Injustice – Page 18

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – June 5

Friday, June 5, 2020

Our Weakness

Highlights God’s Glory

Psalm 42:4

These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

2 Corinthians 12:9

He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Words of Grace For Today

Weaknesses abound aplenty. We only fool ourselves if we try to say we have no weaknesses or that they do not compromise us severely, everyday.

We can join all great celebrations and festivals, shouting for joy and giving thanks. The real challenge though is when we think we need all the power of God to be with us to deal with threatening circumstances, and all we have to rely on is our own weaknesses and the Grace of God that gives us renewed life.

We think we have to bring the greatest defences available in all creation.

What we have is our weaknesses and God’s Grace. Seemingly that is not power at all.

Yet there is no power like the power of Grace.

It turns our world’s back as they were all along, as God created them to be.

Grace changes everything.

Grace is everything for us in God’s creation, and our weaknesses make God’s Grace obvious for all to see. It is how we share the news that God asks us to share, that Jesus came to exercise God’s Grace for us, by forgiving all of us all our sins.

Who would have thought that exactly what we find repulsive and weak, is how God makes us so useful.

We certainly cannot know how, yet God certainly uses Covid 19 to make us more aware of God’s grace and God’s will for us all.

It may be that somehow the disastrous care in senior facilities needed to be made known in a manner so that no one could ignore it any longer. It needed to be fixed.

It may be that working without a commute is what creation needs from us. It may be that creation needs less vehicles and more bicycles.

It may be that the stress level needed to be raise far enough that at the ‘routine’ death of a young black man, the nation to the south, and supporters around the world would rise up in protest! It is a tragedy that yet another black man died senselessly. It is a tragedy that violence erupts out of peaceful demonstrations. It is a tragedy that the responses are more violence from the police and national guard and hate language by the elected president.

The police in too many places are far beyond their rights and duties, abusing people at will. The courts have stood behind them or blind to them for so long, on the streets evil has no bounds.

This is not only the case for black men, or for vulnerable women, or for people of minority orientations, colours, creeds, it is full out already the case for good, honest white men, gaslit by misandrous women as if all men were misogynists and perpetrators of ill towards women, when they certainly are not.

Some have put it succinctly: Raaj Shetti: Misandry is growing like a wild fire in this world. support feminism, but not misandry.and M.F. Moonzajer: Misogyny or misandry is not a status or a belief; it is just a sickness.

If you still think that misandry is not a hidden, covered up, destructive force, also behind Geroge Floyd’s death and the countless deaths of young First Nations men (more numerous than female deaths) by both police and others, the see these two articles: Misandry: The Invisible Hatred of Men and Why Some People Have Issues With Men: Misandry.

How come we as a people always need to make scapegoats of real good, honest and innocent people … as if that would or could fix anything. Our misguided, hate-filled attempts to fix hate just makes things like racism, misogyny, misandry, bigotry, or simple hatred that much worse.

How come more police could not, as in one city in Michigan, take off their riot helmets and join in with the protesters? How come political leaders are not out in the protest lines, ensuring they are not hijacked by violence by ‘participants’ or police? How come more of us could not join in and ensure that the demonstrations were not pushed by unseen organizers of both extremes to fulfill Trump’s stupid prediction quoted from a tragic history?

This we do not know.

Still we pray: save the people from the temptations to Evil. Save all the people, including those in uniforms holding state authorized weapons with a task to hold back evil with more evil force. God, we pray, save us all!

Regardless, God will work with our weaknesses to bring blessings to all creation.

Small, Lonely Tracks

March on!

We may seem small, But God makes us Live eternally

Blessings Come even through this Pandemic

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – June 4

Thursday, June 4, 2020

We are but Grass, Blown in the Wind

While our Enemies Stand like Trees

Doch, God Ensures We are Victors

Eternally

1 Samuel 17:45

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

Ephesians 6:14-15

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

Words of Grace For Today

It’s war:

The Philistines with Israel.

Goliath versus David.

