Breathe – Page 12

Always Darkness in Corrupt Power, Light in Christ

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Even in the darkest of nights and tribulations
God provides a promise of Light

Christ’s Light

To reveal all Truth and Grace

1 Kings 8:59-60

Let these words of mine, with which I pleaded before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, and may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires; so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other.

Revelation 15:4

Lord, who will not fear and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your judgements have been revealed.

Words of Grace For Today

Bill Hordern wrote:

Therefore, as Reinhold Niebuhr saw so clearly, governments are never simply a protection against injustice, they are also strongholds of injustice. Although the Christians ought to seek to have the government protect the weak from the strong, in fact most governments tend to protect the strong from the weak. The sword is wielded to maintain the status quo and all its inequities. Therefore, we should be prepared to see that service to God rather than to man may sometimes bring us into conflict with the rulers over many more matters than just the niceties of theological doctrine or ecclesiastical practice. (Living by Grace p.195)

These words were quoted by a now bishop in a text study decades ago. This year a good pastor added: Hence the wisdom from the theology of the survivors of WW2, and the wisdom of the Civil rights warriors like John Lewis who said: ‘Get into good trouble!’

It is as true today as ever, and especially here at home in Alberta, Canada. A partner Gaslights her partner, children lie, a pastor lies and schemes with the police to gather false reports, and to harass the target. Many false reports, false arrests, lies upon lies already and charges are laid. Church leaders lie to the RCMP. A petition to the court is made to protect the children. It is not only ignored and defeated and used as a ‘blood sport’ weapon against the good, honest, and kind (though not perfect) father to ruin his reputation, drive him so far into debt he will never get out of it, and to drive him homeless. Blatantly corrupt lawyers and their assistants bald face lie to the courts. Prosecutors lie to the Courts. Witnesses blatantly lie to the courts. Dozens of judges deal with the matters, those at crucial turns in the process blatantly lie about the evidence against (most of it lies already) the good father, and even about the evidence for the good father. He is falsely convicted, jailed where his life is threatened – mostly by the staff, and even by a nurse who administers a badly needed drug that has to be ingested with food, and denies him food for more than a half hour – it’s a miracle his stomach does not develop an ulcer – though he survives protected by a host of inmates and a few guards who do not want the old man needlessly hurt.

Denied support the good, honest, and kind father, Gaslit beyond imagination, is driven homeless. His body starts to fail, and he seeks the healing power of solitude and wilderness. He survives despite continuing efforts to kill him by courts, lawyers, and always his ex.

He prays daily in thanks for all he has, especially breath and health and love and work but especially for solitude during Covid 19. The most dangerous thing now is the contact he must have directly with people as most people are in flat out angry denial that Covid 19 is to be taken seriously.

The sin of so many people that has brought him thus far are too many to track, many remain hidden and unknown. This cannot be the first time such gaslighting, police harassment, blatantly false evidence by police and witnesses, false convictions and corrupt rulings, cruel games played by judges to hide they lies in their judgments, and persistent efforts are mounted to kill a good, honest, kind father. It is done so well, so practiced, so effective, so well hidden, with such disdain for truth and without fear of being caught out.

So this good, honest, kind father, now a holy hermit is me. I have forgiven my ex who is surely a borderline personality disordered person, and bound all other’s sins, known and unknown. Now I have prayed daily for God to bring the truth to light, and to deal with truth and justice and grace with those sins and sinners.

So I read today’s passage as if I had written it myself and know that I certainly not the first person to be so treated by other people. We humans really have a tremendous capacity to be cruel to others, and our methods really have not changed all that much since … well since the beginning of recorded history.

Still I pray knowing countless others have, do and pray the same with me:

For then

Lord, who will not fear and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your judgements will have been revealed.

That day is eagerly awaited, and until then we all trust that the Kingdom of God is near, God walks with us, even us homeless, gaslit, kind people who are so far surviving the sword of the powerful and corrupt which is wielded to maintain the status quo and all its inequities.

As member Jones said after one of many false arrests, Do you know why I do this? … Because I can.

But God will stop even this evil, in God’s time.

May We have Peace on Valentine’s Day!

Sunday, February 14, 2021

God Gives Us Light To Find Our Way Home,

To Accept and Give Forgiveness Always to Everyone

So That All May Know Peace!

Psalm 29:11

May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!

Ephesians 2:17

So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.

