19:00 hours: One Minute to Be Silent, Then One Minute to Be Connected – Separate yet Together
Covid-19 has separated us physically from one another, or rather we have separated ourselves in order to protect ourselves from SARS-Cov2.
But we need not be socially or spiritually separated from one another.
Take a minute at 19:00 hours (7 pm) to say a prayer or keep silence or remember others.
None of us are in this alone. Most all of us can reach out to others. Do what you can, for yourselves and for others. Be careful, respectful, and courageously hopeful.
Take a minute at 19:01 hours (7:01 pm) to say, by making noise, creative and loud noise (so that others know), you are there and well.
If you are in a car, honk!
If you are at home, set up music to play loudly!
Or set off your smoke alarm (test button only, not smoke- be smart!)
Or have the children join you in loud singing their favourite song, or hooping and hollering!
Be creative, coordinate your noise making with neighbours, so that there’s cooperation in the music or noise.
Then at 19:15 listen in quiet, unless …
At 19:15 if you need help now it’s your turn to make some noise.
If you need help urgently, if it is an emergency, make the three long noises, three short noises, and finally three more short noises for the Morse code for SOS.
Listen, and respond, with care to keep from passing contagions between people, households, or neighbours.
Consider that every day we are inundated with Covid-19 news, most of it alarming. To keep this in perspective, perhaps limit one’s news gathering/listening to the news to shorter periods at most 2 to 3 times each day.
And
Take a minute at 07:00 hours, or the beginning of your day, as at 19:00 hours, to say a prayer or keep silence or remember others.
Colour the beginning of each of your days with Courage, with Compassion, with Creativity, and with Hope.
They exult in your
name all day long, and extol your righteousness.
Ephesians 5:8-9
For once you were
darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of
light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and
right and true.
Words of Grace
For Today
If
you have ever lived or visited where fresh citrus fruit can be
harvested from a tree in the backyard you know what is like to pick a
fresh orange or mango off the tree and sit to peel it, juice flowing
unavoidably freely over your hands and chin as the goodness quenches
your thirst before breakfast. Our grocery store fruit, picked still
green to survive shipping to us, is better than none, but simply does
not compare. We know what darkness is. It is unavoidably part of
everyone’s life. Since Christ claims us and makes us into saints,
we also know how marvellous Christ’s light is. Like
tree-fresh-picked fruit it flows unavoidably freely over us, and over
all of life. We are Holy-Spirit-equipped to share the fresh fruit of
Christ’s light with everyone. Be bold (and health safe) as you
share the light of Christ with someone caught in darkness.
O God, from my
youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
Luke 2:28-30
Simeon took him in
his arms and praised God, saying, ‘Master, now you are dismissing
your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen
your salvation.
Words of Grace
For Today
When
we live a long life, we know how life is: there are times of full
colour, loud celebration, and overwhelming exuberance; there are also
times of deadening greys, stifled sobs, and oppressive despair; and
there are times of everything in between. As the Holy Spirit leads
us, we continue to proclaim God’s great deeds in our lives, in
lives around us, and in the lives of saints before us. Simeon,
knowing his days were coming to an end, rejoiced that he was able to
imagine and know, hear and see, touch and be touched by the infant
Jesus, the Saviour of all ages. Whether we are close to our end …
or expecting years and decades more of this wondrous life, filled
with God’s marvellous deeds, we too can lift our voices in thanks
for all God is, and all God has given us to experience in our days on
earth. What a marvellous gift we have … to share with others!
I will rejoice in
Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of
weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.
John 16:22
So you have pain
now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no
one will take your joy from you.
Words of Grace
For Today
Where
does it hurt? This question has been asked for eons of children and
adults alike when they are injured. The point is to find out what is
damaged, what the damage is, and how it can be addressed. Today we
ask it of each other in a different way. We ask one another to pause,
to breathe … slowly and deeply. Then reflecting on your own past
few days, where does it hurt? We ask this of each other, and then we
listen attentively, graciously. For we know the joy that Christ gives
us is never taken away from us. It has the power to help our bodies,
minds, and souls heal. First though we listen, where and how does it
hurt, so that we can be the salve of blessed oil that Christ has
poured over us for those who are hurting, so that our cries and
weeping in distress may find their end in Christ’s love and joy for
us.
Those who are far
off shall come and help to build the temple of the Lord; and you
shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you.