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

Covid 19 versus us, the whole population of earth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our enemies have great arsenals:

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

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

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

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

Doch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prayer: For Trinity Sunday & Everyday

Our Breastplate Prayer for Today

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

Caught in the Mists

of Mystery, Doubt, and Threats,

We Invoke

The Trinity, 3in1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet, the Devil would have me filled with fear.

Name the fears of this day:

Fear of a virus called Covid 19.

Fear of being alone and forgotten.

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

Fear of police power and martial law abused.

Doch!

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

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

up, down,

to the left, to the right,

in front of me, and behind me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen

…

St Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer Information

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

St Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity.

Through the belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness

Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today

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

Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,

Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,

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

I arise today

Through the strength of the love Cherubim,

In obedience of angels,

In the service of archangels,

In hope of resurrection met with reward,

In prayers of patriarchs,

In predictions of prophets,

In preaching of apostles,

In faith of confessors,

In innocence of holy virgins,

In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven:

Light of sun,

Radiance of moon,

Splendour of fire,

Speed of lightening,

Swiftness of wind,

Depth of sea,

Stability of earth,

Firmness of rock.

I arise today

Through God’s strength to pilot me:

God’s might to uphold me,

God’s wisdom to guide me,

God’s eye to look before me,

God’s ear to hear me,

God’s word to speak for me,

God’s hand to guard me,

God’s way to lie before me,

God’s shield to protect me,

God’s host to save me

From snares of devils,

From temptations of vices,

From everyone who shall wish me ill,

Afar and anear,

Alone and in multitude.

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

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

Against incantations of false prophets,

Against black laws of pagandom

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolatry,

Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,

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

Christ to shield me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

So that there may come to me abundance of reward.

Christ with me,

Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me,

Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

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

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the threeness,

Through confession of the oneness,

Of the Creator of Creation.

Amen!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – June 2

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

…

All Beauty Begins to Die

and wither as if winter were setting in

1 Samuel 2:1

Hannah prayed and said, ‘My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory.

1 Peter 1:8

Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy,

Words of Grace For Today

It is sometimes much easier than at other times to give God praise. We stand in awe of Hannah, though, because her heart exalts in the Lord at a most unlikely time. Her victory is nothing small. It is what Jewish women (or so we are told by tradition, fuelled by the need to increase in number in a sparsely populated earth!) in her day saw as God blessing them, that is to have a child demonstrated God blessed them. To be barren was the opposite. Societal expectations aside, Hannah has prayed for a child, has given birth to one, a son, who they name Samuel. So far so good!

Before Hannah sings her praise of victory, she has prayed with such fervour that Eli thought she were drunk. Now! now she gives up this child, her only child to Eli that he may be raised as a Nazirite! Hannah sings to God of her victory as she loses what she has prayed for: her child.

I’ve had children and raised them as the at home dad, long before that was common at all. I cannot imagine giving up one of my children. I was forced to, due no fault of my own, but as part of being terribly gaslit. It was and still is one of the most painful losses I have ever suffered. Those responsible, who are mentally ill, I have forgiven. But others, people of position and power, authority and responsibility who do this repeatedly, routinely, as a matter of course, and then cover it up … these people I cannot forgive, and I have bound their sins – God must deal with them, judge them, expose their sins that they cover up so well, and then move on as if they have done nothing wrong. I have learned of a corruption that I never thought could exist except in history books. My response is to remember everything, and pray to God every day. Every day I practice who I am and whose I am, so that I neither forget the gaslighting nor God’s gifts of beauty, joy and love that remain in my life, despite the Gaslighters’ efforts to ruin everything in me and in my life. I give God praise each day, but not for the loss of my children, or the gaslighting that was done to accomplish it.

Hannah gives up her only child willingly! and then sings God’s praises! She does give up Samuel to live with Eli and to be raised to serve God. She trust her son to God’s care and service. Samuel will become more than he ever imagined.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit moves us to be more than we imagined we could ever be. Too often the Devil invites us to be more malicious and destructive than we ever imagined we could be.

