Category: Daylight

It’s All for the Birds (and Us)

Thursday, September 16, 2021

Creation and All In It

Is God’s Gifts

For Us All!

Psalm 36:7

How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

Matthew 6:26

Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Words of Grace For Today

Take refuge in the shadow of God’s wings, in the safety of God’s steadfast love. All other ‘security’ is an illusion, a deception, and a departure from God’s kingdom into the Devil’s realms. Under God’s wings, like that of a great bird of the sky soaring at will, God brings us to adventures we would not imagine, to places and understandings where life is abundant, and to challenges and work that fulfill all our yearning to participate in creation.

As autumn sets firmly in on the land, giving great respite from the bugs, the heat, and the huge influx of 2-legged animals in the wilderness (only some who are dangerous or greatly destructive to the land, scarring it with tire ruts, garbage strewn about, feces and toilet paper in the woods, and all sorts of materials half burned in the fire circles that sterilize the soil beneath and pollute the air above) …

As autumn sets firmly in on the land, we breathe easier.

As autumn sets firmly in on the land, great flocks of geese of 100s and 1000s, make a distant chorus, moving in V’s for days to traverse 1000s of miles from the waters of the north to the temperate winters in the south.

As autumn sets firmly in on the land, birds of prey, great hawks, owls, and bald eagles screech high as they circle for hours seeking their prey. Song birds like my neighbours the robins spend all hours out in the meadow hunting worms and bugs for food.

Whether autumn sets firmly in on the land or not, in all seasons and times, one has to wonder about these words of Jesus. For as God provides for the birds without their sowing or reaping into barns, first: their lives seem to be wholly directed toward finding food and avoiding being food; second: there are and were also in Jesus day so many people who neither sow nor reap and they worry most about what they will eat and what they will wear, for their choices are so many it is only as ignorant shame that they indulge such luxury as most of the world suffers without enough food, clothing, shelter … and now fresh water and clean air, yet alone meaningful work and people to love and be loved by.

The point is clear from Jesus’ words: our attention and concern should be less on all the required labour needed to survive (or luxuriate in over abundance.) Our attention and concern is better spent on understanding the mystery, freedom and peace that is available to us when we, our lives long, learn to seek refuge, meaning, and purpose in God’s steadfast love. For there, comforted, protected, and challenged, we can see life with clarity.

What we see with clarity is that our lives were designed by God and given to each of us by God in order that we can extend God’s steadfast love to others.

We simply cannot do that if our primary concern is providing for ourselves, for then we turn inward and bend reality from God’s great creation to our own insatiable appetites. We become instead of caretakers of creation, destroyers of creation. We become incapable of seeing others as Christ sees them: broken people in need of God’s love.

God help us when we make that turn away from God’s steadfast love as our only sure refuge.

Thank God, God always calls us, welcomes us, and renews us so that we can return to God (… home in God’s kingdom to be the ones who exercise God’s unconditional, steadfast love for all people) so that we can take refuge in the shadow of God’s wings, in the safety of God’s steadfast love. All other ‘security’ is an illusion, a deception, and a departure from God’s kingdom into the Devil’s realms. Under God’s wings, like that of a great bird of the sky soaring at will, God brings us to adventures we would not imagine, to places and understandings where life is abundant, and to challenges and work that fulfill all our yearning to participate in creation. … home in God’s kingdom we are the saints who exercise God’s unconditional, steadfast love for all people.

Mercy, Mercy! How Can We Be Bored?

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

The Tree

The Same Tree

The Same Old Tree

How Can Beauty

Or

Being Merciful

Ever Be Boring?

Psalm 41:2

The Lord protects them and keeps them alive; they are called happy in the land. The Lord does not give them up to the will of their enemies.

Matthew 5:7

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

Words of Grace For Today

Yesterday’s headline was “Trouble in the Prairies as surgeries postponed in Alberta, Saskatchewan due to COVID’s hospital burden.”

For weeks now the reports are that the large majority of those people burdening the hospitals with their Covid crises are those that have chosen not to be vaccinated. Meanwhile there are protests against vaccine passports required in order to gain access to events that are perhaps safe, but not if unvaccinated people attend. They put both themselves and others at great risk of being infected, the transmission rates go up (or rather wild) as vaccinated people also spread the virus, and the hospitals are overburdened. The results are catastrophic for so many people. Those with Covid in hospital suffer and die or more likely suffer for years from long Covid (further burdening the health care system). The overburdened hospitals push ‘elective’ surgeries off to an unknown future time, and those they do not result in immediate death, many postponements do contribute to more severe suffering and then earlier death.