Words of Grace For Today

Peace is not the absence of conflict, nor the absence of violence even. Peace can coexist with both of these, though it works to pull us from violence to negotiation with each other, and from conflict with each other to harmony with (not each other) … with God’s Will for us.

CBC gave air time to a woman looking to organize mass fasting to call attention to domestic violence. She wanted those fasting to explain why they were hungry, and how terrible it is, now with Covid 19 restrictions, for women to be caught at home with their abusers. She wanted men to find a better model of what men can be. She wanted to call attention to the many, many women who are killed as a result of abuse.

All sort of good and well, as far as it goes. She seems to want, as many do, for us all to forget that ten times, got that, TEN TIMES! as many men die from violence as do women. Her project is a common one voiced today: women need to be protected from evil men. There are no good men, just evil men.

If similar things were said about women, their would be an uproar of denunciation of the misogyny. But no one even mentions that this woman’s statements devalue men, categorizing us all as abusers and as evil men who need to rethink who we are in order to become something better. No one voices the realization that this is misandry (the hatred of and devaluing of men.)

Make no mistake: some men kill women. AND some women kill men. Some use force, some use manipulation.

As if to make it sound like women are under greater threat, among other misandrist statements, it is said men are afraid a woman will laugh at him; women are afraid a man will kill her. The reality is when a woman laughs at a man, she devalues him, announces it for many to see, and taking his respect from him leaves him easy prey for both men and women bullies and abusers to kill him, if not directly with force then with psychological manipulation until there is nothing left of his life, not at all, not at all. The truth is men are as afraid of women killing him (often using men to accomplish the deed) as a women are afraid that men will kill them.

Abuse is abuse. Gender is not really a factor. Stereotypes are a serious problem because the mask the real issues with false issues.

That’s what is so terribly wrong with this woman’s campaign to get people to fast; it assumes all men kill women, and forgets that lots of women kill men, and regardless of who does the killing and how, many more men (ten times as many as women), our brothers, fathers, uncles, sons, and grandfathers, are dying, murdered by others.

Peace is not to point fingers and eradicate the falsely identified murder or the murderers. Peace is much more profound. Peace, real peace, requires that we acknowledge true reality. Real peace is to first realize that a part of each of us contributes to the conditions and circumstances we all live under in our society. Peace is second to forgive ourselves and accept others’ forgiveness of us, and to accept God’s forgiveness (actually that has to come first before other forgiveness is possible.) Third, peace is to forgive others so that there is no more finger pointing or calling out for others to change. The change has to be made within each of us first, and we have to point to the other as already forgiven … so that they may choose to change. Fourth, peace asks of each of us that we be profoundly thankful that forgiveness is possible, that God starts us off down that path, again and again each day.

If we are going to fast (and some like me cannot fast without putting ourselves at great physical risk of needing hospitalization to recover or we die) then it is to fast quietly, for this is what we need most: an inward healing of our relationship with God, God’s creation and God’s creatures, especially other people.

If we are going to put on a campaign to raise awareness of injustice, and in particular avoidable murder, then we cannot tie that message to misogyny or misandry. That only exacerbates the underlying lies we tell ourselves about the polarized genders, which drives us further and further from any possible reduction of avoidable murder. It in fact raises the conflict to higher levels, which in turn gives rise to more pain, which gives rise to more violence (physical and psychological) and that leads to more destruction of people, including physical and psychological deaths.

We need models for real peace. God sent us Jesus to live that model for us. There are a great number of saints who have provided models as well. We need to remember the old, old story of Jesus and his love, and of the saints that teach us faith and real peace, giving us real hope. Remember the good examples (they were human so they were not perfect) of Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Bonhoeffer, and many others. Above all begin each day remembering Jesus and his love, and all God does for us. From gratitude for all God’s blessing we can find our way to peace, even amidst conflict and violence and injustices all around us.

Fins, Trust, and Saints

Saturday, February 13, 2021

Down Which Road to Where

Will God’s Work as Saints

Take Us This Day?

Psalm 67:2

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us: Selah That your way may be known upon earth, your saving power among all nations Let the peoples praise you, O God.

John 1:16

From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

Words of Grace For Today

In a warmer climate than mine, a group of friends ventured out from their hotel to go sight seeing. They were on a Spring Break tour, something usually reserved for college students. These were people in a collective mid-life crisis, as it were, seeking some evidence they mattered in life still, even though the vigour of their youth had disappeared, for some decades ago, for others only years ago.