We pray again today that no matter the stress of Covid 19 or anything else in our lives, we will respond to the Holy Spirit working in us, and not the Devil working against us all.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 31

Sunday, May 31, 2020

Living Here is a Little Tents, no Covid though.

Better than some

Temporarily Good Enough

It’s Inhabited by Grace

Isaiah 5:8

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

1 Corinthians 12:13

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

Words of Grace For Today

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Charlotte is not Home

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 28

Thursday, May 28, 2020

No one to bring me to the water

and it’s all frozen hard.

Help.

Help us all through the ice of sin and shame.

Psalms 25:16

Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.

John 5:7-8

The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’

Words of Grace For Today

If ever there were a time when loneliness and afflictions were shared by so many people, even those who are not caught alone by the Covid 19 restrictions!

So we pray: God turn to us/to me, be gracious to us/to me. We’ve waited years for someone to carry us to the living water and immerse us in it so that our body, mind, and soul could be healed. Now we know, we only need Jesus to speak a Word, and we will be made whole again.

…

We are, since our baptisms, the hands, feet, and voice of Christ, anointed to bring the living Word to those in need.

Stand up, be counted among the saints, and speak.

Today speak with the holy healing whispers of the wind as the Spirit inspires you.

So many people thirst for the water that will make them whole.

Today speak of the water that overflows our cups giving all more than enough to drink.

So many people hunger to hear the word that will make them whole.

Today speak simple words of Jesus’ love renewed yet again in us, for all people.

Today, be God’s grace for others. ‘Pay the rent on the air you breathe’ today by doing Grace.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Devotions – May 22

Friday, May 22, 2020

Trees and Grass are Green

Fog is grey.

People come in Genders.

Colour or Gender

do not

Determine Sinfulness

nor

Criminality.

Goodness is Fully Dependent on God’s Grace!

Jeremiah 31:20

Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he the child I delight in? As often as I speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore I am deeply moved for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says the Lord.

Luke 15:20

So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

Words of Grace For Today

Ephraim is in trouble often with God, for God speaks often against him.

The selfish son is in trouble, deeply with his father, for he’s taken his inheritance before his father is even close to the end of his life. Then he’s squandered the entire inheritance.

That sounds like it’s not far from our own stories, each of ours. We take what we can claim as ours and run, and get into trouble, with our fathers, with God, – with our mothers, siblings, extended families, the community we live in, the church … and with God all over again. There are a great number of variations to the story, and every single one of us can be described by one variation or another.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is – well first a few thoughts about God as father. The image of God as father in itself is a very healthy image, one to embrace with profound joy. There’s nothing quite like the goodness of a father directed at us, loving, forgiving, accepting and inspiring us to live even better than we thought we could.

The damage done by the image of God as father is not in the image itself. It is in the abuse of positions of power occupied by men for centuries. Every good thing can be perverted. This is no exception.

The problem comes when we toss the baby out with the dirty bath water.

The abuse needs to be identified, clearly named and condemned … and ended.

The problem comes when we stupidly think that the abuse of the image of God as father is somehow made better when we replace it with abuse of the image of God as mother.

The problems multiply astronomically when we think that naming men as the problem, while ignoring the same kind of abuse, perversions, and destruction is perpetrated by women. The flavours, smells, and theme of the abuse and perversions can sometimes be collated to the gender of the abuser, but it’s just superficial.

Point blank: men abuse women. AND women abuse men. AND men abuse men. AND women abuse women. AND … God knows this all. So should everyone of us.

AND all of it is evil, and needs to be stopped. ALL abuse when it runs without restraint ends up killing it’s victims (and often the perpetrators, too.) A person is just as dead if they are murdered by physical violence as when they are driven to despair with no escape except suicide.

ME-TOO is all wrong, in that it only deals with one flavour of abuse, and ignores the rest. It is perhaps more destructive in that it sets so many people up to think that abuse is dealt with … so that the rest of it can continue unabated, the victims abandoned, the deaths unnoticed and uncounted.

The bishop last year said that we (this synod) are just starting to recognize and work on the issues of women being treated equally.

