fearing and loving God in all things (Martin Luther).

We each, every day, desperately need wisdom. The world needs us to think, speak and act with great wisdom. This is no dependent on intelligence, genes, upbringing or circumstances. It is gift, pure gift, wondrously pure and free gift from God.

Wisdom is available just for the asking. All we can do is surrender any idea that we can figure it out on our own, and this wisdom will guide us to an abundant life for ourselves and those around us.