The real tragedy is that children under 12 cannot be vaccinated, they are (because of those over 12 who choose not to be vaccinated) infected in greater numbers, and their suffering and death – and the fear of suffering and death – increase dramatically, a fear shared by their families and friends.

One has to ask why we do not gather those who choose to go un-vaccinated, line them up, and shoot them …

the first thought is with lead,

but mercy would dictate that we use needles and vaccinations,

and then many of us realize that we ought only shoot them

…

with a camera, post their photos on the internet, and let the chips fall as they may.

And

there ought to be a Canada-wide mandate that Covid vaccination passports must be established by all provinces and territories, and those without passports or exemptions due to health be barred from gatherings or services or business that they could not access during the height of Covid 19 lockdowns.

We probably will do nothing like that, for the political fallout would be great, where as the political fallout for doing nothing (and refusing to accept scientific guidance) seems to be less (and in some parties it seems to win political support – for fools are in no shortage.)

In these Covid times, we do not need a personal enemy to have our lives put at great risk. The Covidiots are doing that with great efficacy to us all.

So we trust that God protects us and keeps us alive. We know that God does not give us up to the will of our enemies, therefore we are called happy in the land.

No matter the Covid fools that endanger us all. No matter the personal enemies that attack us based on lies told about us to cover the liars’ own terrible sins. No matter the real likelihood that, even vaccinated we will be infected and suffer long Covid in some form or another. No matter how poor health care becomes because the system is overburdened by Covidiots’ and their victims, both intentional and unintentional. No matter the real fear we suffer that our children will contract Covid and suffer or die.

No matter what comes our way, we remain ‘happy in the land’ because we know that God walks with us.

No matter what comes our way, we remain ‘happy in the land’ because we know that God is always merciful with us, and God enables and motivates us to be merciful to all other people.

We have many challenging days ahead (only some of it is responding to Covidiots) never leaving us an excuse to be at all bored. Thanks be to God!

Run or Fight … … Or Be At Home?

Saturday, September 11, 2021

Even as the Evenings

Turn Blood Red into the Dark,

God With Us is a promise of an evening of great delight!

All is Well, All is Well , All Manner of things are Well.

Isaiah 52:12

For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rearguard.

John 14:3

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.

Words of Grace For Today

There are many reasons to run.

There are many reasons to run away.

There are many reasons to run for one’s life …

and to run fast, as fast as one can run.

When God promises to be with us, the reasons to run do not disappear, though we can be a whole lot less stressed, and have a whole lot less panic in us that rises into our throats, which panic leaves us only a choice to fight, flee, or freeze.

Instead when God promises to be with us, when God promises to be our rearguard, we can think clearly, without haste, for we can trust that God leads us in paths of righteousness.

When everything goes belly up, when the proverbial stuff hits the fan, we can trust that God has our backs. More than that we can be assured that when it seems that God leaves us, in fact God prepares a place for us, a place to call home, where God’s plan for us is always sure, even when we lose track of how God is with us.

Home, with God at our side, before us, behind us, promising to walk every step with us. Home, where our hearts are loved unconditionally by God.

Then, we can be at home where God brings us. No one can chase us away, and our enemies will be dealt with by God. We walk calmly through every hour, knowing that justice will be done by God. No lies, no deceit, no gaslighting, no false reports, no false arrests, no false testimony, no false convictions, no cover up. God sees everything, knows everything. For God a lie is seen and always remains a lie. For God the truth is always known and it always remains the truth.

Home, safe in God’s hands. Home where truth and beauty bring breath and life no matter the challenge. Home. Home in the wondrous creation God created for us to enjoy. Home safe and sound. Home where no one can chase us away and no evil can rule over us. Home.

It does not get better.

Courage

Thursday, September 9, 2021

To See a Rose

And

Know How Beautiful It Is

Takes Real Courage

When the World Wants to Kill Ya

For Seeing Roses, At All.

Haggai 2:4

Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts.