I spoke up, as I was able: some of us have been working on that for more than three decades, with everything we are, as men making sure the women in our lives get every opportunity possible and a fair deal (as much as possible.) It’s taken great sacrifice, and we’ve been sidelined often as irrelevant, our contributions raising children with great skill, grace and success belittled, and our words of giving attention to all issues of abuse ridiculed.

The challenge now is to acknowledge all kinds of abuse, by men and women, of men and women. To look at the root of it all: the need to scapegoat others as a means to advancing ourselves in life.

Back to the passages that speak profoundly of God’s unconditional acceptance of sinful sons. The translation to God’s unconditional acceptance of daughters needs be imagined, added to these stories. The stories though are powerful.

Who is your God? Not the God you say you believe in, but the God that your thoughts, words and actions belie you trust and believe in! Who is the God you live your life in response to?

Is your life a reflection of God, the universally, unconditionally accepting and forgiving father who, of a wayward son, says “I will surely have mercy on him!”

Does your life reflect the God who is portrayed in Jesus’ story as the prodigal father, who seeing his self-destructive, wasteful, wanton son approach, “filled with compassion runs and put his arms around him and kisses him?”

How marvellous it is to read these passages and know that God welcomes us, even when we have rebelled and wasted our lives and those around us!

The challenge is now:

Are we ready to be that welcoming father for all those people who have walked away from Grace and Goodness, and now desperately need a morsel of what we have in order to survive? Can we imagine being that overjoyed in welcoming back our wayward sons, daughters, parents, extended family, community members, church members, others known and strangers, even refugees and immigrants … and even those of other faiths or of no faith at all?

As we are able to do that, en-mass, then abuse, perversions and destruction of people will finally be dealt with in a manner so that they can be ended.

And all of us will be able to joyously embrace images of God as father, as mother, as Jesus the man, and as the Holy Spirit, wind, breath, and fire – lighting one under us to get on with the work of God’s Kingdom here and now.

Ah, what makes that all possible is that our God is a God of compassion and mercy, who rushes to greet us when we return to him!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Devotions – May 20

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Struggle to Survive as They are Able

Like the Poor

Need to be Recognized

First

Proverbs 29:7

The righteous know the rights of the poor; the wicked have no such understanding.

Hebrews 6:10

For God is not unjust; he will not overlook your work and the love that you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do.

Words of Grace For Today

The rights of the poor

are known by those who are righteous, who seek to do God’s will,

but they are unrecognized by those who are wicked, who turn from God’s will.

This is a statement about what we now call universal human rights: that all people, wealthy or poor, powerful or weak, privileged or disadvantaged all have the same rights. These rights are everyone’s simply because they exist. They are inherent rights.

No one can give these rights, nor can anyone take them away or assign them to someone else. They are inalienable rights.

These do not fully exist. For the sinfulness of humans always leave those who are privileged and powerful to ignore or pervert the rights of others, poor or wealthy, in order to gain an advantage for themselves. Though our Canadian court system is supposed to uphold these inalienable rights, they tromp all over the rights of the disadvantaged. Minorities, especially First Nations and Metis are dis-proportionally convicted and incarcerated. Decades ago men used to bring their wives to court and have them convicted or worse detained in psychiatric facilities (drugged out of their minds) for years without end. Now women can do this to men, and the police, the churches, and the courts oblige them convicting on lies and against hard evidence, using W.D. as a full means to override truths with the biased will to convict no matter, just as long as the woman will lie somewhat convincingly under oath.

Those who are wicked, who think that since they break the laws and act in blatantly unethical manners, therefore everyone does, easily dismiss false convictions as if they are not a concern, or rather false convictions are SOP.

Those who strive to do God’s will, do recognize that even the courts are corrupt, falsely convicting innocent poor people routinely. And with the routine false conviction, courts blatantly invite police and women to freely lie in court. Worse they are free to gaslight their chosen victims, and to invite other bystanders to do the same.