When one man described them as a diverse collection of ‘old farts’ he was pretty spot on, if you allow that some 40 year-olds enter this category way too early in life. They included a sampling of a number of races and genders. They were not as a group too pale.

When a tourist hawker saw them he approached as a few others had, and offered to ferry them as a group in a pontoon boat around the outlying islands. The idea took off like wildfire. It was a lazy way to do nothing while being able to convince themselves they were doing something very adventuresome. They set a time to meet again at the pontoon boat’s dock, going in various directions to collect supplies for the day, food, water, alcohol (mostly rum), and some sun umbrellas.

It was a motley crew that set loose from the dock on what appeared to be a more motley collection of flotation things (some barrels) under wood planks with more than a few gas cans, two outboard motors, and the requisite rudder. There were half enough chairs for the crises-escaping group. One man, George, who was kind of a leader more than a participant, offered (wisely it turned out) to stay behind as ‘a safety reporting person’ he said. ‘Call me if you run into trouble,’ he called out, as if the groups was not in trouble already the minute they left together on this trip.

Two hours later George received a call, recognized the voice, ‘We’re sinking near the reef behin ….’ then the connection went dead. True to his promise he remarkably quickly found a ‘rescue service’, gave them the exact account with times and word-for-word the call. They recognized where the pontoon had most likely gone down and headed out in three larger boats. ‘We need two for the people and one to hold the other two against the current,’ they explained and added that it would be thousands of dollars per hour for each boat.

Out near the reef, the mostly sober pontoon ‘owner’ (actually an assembler of junk into something that might just float) had succumbed to the cries of the surely not sober passengers yelling that they wanted to see the reef. ‘Closer! Closer!’ With no notice the calm waters whirled into a ‘rip tide’ effect right under their pontoon, one stream going out, the other 2 feet away going in toward the reef. It whipped the poor ‘boat’ around and around until it came apart like matchsticks falling out of their box, spilling the people into the water. Luckily as quick as the rip started it ended, and they found themselves in the water pretty much as a group. The stragglers soon enough found their way to the group, everyone hanging on to flotsam or treading water nearby. Considering their state of sobriety the group did well for the first while … until the first circling fin was spotted.

More than one panicked, thrashing about trying to get out of the water. The one fin was joined by others. The more thrashing, the closer they came. One person panicked entirely and set out for the spot on the reef that stood out of the water. Grant, a millionaire developer, almost made it before a slight current caught him and whipped him against a sharp rock. Blood coloured the water for a bare minute before fin after fin swung in and back out as he disappeared beneath the surface.

Finally one sane head among the whole group caught their horrified attention in the moment they all went silent watching Grant’s disappearance. ‘Quiet! Listen! Calm Down! The more you thrash about and make noise the more they will come after us. We have to trust that George will be here soon enough to save us! If we do not trust a rescue is on it’s way, calm down and do what we can together, none of us will survive this! So Stay CALM!’

His advice took hold. The group gathered themselves together with pieces of flotsam deepest in the water making a ring around them. Just minutes later, though it felt to the group like hours, the ‘rescue service’ arrived, tethered two boats to the third so the two could approach the group. Out came the high power rifles and more than one fin trailed away with a dark streak behind it, others collecting around the streak until all the fins were out of sight.

One by one the crises-escapees were pulled from the real crisis they had driven themselves to seek out. One by one they came to their thankful senses about how fortunate they were as on the return trip the ‘rescue service’ exclaimed that this was the first time they had ever found a live person to rescue. The predators usually cleaned up the tourists’ messes long before they could arrive.

There was no hesitation at paying the exorbitant rescue fee. More than one person rescued was ready to offer them everything. One old hippy offered the remainder of her days on earth. Such it is when people are rescued from real danger that they create for themselves.

We all ought to know this from our own experiences before God.

From God’s fullness we have all received, grace upon grace and we ought to be ready to offer God all we have including all our remaining days.

Each one of our remaining days begins with an appropriate prayer of thanks: May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us: Selah May God’s way of grace upon grace may be made known upon earth, and God’s saving power among all nations! Let the peoples praise you, O God!

God sends ‘Georges’ and ‘rescue services’ of many kinds to save us again and again and again from our foolish sins. God often uses us, all we have and all the days we have left on earth, to rescue others. We become God’s ‘Georges’ and ‘rescue services’, more commonly referred to as saints.