1 Corinthians 3:9

For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

Words of Grace For Today

Work.

Working together.

Taking courage.

These are great things, and they come to mind, to force, and to play in our lives so often … so how is it that life is this way as blessed by God?

Well, we may be lots of things and we may try to do lots of things, and when it really comes down to it, it is not at all what we do, or try to do.

It really comes down to is not on us at all. It all depends on what God does, and what God makes of us.

And then, God puts the work in front of us … and we have every need for every bit of courage … for the work is going to demand more of us than we can imagine.

So courage …

yes, courage.

More courage than you can imagine

‘cause you’re going to need it.

Life is wonderful that way. It’s worth everything you can put in to it, and more.

God puts it that way!

From God With Love … for Justice

Wednesday, September 8, 2021

There is so much for which to be

Thankful

Like a View to a New Sunrise.

Isaiah 42:1

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.

Luke 4:22

All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’

Words of Grace For Today

Is this not George’s son?

Is this not Katie’s daughter?

Is this not your Granddaughter?

Just ordinary people George, Katie, and you, right!? So …

So how can any real person so ordinary give rise (or rather birth) to a young person so spectacular as God’s chosen servant, one to bring justice to the nations, one who can speak so well that all are amazed at this person’s gracious words.

Wow, how can it be? First that there is such a person who can change the course of history, and second that this peculiar person, this spectacular person, comes from an ordinary family?

Which is that the best things about life, and the best possibilities in history, grow from a healthy family. Or at least we hope they do.

…

But …

in reality the best things (or people) in life grow from families that are … well … the most screwed up and dysfunctional families ever. And then in reality sometimes the best things (and people) in life grow from the healthiest families ever … and all the kinds of families between the worst and the best.

Thank God, then, that we get to celebrate all that God gives us … including a chosen person who brings justice to all the nations, and more importantly, that God gives us the gifts and people who love us so much that all the world seems right … and is just right.

Through the Night of Sin and Evil …

Monday, September 6, 2021

The Only Way to Face the Reality of Sin

Ours, Our Ancestors’, and Our Enemies’

Is to Trust the Light of the World

To Guide Us To Share God’s Grace

With All People

Psalm 106:6

Both we and our ancestors have sinned; we have committed iniquity, have done wickedly.

Titus 2:14

He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

Words of Grace For Today

There is no shame in admitting one’s own sins, and the sins of one’s ancestors.

To face reality, especially the dark reality of one’s own sins is not easy or common or even possible …

unless first one know that God has, even before time, known we and our ancestors would sin, and God has not ever abandoned us to our sin. God has planned even before time how God would respond to our sins by redeeming us with God’s own son’s life as the model of how to live: sacrificing in order to unconditionally love those least deserving of love, in order that they will know God’s generous and gracious forgiveness.

So we have the story of Jesus, living as one of us, giving his life to teach, heal and guide and in the end to offer himself to be crucified, so that we would see that we need not sacrifice people, we need not scapegoat people, we need not work (futilely and destructively) to free ourselves; God has done all that is required.

We have the story of Jesus’ love for all people, especially the outcasts, the ill and ‘ill-fated’, those forced into and captive to poverty, the corrupt, the arrogant, and even the unjust.

We receive renewed life so that we can be the instruments of Jesus love for those in our time and place.

Thanks be to God, for though we are wretched sinners all, we are God-made saints, called to bring God’s justice and grace to bear on the world we live in.

‘but’ and ‘Doch’

Saturday, September 4, 2021

We May Think We Have The Light of the World

Here on Our Beaches

But Not,

Doch!

God’s Light Still Shines

For Us All.

Exodus 1:17

But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.

Acts 5:29

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

Words of Grace For Today

But …

For humans there is an obligation to obey as they are commanded by other humans.

When humans choose not to do so for good reasons the consequences are usually dire, whether it is the state funded police and courts (rightly or corruptly, as it is in all places through all of history, especially here in Alberta) or criminal violence or psychological attacks on one’s well-being. This is what forms the obligation. Do or die (or at least have a chunk of one’s life is taken away.)

God always commands other than corrupt police, courts, kings, and religious authorities. God’s commands do not carry an obligation to obey them like human commands. Contravening human commands results in consequences that rob one of physical life. Obeying human commands may provide a small reward, even if it appears huge it is still small, for humans have little to offer, even if it is large sums of money, power, or fame.