Covid 19 makes this blatant perversion less of a priority to be dealt with than it ever was. Good people turn their eyes to ‘more important things, like the community surviving this pandemic.

Doch the righteous always recognize, work to protect, and struggle to uncover the abuses of universal human rights.

Who do we choose to be today? We will not always choose to deal with injustice and follow through, sinners as we remain. The beginning, and sometimes the best we can do is to remember. Remember how God saved us, and how God desires to use us to save others from injustices, and abuses of their basic rights.

God does recognize and reward our efforts. God already gives us salvation, freely, overwhelmingly, without reserve. We are in God’s family, God’s own people. God recognizes and rewards our efforts to support the saints (the God-made saint in each of us baptized people.) The rewards never end, and include contentment with life, a clear conscience, a pure heart, loving empathy, and renewed energy for life.

These rewards are part of the abundant life God promises us.

Rest in God’s promise, and work like the dickens to protect and keep everyone aware that universal, inherent and inalienable rights for everyone always need protecting.

This will inform our efforts to deal with Covid 19, as well. We bring protection, treatment, and (eventually) the ‘cure’/vaccine equally to everyone.

God’s Rewards

Abound for Those

Who Recognize Universal Rights also for the Poor

Facing Covid 19: Daily Devotions – May 18

Monday, May 18, 2020

God Provides

Even as We Near

the End of the Road

Nehemiah 9:20

You gave your good spirit to instruct them, and did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and gave them water for their thirst.

John 14:26

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

Words of Grace For Today

40 years in the dry wilderness, God’s people wandered. Freed from slavery they crossed out of civilization into the barren land. Life became difficult in new and different ways. They had no water. They had nothing to eat. Then they had no meat. It did not take them long to complain that perhaps Moses had led them into the wilderness to die. When God provided water flowing from rocks struck with Moses’ staff it did not take them long to complain that they had nothing to eat and to blame Moses and God for it. God then provided again what they needed; manna appeared on the dry ground each morning for them to gather and eat for the day. It’s shelf life was only a few hours, so each day they depended on God to provided them again this wonder. Still it was not enough. They complained again, this time that they had no meat to eat. So quail appeared in flocks that they could harvest from for their meat.

No matter our real needs, God has always provided for us.

Or has God?

Millions of people die from lack of water. No rocks produce water for them.

Millions of people die from lack of food. No manna appears each day for them.

Millions of people die from lack of proper nutrition. No quail appear for them to harvest.

Millions of people are torn from life by injustices: roving murdering bands ‘disappear’ people, courts accept and thereby invite police and citizens to lie in order to destroy innocent people, advocates for human rights are detained, the earth is ravaged and those living nearby are left to die from the pollution … on goes the list.

How can we forget?

Yet we so easily, striving to gain just one more thing that we think we need for life, forget all the people that suffer injustices, murder, and worse.

We forget so easily all that God has done for us, like water from rocks, manna in the desert, quail that arrive on their own … our list could be long or short and yet we forget how God has blessed us and continues to bless us …

even if we suffer injury, illness and death …

even as Covid 19 challenges us in new ways to make sense of the world we live in and our role in the progression of time as it moves us toward eternity.

We forget so easily as we get buried under new injustices, new accounts of new threats to our way of life, new things that would kill us, or new challenges of all kinds.

Doch!

God does not forget us.

God does not let us forget.

The Holy Spirit, the Advocate, comes to remind us of all that Jesus has taught us:

The poor, the meek, those suffering injustice, the outcast, the ill and dying … these are the ones that God builds God’s Kingdom out of.

We receive all we need for eternal life, for life abundant now … for all we need is the willingness to give up everything so that others can experience that God loves them! Just as God has loved us.

We move forward in time, in step to the music of the spheres for the Creator of the Universe is for us, claims us, redeems us, and sets us free …

to be …

those that remember, trust, and share …

all that God provides.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 15

Friday, May 15, 2020

No matter the trees, rocks, weeds and water,

No matter the clouds or storms that may,

The Light of Christ always Shines.

Deuteronomy 26:7

We cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.

Luke 18:7

And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them?