Ephesians 2:22
In Christ you also
are built together spiritually, into a dwelling-place for God.
Words of Grace
For Today
In
these days we can easily experience that many of our loved ones are
‘far off’, even if they are only a few kilometres distant, we may
not be able to visit with them. Now we cannot offer to give them a
ride to church on Sunday or to the Lenten soup supper and services.
One of the gifts given to us in our baptisms is that we are all
members of One Body. This is a physical reality. It is also a
spiritual oneness that Christ gives to us. No matter how ‘far off’
we may be these days, Christ calls us to be together, physically
distant, but socially and spiritually as near as the heart beat in
our chests, the dreams in our minds, and the hope that gives us the
future completeness of Christ’s 2nd coming already today.
You shall say to
them, Thus says the Lord: When people fall, do they not get up again?
If they go astray, do they not turn back?
John 6:37
Jesus says:
Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who
comes to me I will never drive away.
Words of Grace
For Today
It
is so easy to stumble and fall. To lose our way. To end up really
alone. Father Brown (a BBC series) says often, “I am not alone. God
is always with me.” Jesus has claimed us and there is nothing that
can take us away from him. We may often feel alone. We may
desperately need another person’s presence, their voice, their
listening heart, to remind us that God is always with us. Reach out.
Be the person Christ claimed you to be. Be the reminder of God’s
presence for someone needing to hear once again, the old, old story
of Jesus and his love.
Look on my right
hand and see there is no one who takes notice of me; no refuge
remains to me; no one cares for me.
2 Corinthians
1:3-4
Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the
God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so
that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with
the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.
Words of Grace
For Today
This
wisdom is now frequently shared since more and more of us will be
effected by isolation: God created us to be in connection with other
people. Different people at different times need more contact.
Isolation does have a negative impact on our physical health, making
us sick in and of itself. We may well cry out: no refuge remains for
us! Doch. God consoles us in all our afflictions, also those we face
today. Reach out to console others with this gentle, gracious, and
caring consolation that we have already received from God.
One
of God’s gift to us humans is our ability to understand stories, to
hear them and experience what is in them, and to write stories to
convey more than just the words describe, or as in movies, more than
what the images portray by themselves.
Imagination More Than We Could Know
Imagination More Than We Could Know
Stories have the key to communicate the
most hidden, the most complex, the most poignant, the most critical,
and the most beautiful aspects of life itself; and in that
communication to the reader, listener, or viewer to teach something
new, to connect at an un-imagined level, and to reveal something even
beyond what the author, reader and creator conceived possible.
Our Words and Images Reach The Pinnacle and Depth of Beauty
Our Words and Images Reach The
Pinnacle and Depth of Beauty
This Lent we embark on 40 days of
fasting, reflection, prayer and meditation which themselves reflect a
long tradition of the preparation to hear the story of Passion week
and Easter Sunday, and which in themselves each year are a new story
for each one of us.
What is your story, the one you are always part of?
What is your story, the one you are
always part of?
What new will you learn, imagine,
encounter on your 40 day journey this Lent?
Can you see something new?
Can you see something new?
Lent has it’s own stories, worthy of
hearing again and again: Shrove Tuesday: the yeast and oil used in
one last meal so the house has none in it during Lent. The ashes of
our origins and ends as organisms on this earth. Marked in the sign
of the cross, branding us as belonging to Christ. No meat. Fasting
severe or limited. Giving up something. Engaging in something.
Praying daily or even hourly, especially for one’s enemies.
Can we see through the fog?
Can we see through the fog?
All this to prepare
our hearts, mind and souls to hear, imagine, and celebrate Jesus’
sacrifice and victory over death and all our sin.
Christ’s story is filled with Light!
Christ’s story is
filled with Light!
All this to prepare
our hearts, mind and souls to hear, imagine, and celebrate Jesus’
story
lived out in our lives.
For the last seven years I have been gaslit by so many people. First at home and then it spread through the church as the lay pastor started in, by people in the community recruited by the RCMP, the RCMP themselves, by lawyers, the prosecutors and even my own lawyers, and most recently by the judges and justices who created their own lies in order to convict me, and to deny my applications.
This
may be difficult for many to believe.
It
used to be unimaginable to me.
But
no longer.
Now
it is the truth that impacts my daily life, as my ‘ex’, the lawyers,
and the courts have completely ruined me financially driving me into
debt so far I cannot see the light or the tunnel. I have left to my
name a huge debt, a bicycle, a tent, a sleeping bag and my clothes. I
live alone in the woods. I survive on money borrowed from family and
friends, using borrowed highly modified equipment to survive the
elements on next to no money.