There is much for us to do as God-made saints. If we do not start today, when then are we going to start!?!

Cold Hard Reality … – – – …

… – – – … Cold Hard Reality … – – – … Our Own Sin … – – – … The Start of God’s Work for Us …. ..

Friday, February 12, 2021

The Sun Rises And Spreads Cold Cold Cold Light

God using the sun to draw smoke shadows on curves of snow

Proverbs 3:7

Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

Galatians 6:4

All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbour’s work, will become a cause for pride.

Words of Grace For Today

We become accustomed to life, unjustly lived, civilization’s thin veneer holding back barbarism, barely while so many wealthy, privileged, and powerful people utilize outrageous barbarism to hold on to what they value, i.e. their positions, corrupt as they are.

We become accustomed to life and are widely disturbed, our individual and collective mental health plummets, because a pandemic disrupts our customary living …

and we are left to face what truly lies beneath, behind, and beyond our ‘civilized’ habits. It is not pretty. It scares us. It drives us mad.

This is a small piece of the cost of living as if we could rise above fear of God. This is a small piece of the cost of pretending that we need not resist evil at every turn, lest we be dragged into the sea of it’s chaos, into it’s power to uncreate creation, dissolve all time, and possess life itself even as it all crumbles into non-existence.

Being wise in one’s own eyes is like the fool Trump, declaring himself to be so intelligent, even as he spouts idiocies that are easily proven to be false. Remember when he recommended that people drink bleach to eradicate Covid 19 from their systems. Bleach of course is a caustic poison easily eradicating life from anyone who drinks it!

Our own, your own, idiocies may not be so obvious to us, to you, though they probably are to others!

Daily we immerse ourselves in the old, old story of Jesus and his love; which starts with our past and continuing sins confessed and graciously forgiven by God.

We immerse ourselves in this story, not forgetting the beginning (our wretched inevitable sin) so that we do not forget how much we need to be saved from our sins, how much God does to save us, and how terrible our deserved damnation would be if God were not so undeservedly gracious with us. We do not forget our ongoing inevitable sins so that we do not rise to false pride.

Instead we readily accept the reality and confess our sins, knowing in that confession we also accept God’s forgiveness, which forgiveness enables us to also be God-made saints, simultaneously as we remain sinners. God has God’s way with us, and we love it!

We know our own works are pitiful. Our neighbours may look to be so as well. On our own nothing we do amounts to anything (valued by God’s criteria and measure). Aided, guided, and inspired by the Holy Spirit, God accomplishes great things through us. God saves others by giving them abundant life through our work.

Our pride in our work, and in our neighbours’ work, amounts only to pride in what God does through us. Though we last no longer than smoke we remain courageously, creatively humble as God uses us to paint Grace on this world. Meeting the new demands of Covid 19 pandemic and it’s dangers and restrictions is a mere trifle, measured by God’s criteria. It is another opportunity to see, receive, and share God’s unending blessings.

Freaky Cold, Hellishly Hot, Blessed Always

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Cold as a Crypt

Hot as Hell

Forward We Walk in Christ’s Light

…

Wherever We Go, God Goes with Us, Step by Step.

Psalm 102:27

Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you endure; they will all wear out like a garment. You change them like clothing, and they pass away; but you are the same, and your years have no end.

Hebrews 13:8

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever.

Words of Grace For Today

For many people alive today death is very close and has been most of their lives. They live constantly under threat of being ‘disappeared’, of being tortured and killed, of starving (too often intentionally by those with power to influence or determine such things), limited basic necessities of life (lack of clean air, clean water, nourishing food, adequate clothing, sufficient shelter, meaningful labour, and the ability to love and be loved), of dying of illness (inherited or acquired from the environment – sometime intentionally so by those who can do such things), or simply dying of despair.

For a large swath of the population on earth today these threats to life are removed enough that we can, with foolish efforts and often disastrous results, deny these threats apply to us, or at least most of them … and to assuage our consciences we delude ourselves into thinking that those who live under such threats deserve it. We develop habits and rituals to try to further push death from us. At funerals we do not say the person died, we say they passed, or went to sleep forever, or [fill in the many and various ways we push awareness of death aside with words and rituals.]

No matter what we do:

All humans live finite lives.

The mortality rate for humans remains always at 100%.

No one gets out of life alive.