Words of Grace For Today

There are so many people throughout history who have been afflicted, toiled in slavery, and been oppressed; there have been so many people throughout history who have cried to God day and night, and God has not delivered them.

Are we to say they were not God’s chosen people and somehow delude ourselves that it will be different with us, and all God’s chosen people today?

Are we to say that the delay is not long, even though vast numbers of people in history, a number greater than the sands and the stars, have died without ever seeing justice?

Are we to deny that today a great number of even Canadians are gaslit, lied to and about in their communities, by their churches? Are we to deny that false reports are made to the police in order to destroy innocent people? Are we to deny that the police have not added more lies in order to create false reports about innocent people? Are we to deny that the police have solicited and recruited false reports from citizens to support their gaslighting in order to knowingly make false arrests? Are we to deny that further gaslighting by lawyers and Crowns is needed in order to bring the false charges to trial, and they easily, routine provide these lies? Are we to deny that the Courts continue the Gaslighting adding their own false accounts of the already blatantly false evidence in order to convict when the person on trial is clearly innocent? Are we to deny that the Courts of Appeal add to the Gaslighting with their denials of appeals where the false convictions appealed are blatantly in error, the Gaslighting palpable and overriding?

No we cannot contribute to the lies by denying that such things commonly happen, for I can tell you from my own experience that this is so.

Is God listening to our cries for justice? Even if we do not wish for revenge, but for the amendment of life by those who participate in the Gaslighting?

One could say, like Leonard Cohen wrote about Alexandra Leaving, that we should not imagine that these things have not happened, that we should not stoup to strategies like this.

There are real evil things that God’s own people have suffered, are still suffering today, are here at home suffering and it is covered up by bullies who think that they have won by piling lies upon lies.

No, we will not imagine that these things do not happen. No we will not stoup to strategies like that.

No, our ‘Alexandras have left and are lost’ in so many ways. Our ‘Alexandras’ are far more than romantic relationships. They are hardly that at all. Our ‘Alexandras’ are all the love of life that could be for so many people, the grace that restores honour in the face of disgrace, the assurance of justice for all people (not injustice to the advantage of those who already have privilege and wealth), the hope that all things will be well, all manner of things will be well.

But our ‘Alexandras’ have left at so many turns, denying life, and robbing so many people of hope. We can recover, but unlike Cohen’s serial relationships about which he writes so well as he probes the trials of love, these are not replaced, displaced, or forgotten. These leave holes in the fabric of life into eternity.

So …

Where is God? Has God left? Is God lost also?

DOCH

Everything the saints in light have given us, everything we have heard, listened to, known to be true, believe, trust, and hold precious lead us to pray daily:

God save us from our afflictions, our unjust toils, our oppressions, and the injustices that evil bullies work against us even now!

Covid 10 has levelled the playing field in many ways. The bullies, oppressors and their victims alike must ‘stay the blazes home’ and rightfully fear contracting what can be a deadly virus.

We know, since we have received the saints’ accounts of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection, that God is with us …

no matter what comes our way; bullies who gaslight or Covid 19 or whatever.

No matter what comes our way we remember the truth, the suffering, the unjust toils, the oppression, and the perpetrators of this evil throughout history and even today, for God is with us.

Take that Covid 19!

Take that bullies and Gaslighters!

Take that oppressors, in all history and especially today!

You can work against us and even kill us, but God has saved us and promised us eternal life and in that life (started long ago at our Baptisms and re-starting always in the now) that the Light of Christ will shine on all that is done to us. Christ’s Light has already exonerated us, relieved our afflictions, unjust toils, and oppression, and provided true justice.

With Cohen we sing and ring the bells that still can ring. We celebrate the cracks through which the Light of Christ gets into this world.

With all the saints in light we pray each day: God deliver us!

For God stands right there with us in all we suffer, supporting us, shining truth, justice, and hope on all that comes our way.

Sing it however you like: this is God’s creation, we are God’s own people, and God is victorious, even over death! For Christ is Risen! Alleluia!