It
appears that the lies told about me and those who have told them, and
the judges who have ruled using them, have completely determined my
life.
This
is not so. They have determined some of the external circumstances of
my life, and they seem to persist at determining more. But they
cannot determine who I am and what I have done (or not done).
The truth reflects the beauty God created in the world, which lies do not change.
I am still the same kind, gracious, man of faith that I have always been, with a good set of skills and knowledge, and abilities, and above all the assurance that, because God loves me, I am able to love, forgive (or not as it is), breathe, and extend Grace as it is extended to me.
Those who have gaslit me, those who have repeatedly and intentionally lied about me, in order to try to create a reality about me that simply is not so; these people have not created a reality about me. They have created a huge set of lies.
Their lies do not determine who I am. They do not define me.
The fog of lies cannot conceal that lies are lies, as weeds are weeds.
Their lies determine who they are. Their lies define them.
My ex and the children I have long since forgiven. They were, at my ex’s invitation, my life, my love, and God’s gifts to me.
But all the others, those who are given authority and responsibility to investigate and rule based on the truth. those whose positions are to be respected, they are not only guilty; they make a habit of gaslighting others, and some have laughed at their maniacal fun at hurting innocent people.
As I am ordained to extend grace and forgiveness to all people whom I meet, I am also ordained to bind the sins of those who should not be forgiven. This is a rare thing. But these lies are all too common, oft repeated, and engaged in as sport, as the record of innocent men convicted by the courts belies.
The damage their lies do to the innocent men and the children is incomprehensible. They leave children in the care of people who create lies about men who healthily love their children. They leave children with sole parents who suffer psychotic breaks, who project their own faults on to others near them including the children and their spouses. They leave the children without a healthy parent, and with a most unhealthy parent, who does the unspeakable to the children, and then adds those terrible things to the list of lies about which they gaslight their spouses.
The damage is also to the spouse (and children) who lie to create a false and terrible story about their innocent men. Being believed when one lies, and encouraged even to lie more, disrupts any trust even the liar could possibly have in the just and fairness of the world. At any moment someone else could start lying about them and they would be ruined based on those lies.
The damage is to everyone, for at any moment anyone can start lying about anyone else, and the person lied about will be ruined, even though they are innocent. This is the destruction of trust, without which society disintegrates into a morass of nothing being true or trustworthy or healthy, for anyone.
This is who the people who gaslight others are: they are those who dismantle everyone’s ability to trust the rule of law, the word of people, the basic justness of our country. Many peoples, against whom prejudice and bias has run rampant, have known this for generations.
Now
I known it, personally.
No matter what you expect or believe, that leaf is there. The truth is there. No lie can change the truth.
Whether
you believe me or not is immaterial, but it is vitally important. You
could easily be next.
This is what those who gaslight others do to our country. This is who they are. This is how they try to determine others to be worse than themselves, but that is a futile effort. This is who they determine themselves to be: corrupters and perverters of all that is good.
Thus their sins are bound, and they are told, so that they are as aware as they can be made to be. They have time to amend their lives, through telling the complete truth about their lies, openly, publicly, and through making restitution as it can be made.
Then
they can be reconciled with their victims.
Until
the day of them telling the full truth or
God judging them, this is not something
they can leave behind. It is what they have to look forward to, to
that day when the Light of Christ will shine.
May it shine soon, now on this earth, during our lives. But if not,
then soon enough.
When the Light of Christ shines on what they have done, and the truth I have always provided, no witnesses or rules of evidence will be needed. God knows everything. There is no statute of limitations or excuses of lack of resources to judge fairly according to the truth. God knows the truth, the absolute truth. God will judge their sins.
I
am not determined by their gaslighting. I do struggle to survive the
effects, but I am blessed each day. I live thankful and even joyful
at times. I will survive until God brings me home to the New
Jerusalem, the city of light, into the room prepared for me by
Christ.
I
know who I am. I am blessed to have lived a very self-aware life.
Lies do not determine or define the person whom they are told about; they determine and define the person who tells the lies.
The truth always leaves tracks. The truth will be known. The Light of Christ will shine. It is and will be beautiful!
The reality of Gaslighting is that it is destructive for everyone, but most of all for those who tell the lies.