Resurrection and incarnation and other life after death beliefs do not negate that all of this life ends with death!

Death is obviously something that humans push back against in order to live through the challenges of our days. It is … well it is to live foolishly or to pretend that one can be other than mortal, but it seems to make each day a little easier to live. It only seems. In fact if distorts life into something it is not. It distorts our thinking about ourselves as if we could be immortal in some way or another.

God alone is immortal. Jesus, the 2^nd person of the Trinity is immortal. Even though he lived a mortal life, was tortured, crucified, and died, he then rose back to life, and lives eternally.

It is this difference that God is eternal, and we simply are not, that we try to deny when we deny death or cover it’s reality with pseudo phrases, or with practices of denying death’s inevitability for each and every single one of us, or simply with reckless living – whether that is bravado, addictions, or lies, deception and attempts to create a false (preferred reality) for ourselves. Trump was not able to proclaim the most obviously stupidities to be true simply because he wanted it to be so. He could do so only because millions upon millions of people did the same thing in their lives and wanted him to do so as their leader; they wanted and still want reality to not be what it is. This ‘reality illness’ does not end at the USA borders, nor did it just begin in this or the previous century. It merely became so painfully obvious that after the first year of Trump’s presidency even comedians could not parody it anymore. It was simply too far beyond belief, except that it was believed by millions.

There is nothing more dangerous than not perceiving reality as reality. One becomes mortally vulnerable to the simplest dangers. The present polar vortex cold, if not respected as real, can lead to frostbite in minutes for bare skin, and quickly to loss of digits and limbs and even life. Carnivorous predators, like cougars, wolves, and hyenas if not respected are not choosy about their next meal. Denying they are there in one’s environment makes one an easier meal than the next living piece of meat. Of course being cautious about hyenas when one lives in North American, or cougars if one lives in Africa leaves one vulnerable to other risks.

We worship often, using liturgy that imprints on our consciousness, with music that lifts our spirits, and hearing sermons that proclaim the Gospel of Grace (not works righteousness) so that we ‘remember’ more clearly in each decision we make every day what is what, and who is who, and what the future holds for us: God alone is eternal, we will die, Grace alone gives us life and compels us to share it with others. We remember clearly every future – since the beginning of time until the end of time itself – is in God’s hands.

Thank God, God is gracious, judges us not on what we sinners deserve, but enables us God-made-saints to live abundantly (which is to live giving life abundant to everyone possible – until all people have life abundant!)

It’s cold, very cold. Be cautious outside. Go out dressed to cover every piece of skin. Travel in vehicles only with shovels, tow ropes, and a booster battery … and good survival equipment including first aid kits.

It’s a mortal life we live, always mortal. Be bold everywhere. Go clothed in the Grace of God covering every sinful piece of our souls. Proceed through each day renewed in one’s own baptism, assured of one’s adoption as a child of God, with God’s Word always at hand and a good hymn ringing in one’s head. Ensure the tools of diakonia, the work of serving others’ needs, are in our backpacks or pockets. Always carry the warmth of the Holy Spirit’s guidance, the Light of Christ, and the healing power of our gracious Creator. Never forget to remain grateful for God’s gifts no matter the challenges that we encounter; remain calm and creative. Hard work is a blessing not to be avoided, and always the results are in God’s hands, so protect one’s faith in God from decay or destruction.

As we may help hundreds of people have enough food, shelter, and a helpful ear, a little candle lit each day to remind one of God’s Light in every darkness may be the most important part of our days.

Remember: we are saints, the people that reflect the Light of Christ to all people, in every dark corner of creation.

We remember: we are also simultaneously sinners, deserving damnation and receiving forgiveness and renewed life each day.

Every person, no matter how evil their sins, though they deserve condemnation, like us, can receive Grace through us, if we are creative and courageous enough.

Courage and humility. It’s cold, very cold with death only minutes away; AND

It’s the warmth of Christ’s Light that gives us breath.

Meeting Each Day with Creativity and Trust

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

We are hardly the first

to be challenged by

winter’s cold or a pandemic’s destruction.

We follow those who have gone before,

treasuring most of all our faith.

Psalm 56:11

In God I trust; I am not afraid. What can a mere mortal do to me?