Contravening God’s commands results in the consequence of one’s own choosing, that is one separates oneself from God. This does not ‘rob’ one of physical life. Being separated from God is in itself the definition of having no life, not of any kind. Obeying God’s commands provides the greatest reward, even if it appears small it is still without limit, for one chooses to walk with God, which is itself definition of an abundant life.

When we choose to ignore human authorities in order to obey God, there is a small ‘but’ after the demands of human authority and before our actions that contravene human authority and fulfill God’s will for us and for all people.

When God intervenes in our lives, showing us how small the tempting rewards of corrupt human wealth, power, and fame are, our sinful actions are not followed by a simple little ‘but’. They are followed by a universe changing statement, one like the German ‘Doch’. Then follows a statement that re-orients us back to God’s will for us and all people.

Pharaoh ordered the baby be put to death but the midwives allowed the baby to live.

Pharaoh did not care what God willed, DOCH Moses would live, grow up in Pharaoh’s house, run for his life after killing an abusive overseer, and, after years in the wilderness regaining his understanding of God’s world and God’s will, he would return to lead the people to freedom from slavery, into the wilderness, where the people would learn, and fail to learn, to hear and follow God’s commands.

Likewise Peter and the disciples choose to obey God’s will and not human authorities. They would go on to form the beginnings of the Christian faith and spread it to churches around the Mediterranean, from where through the successive generations, others would carry the faith across the whole earth. We have thus received our faith because of Moses and Peter and many other people’s following God’s will when it contravened human authority.

If we so comfortably think that we can please human authority and follow God’s will, we are naively corrupted to ignore God’s will. We either do not know God’s will, or we refuse to see how corrupt human authority is in all places and all times, even now here in Alberta. In either case there are still many whose stories can only be told with a ‘but’. And always God’s story about us contains many many ‘Doch’, as God rescues us from our sins, over and over again.

We pray for just government, church leaders, a business leaders, and leaders in all aspects of life. Doch God calls us to pray that God’s will may be done, also in and among us, for human authority always corrupts itself, ignoring God’s will and leading people to try to live apart from God. Or worse, corrupt religious leaders lead many, many people to follow false godlets, even when the call their godlets by God’s own name.

So we ought to pray that God would bring yet again a ‘Doch’ into our life stories, guide us back to God’s will, and use us to bring God’s will (which is to love, forgive, and share life abundant with all) to all people … starting with ourselves and our own people.

No Worries, Just Wonders! … OR?

Friday, September 3, 2021

We can see both the darkness

and

the morning light.

…

Which do we consider first?

Psalm 33:5

He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

Matthew 6:25

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Words of Grace For Today

What is it to worry?

What would it be like to have no concern for drink, food, or clothing? Would we survive? … Well not in most of the world no we would not.

So is there something other than ‘worry’ for our drink, food and clothing, and having no concern for our drink, food, and clothing?

The question is not if there is something between these two extremes. The question is how do we consider our needs? Do we consider these first from our needs’ demands on our time and energy … or do we consider everything first from God’s great generosity with us, and God’s abiding presence in the world?

If we start every calculation from God’s grace and love for us, it makes no sense to be worried about our daily needs, for all that we need for life is already given to us. We only need to remember how filled the earth is with God’s steadfast love.

Then we can get on with life. The purpose of our lives is no longer trying to get for ourselves. Rather we have the greatest purpose in sharing all that we can, with everyone, especially those who do not have enough to provide for their and their family’s basic needs.

What a life! A life of plenty!

With every opportunity to share everything with those most in need.

It does not get better.

…

So why do so many people think they have to take as much as they can get from others, just to meet their daily needs?!

Free?

Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Can We Choose

To Move to the Far Shores

And Posses the Land There?

Is it Fate, or God’s Will?

Or Greedy Human Ambition That Will Only Destroy Us?

Jeremiah 32:42

For thus says the Lord: Just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good fortune that I now promise them.

1 John 3:2

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

Words of Grace For Today

Today we exercise our human capacities to accomplish work that we endeavour to complete. It is often work that puts us one step closer to a goal, towards a future that we see possible for ourselves or for other people. Some goals are little more than our survival, or others’ survival. Most often even those are some variation of survival plus a better life. It is honourable to wish others to have more than the bare minimum to survive, to enjoy life abundant as God promises us all people can have. It is honourable to strive to have life abundant ourselves, to have a measure of security against those things that endanger our survival. These are the blessings of God for us that we can give them to others.