2 Timothy 1:14

Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

Words of Grace For Today

A great uncle of mine, Sven, arrived in the new land (at least so goes the legend), as many Swedish, German, Norwegian, Scottish, Ukrainian, and many others (from even more nations in later decades) also arrived in the new land to be given a quarter section to homestead. Arriving in early summer the first task was to make a temporary ‘home’. There were no RV’s, mobile homes, RTM’s or Atco Units. He felled a number of think pine trees with an axe and piled the pine boughs on an A-frame of pine poles to keep most of the rain out. The bugs could not be helped. He went hunting for meat. Then he cleared a small patch of land and planted a crop that might just produce potatoes, peas, beans and carrots before freeze up. He went hunting for meat. Then he dug out a hole and piled up the dirt around it as walls, covered it with pine poles at a sharp pitch, and wove pine boughs in four layers to hold out the rain and snow. He went hunting for meat. He put in the wood stove he had saved for, stacked up a great pile of firewood, and built a simple bed, chair and table. That would have to do to get him through the coming winter. He went hunting for meat. The bear skins from the bears he shot would be his blanket in the coldest of the coming cold nights.

Each night he gave God thanks for this opportunity to start a new life in a new land. Each morning he prayed for strength to work hard through the day, to prepare for the coming months. The -45⁰ nights that first winter nearly did him in. When thieves stole a tenth of his firewood that made him worry about the safety of everything and his survival. Still he gave God thanks, for he prayed with the Psalmist: In God I trust; I am not afraid. What can a mere mortal do to me?

Each year he cleared more land for the garden and for crops. In his third year, now with a simple log cabin and a shingled plank roof, his lovely wife, Brigitte, joined him from Sweden, children followed and he added each year to the cabin, a room, another room, a porch, an entrance with a better door.

When thieves struck again, raiding his garden and grain store and stealing half his wood, he was distressed. He prayed that night again in thanks, the next morning for strength. He knew he was tasked with guarding the good treasure entrusted to him, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in him. The treasure was not the firewood. It was not the crops. It was not even the land that supported his and Brigitte’s life together with their daughter and two sons. Sven and Brigitte prayed and in thanks and for strength, so that they would guard their faith, for that was the treasure that God had given them. With faith they could meet every challenge calmly and creatively, figuring out what to do each day to ensure their survival and more, that they would live well.

Covid 19 is not easy, comfortable, or predictable. Many of our habits for surviving are not possible. Other habits for surviving are required of us. Some are dictated, many others are left for us to figure out. God provides, and we, assured of the gift of faith, pray morning and night, with thanks and for strength to meet the challenges of each day.

We trust God to provide us the ability and opportunities to work diligently so that more and more people will have what is needed to live, and to live abundantly. It’s not predictable or comfortable or easy. Still we have everything we need to make each day better for everyone: it starts with faith and creativity. It concludes each day, as night enfolds us in the dark and bitter cold, with thanks.

How else can we live, but to follow the examples of our faithful ancestors following Jesus?

Swimming Circles in Emptiness of Opulence

Sunday, January 31, 2021

When we have so much and still cannot share generously and freely,

We drive in circles,

leaving tracks all over others,

bearing witness to our craziness, the emptiness of our lives,

and our inability to live abundantly.

1 Chronicles 29:9

Then the people rejoiced because these had given willingly, for with single mind they had offered freely to the Lord; King David also rejoiced greatly.

2 Corinthians 9:7

Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Words of Grace For Today

Why do we give?

Why do you give?

We do not give in order to earn God’s favour. That is a futile way to earn God’s favour and a destructive way to live.

We give because 1) others are in need of what we can share, and 2) because giving cheerfully, not reluctantly or under compulsion, reflects and determines who we are and who we become.

We give because God has not left us poor!

The Sheldons were a large family in severe financial distress after a series of misfortunes. The help they received was not adequate, yet they managed their meagre income with ingenuity – and without complaint.

A new social worker in poverty-stricken Appalachia was assigned the Sheldon family and shared this story about her first visit with them.

One fall day I visited the Sheldons in their ramshackle rented house where they lived at the edge of the woods. Despite a painful physical handicap, Mr. Sheldon had shot and butchered a bear that strayed into their yard once too often. The meat had been processed into all the big canning jars they could find or swap for. There would be meat in their diet even during the worst of the winter when their fuel costs were high.

Mr Sheldon offered a jar of bear meat to me. I hesitated to accept it, but the giver met my unspoken resistance firmly. “Now you just have to take this. We want you to have it. We don’t have much, that’s a fact; but we ain’t poor!”

I couldn’t resist asking, “What’s the difference?”

His answer proved unforgettable. “When you can give something away, even when you don’t have much, then you ain’t poor.When you don’t feel easy giving something away even if you got more’n you need, then you’re poor, whether you know it or not.”

Florence Ferrier Gospel Notes 2001, Brian Stoffregen, reworked KAS and TL 2004 &2020

Just because one is wealthy, powerful or famous does not mean one does not need, for one’s own well being, to give and give generously. Even King David joined the people in giving and in rejoicing!

As for people that are so flush with luxury and comfort that they have forgotten that others are in need, and who are so poor the hoard their untold wealth, only God can deal with them. We cannot nor do we need to deal with them. That’s one more blessing for which we can be grateful to God!

The Morning After

Saturday, January 30, 2021

The final mile still in the dark?

Thankful and Sharing God’s blessings

(including the miracles of such vaccines as never before possible?)

Complaining and demanding yet more miracles

amid a pandemic?

Psalm 145:10

All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your faithful shall bless you.

Hebrews 6:7

[We can be like] ground that drinks up the rain falling on it repeatedly, and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is cultivated [for this is to receive] a blessing from God.

Words of Grace For Today

Is it gratitude that defines us?

Are we like ground, thirsting and tilled and producing nourishment for many?

Who is it that we are this day?

The Morning After, the morning of redemption:

So what does this morning offer to us, to you, to me?

The light shines bright in the mild air across the cold undisturbed curves of snow marking the goodness of winter this day, if even for too short a time.

Where does the light shine in you, in me, in us?

…

Coming out of the city yesterday, on that wretched 1 mile stretch of gravel that the city has never paved like the roads next to it and the MD roads out into the country (who is being disfavoured with this anomaly?) I was peddling nicely along, tired and warming up for the hours it would take to get ‘home’. The flashlight on the front provided a good beam, strobing to save power, and the snow had collected in strips or rather been run off in strips down the road. It was bumpy, washboard … a real pain in the butt and jolted my whole tired body. I kept seeking out a smoother path, finally even on the side just outside the last clear strip. I did not make it to the snow. Instead turning the wheel demonstrated that that ‘cleared’ strip was not just cleared, it was run over and over and over until it was a shiny slick ice way. The front wheel lost all grip on the ice as I turned to the right. It slid left, the bike handle bars, seat and packs on the back rack went right, gravity took hold and I was on my back and right buttocks before the goose could crap or squawk. My back did not like it a bit. Fortunately I’d just taken food with a Tordol to ensure my back did not give me problems and from experience it lessons the arthritis pain on the trip on the bike there and back.

I lay there a bit, lights red and brilliant white strobing in the dark near the ground, then rolled over to test if I were still functionally one piece if not at peace with the cursed universe. The left doubled mittens came off to dust off the snow, light and sticking everywhere.

I stood, more dusting off as a car whisked by without stopping to inquire about the strobes reflecting off the ice and snow.

Then, with miles to go, I pulled up the bike, turned each wheel and the pedals each a turn to ensure they were not damaged, and set off walking towards the west, smoke plumes far to the north and west, wheeling the bike back and forth between the snow and ice strips trying to find sure footing for myself and for the wheels. Most of a mile later, on the pavement I tested the grip. It seemed sure enough. So with the cabins ahead to the right I mounted the ‘old steed’ and powered by my tired legs set off on the all too familiar route of gradual rises that require walking and the grades where I can wheel free, forward and down just a bit. At the creek, steeper down I was more than wary, and stifled the gravity pull, more for the oncoming traffic that filled the lane ahead than for myself – for I was too tired to remember I ought not want to put cheek or anything else to the ground at great speed. Fortune was the first time I was barely moving, still in first gear, trying to find a path forward through the rough ground below.

Onward the night went, progressively faster and slower, approaching me and passing me by at varying speeds, with smells of leaking gas and oil, the plumes changing direction and the night sky moving against the ground lights, the airport strobe, and the reflections off the smoke plumes so far distant, the nearest just beyond my destination of warmth, shelter … All the while knowing the toughest mile is always the last pulling the bike through the snow after the road ends when I am left to more pedestrian advances through the snow toward … rest.