We create real evil for ourselves and many other people when we try to create securities that protect us from what we cannot protect ourselves, for then there is no end to what we take out of life for ourselves, and we inevitably take it from others at others’ expense (sometimes even their lives) and we find ourselves incapable of giving to others that which we’ve taken from others. We hoard it for ourselves.

This is all about freewill. God gave humans freewill, and we certainly exercise it, both in the beauty of love for others and all of creation … BUT also in the ugly greed and avarice that robs others and all creation of life itself.

Jeremiah expresses an ancient view of freewill. We may think we have freewill, but God at least partially intervenes and brings woe as punishment for sin and blessings as reward for righteousness to God’s people.

The Vikings TV show portrays the exploits of Ragnar Lothbrok and his contemporaries (dramatized beyond what we know of that time from the available historical accounts.) The Norse gods and the Christian God play a large part in the lives of all the people, from the leaders driven to conquer and rule more territory, to the warrior and soldiers who fight for leaders, sometimes this one, other times that one, and the peasants and farmers who provide for their leaders generously and sometimes enough for their own families. The interplay provides one overriding truth (chosen by the writers and creators), which is that the gods and God are used to further the aspirations of the most ambitious, to ameliorate those who receive no advantage, and to explain everything as ‘the will of the gods’ or as it is ordained by God.

Fate. These statements undercut human freewill and responsibility.

The most ambitious and destructive individuals see all this and use this ‘religious’ excuse in every way possible to further their own ambitions … which inevitably costs many other people their lives! The freewill of these people is to use the mass acceptance of Fate as an explanation for the course of life to hide their own sins so freely done.

It is a horrible and accurate portrayal of what the human heart is capable of. Let no one today be so foolish to think this does not continue, and will continue as long as humans survive. So how are we to respond to the pervasive sin and evil wrought so freely by humans?

We cannot declare with any honesty that we are entirely free of such sin and evil. There is no one that qualifies for that purity, no one except Jesus, the Christ … who was God.

The Way of life that Jesus lead his followers to pursue, to endeavor to accomplish each day in their lives (and we in our lives) is to accept first one’s own sinfulness from which one cannot be free, to then trust God’s promise to love and forgive us even though we cannot deserve such love, to accept and trust that while we remain yet sinners God also makes us into saints who are capable of doing God’s work on earth. We remain able to choose to love God, all people, and all creation, even though we cannot help ourselves from choosing to turn from loving God, all people and all creation.

What this makes of our lives is not pre-determined by God. Our eternal end is offered to us by God, which is that we are God’s own children and God will bring us home, even as God will accompany us each day, each moment of our lives. As Christ is more and more revealed to us in our short lives and through all of history, so we will be more and more like him, for he has claimed us for God to be adopted as God’s own children.

What difference does this make for us and our endeavours each day?

We can trust that we can choose to bring life abundant to others with all God has provided us. This is the simple purpose of our lives. This is how our freewill can be directed by fearing and loving God above all else, loving all other people as (well as) ourselves, and even our enemies.

God Calls, Come Home!

Saturday, August 28, 2021

Come Home

Live in Christ’s Light

In the Truth

Ezekiel 11:19

I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them; I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.

Acts 2:39

For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Godself.

Words of Grace For Today

God calls home, home to life as God created us to live it.

Home to live with lively hearts of flesh, and renewed spirits.

Home to leave behind our hearts that have grown hard as stone with the travails of life and the evil that has bombarded us, and the evil with which we have bombarded others.

God calls us home to live with new spirits and hearts that are shared among us all. Hearts the love one another because God first loves us, though we certainly do not deserve God’s love at all, not at all.

There is no greater promise than that God will renew our spirits and give us new hearts, for our spirits and our hearts are what we have to share with each other, with the strangers, and even with our enemies. In our hearts and in our spirits God’s image is made known to us and to others, as God created us, in God’s own image, thus able to choose to love and live and give without end generously to others so that they may live.

Come home, this morning, this day, this evening, this night.

Receive the gifts that God promises

and

live.