This morning …

After a late night of letting my overheated muscles cool to normal and my mind to find it’s rest, I woke twice to stoke in the dark, and then once again as the dawn barely started to push the dark west, each time not wanting to rise, but it needed be. Until finally I woke to bright light beyond the coverings, and slowly pulled the cobwebs back with more light and then a walk outside, and on to the late morning routine of Eucharistie und Frühstück, thankful for the fire that provides boiling water for coffee, and writing.

A morning of redemption from the monotony through yesterday’s exercise and today’s recovery.

So I ask again, mostly of you:

So what does this morning offer to us, to you, to me?

The light shines bright in the mild air across the cold undisturbed curves of snow marking the goodness of winter this day, if even for too short a time.

Where does the light shine in you, in me, in us?

Are we filled with praise and gratitude for all God’s generous gifts to us all?

Do we drink in those gifts, and give back to those most in need, the benefits of our being so blessed?

Grace is Beautiful

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Grace Pours Over Us

Leaving Little Tracks Across Our Paths

So That We Can See, Believe, Understand and Live Wisely

Isaiah 29:24

And those who err in spirit will come to understanding, and those who grumble will accept instruction.

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

Once we accept and start to live in response to 1) our accepting we deserve only perdition, 2) God’s Grace having saved us from perdition, and 3) God’s Grace saving us daily, then there is much to understand, there is always instruction to take to heart, and there is always wisdom to seek so that how we live will reflect God’s Grace for us and for all people.

On our own we can do little, and it is easy to grumble about how life treats us poorly. It is all too easy to act like fools, not fools for Christ, just fools that mess up life royally.

The solution for us is simple: ask God, for God is generous and ungrudging as God pours Grace over us, and after Grace, understanding, gratitude, instruction and wisdom.

Ask and God will give us all that God knows we need to live life abundantly.

The wisdom of our lives lived abundantly starts with the fear and love of God, ourselves, our neighbours and our enemies … and sharing the abundance of Grace, love, and life with those we know, especially those we know are in need.

Hammer and Fire of God

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Cleansing Fire, Hammer of God

…

Come, and Come Soon!

Jeremiah 23:29

Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?

Luke 12:49

I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

Words of Grace For Today

In the dead-cold of winter (so mild before this week, but no longer at all mild at -36⁰C) a bit of fire is a welcome thing. Vented, directed, contained with plenty of snow at shovel length to put out anything that approaches too much fire, the heat of fire meets the bleeping cold air and provides a livable space.

Most people in homes enjoy the balance of fire against cold as a product of natural gas ignited in a furnace with the heat distributed to the rest of the home by electricity (either an air fan or a water pump.)

There are cautionary tales to be told or rather seen: the house that one day is an example of a grand house on a hill in the woods, and the next a scarred roof line behind an untouched facade, which on closer viewing displays the chimney standing on it’s own with the building around it on the side and back of what used to be a house, missing and what is visible is jagged and charred. A chimney fire it seems consumed a home, hopefully without loss of life. The 5^th wheel RV appears setup along side the remains of the house for the remainder of the winter, spring and summer, with the dogs running outside as they usually had.

Fire.

One sees on the news videos of thick smoke and vehicles making their collective and slow exit out of Fort McMurray as wildfires wipe out huge areas of the city.

One sees the photos of a railroad accident fire that has burst and melted rail cars and rails themselves.

Or in a figurative understanding of fire:

From Mistakes – Despair, Inc. At https://despair.com/products/mistakes

It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others. Not every life can be a success, just like not every vessel can be seaworthy. But there’s no shame in being one spectacular shipwreck.

God’s Word is like all that, taking what is evil in the world, what is evil and sinful in us, and burning it up like chaff ….

Ah, what a fire that will be!

God’s Word always is a two edged sword, cutting away evil, also from us, among us, and from within each of us!

The Word of God cleanses with fire, and what a fire it is already in us!

The Word of God cuts away and burns away our sin and evil, and cleanses us, pure and righteous! By Grace we live through the cleansing fire.

God provides more than an RV replacement for a home. God provides us a home in the New Jerusalem, the City of God, the New Creation.

For some of us so connected to nature in our existence God provides that we need not move into a city; God provides a home in the wilds of nature’s wonders and beauty.

God’s cleansing fire that Jesus brings is destructive, powerful and wonderfully just. We pray it will be kindled soon among us. We pray the hammer of God will break apart Evil from within us and from among us, so that all will have homes, all will have food, all will have a good life, an abundant life!