Choose – Page 51

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 4

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

Standing on level ground

as God’s mysteries pour in

Psalm 26:12

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

1 Corinthians 14:26

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

Words of Grace For Today

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Aug 2

Sunday, August 2, 2020

Light

Love

Hope

Even in the dark woods of life.

Deuteronomy 32:7

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

2 Timothy 1:13

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

Words of Grace For Today

We do not face these days on our own.

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

Remember.

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

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

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

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

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

We are left …

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

… and to encounter the Spirit anew for ourselves and …

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

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 31

Friday, July 31, 2020

and cannot be undone

and can only be stopped

by putting out the fire

Exodus 23:1

You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with the wicked to act as a malicious witness.

2 Timothy 2:15

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.

Words of Grace For Today

False witness.

Truth witness.

Martin Luther, the victim of a false conviction achieved by many false witnesses and corrupt judges, equated bearing false witness with murder.

Spreading rumours is essentially the same as bearing false witness. The audience is the open community instead of the confines of a court.

An old story recounts how a student asked his teacher what was so wrong with rumours. The teacher, on who effectively used illustrations and demonstrations as much as lectures, instruct the student to take two feather pillows, place them outside on his neighbours doorstep, and slit them open and return with the pillow cases. The student did this and returned to report to the teacher asking what this could possibly mean. The teacher instructed the student return the next day. That next day the teacher directed the student to take the pillow cases, collect the feathers, and sew up them closed to be used as pillows.

The student stood aghasted. It will be impossible to collect the feathers now. The wind has blown overnight. More than a handful of feathers will be impossible to find, yet alone collect.

The teacher said, so it is with rumours (and false witness). Once rumours are spoken the spread like wildfire in the community and beyond so that nothing can undo them, true or not. They destroy like invisible poison not only the person they are told about, but the people who spread them. In that way they are like Covid 19.

False witness, like rumours, once told are sins for which little restitution can be made to the person they are told about, and certainly not to all who hear them in the community or the courts. They are an indiscriminate poison that kills both body and spirit.

Thus we followers of Christ are not called to speak falsely of others.

We followers of Christ are not called to silence, rather we are called to speak truth. Always truth begins with what God has done for us, Jesus’ story, our salvation and daily renewed life, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Against rumours and false witness: we can do no other than to forgive as we can, to bind sins for God to judge, and to clearly speak the truth in the face of all false witness and rumours. We can expect that those caught in rumour and false witness will expend every effort to end the truth, and us with it; history will continue to repeat itself, and good people will be killed to protect the lies of corrupt and sick people.

Life following Christ is not safe, and never boring. It is life abundantly blessed, even when one is caught in life threatening poverty.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 30

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Hell Fires

Hot

and Ready?

Zephaniah 1:7

Be silent before the Lord God! For the day of the Lord is at hand; the Lord has prepared a sacrifice, he has consecrated his guests.

Mark 4:9

And he said, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’

Words of Grace For Today

Be silent! The day of the Lord is at hand!

Let anyone with ears to hear listen.

Dread.

Silent Dread, no opportunity to protest.

If one has not believed then now one will, without a doubt.

For God is all powerful and all knowing.

It’s not like the threatening spam email I received that claimed my computer was locked! Well it’s not. But the email claimed that the writer could see through my camera, but it’s physically covered so even if someone activates it, it’s blank. And of course the email demanded bitcoin payment to a numbered account, untraceable, with the threat to share the video made of me with all my contacts.

This is a bad hoax, a spam email, a real idiot who wrote it, but a poor sucker who would fall for it and make payment.

One could treat God like a stupid spammer, wait and see that God is real, for real and one’s own judgment day is real.

There are things to take seriously by trusting them; God’s Word is the prime example.

There are things to not take seriously by acting as like the joke is on in the ‘threatening’ idiot: a good example is a spam email that demands money.

Place dread where it is accurate.

Place trust where it is warranted.

As one knows quite well that Jesus’ pure record stands in for one’s own very imperfect record there is nothing to fear of the Day of the Lord.

Rather it is something to await with great anticipation and joy.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 29

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Wood

for

Winter

Survival

Job 1:21

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

1 Timothy 6:7-8

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

Words of Grace For Today

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

Or so one thinks.

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

Legacies are remarkable … usually in how inconsequential they are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 28

Tuesday, July 28, 2020

It’s hot this end of July,

It’s cold that end of October,

No matter the challenge,

God is with us.

1 Samuel 7:12

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

2 Corinthians 4:8

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

Words of Grace For Today

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

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

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

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

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

Thus far the Lord has helped us.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 27

Monday, July 27, 2020

Moon

See all that is,

God given.

Proverbs 2:6

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

James 1:5

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

Words of Grace For Today

Wisdom.

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

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

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

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

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

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 26

Sunday, July 26, 2020

We are all in this together.

We are all in this life on earth together.

Proverbs 14:31

Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honour him.

Matthew 25:40

And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

Words of Grace For Today

Yesterday was six months since the first Covid 19 case identified in Canada.

More than 15 million people have been infected world wide. More than 640k have died.

In the USA more than 4 million people have been infected. Less than 42 days ago that was only 2 million. It took more than 90 days to reach the first million. More than 140k have died.

Canada reports 113,206 people in Canada have been infected, and 8,881 have died, 80% in long term care homes.

Alberta reported 112 new cases on July 23.

This M.D. where I live, as of 23 July, had 1 active case, and no deaths from Covid 19.

These numbers are those that are reported. Reality may vary markedly.

This is a serious pandemic, not to be taken lightly nor passed over as if one could simply dismiss it and be done with it. A person may indeed get away with being so stupid, but more than likely their stupidity will cause others to get infected and some to die. This is serious stuff.

Many lessons are evident for the learning. If care in long term care homes is sub-human, there will be a cost. It’s only a matter of time. If those caught in poverty and those without housing are not provided care commensurate with basic human dignity, there will be a cost. It’s only a matter of time.

It is less expensive to provide a basic level of humane care for all people (homes, health care, clean water and sufficient food) than it is to pay the costs stemming from not doing so. The costs in an pandemic include death of many people, not just the poor and homeless.

Since the beginning of time, and as a mainstream in Judeo-Christian tradition, the wisdom and rewards of caring for the disadvantaged has been recognized, or at least paid lip service to.

Jesus’ parables repeatedly refer to how blessed it is to provide care for the needy and vulnerable, the sick and the poor, the poor and the outcasts.

So we are blessed to be the ones who bring Jesus’ care and compassion to all in need.

So we are called to be the ones who bring Jesus’ care and hope to all in need.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 23

Thursday, July 23, 2020

All Creation

Hungry to Hear

Isaiah 43:10

You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.

Mark 16:15

And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.

Words of Grace For Today

…

Good God, is this it?

Awake again, dripping rain, cool, no mosquitoes.

I see the grass, the trees, and the lake.

God is here. I have seen him again and again in the most mundane and and the most spectacular.

Yet I know I am missing something. I missed so many clues along the way.

Each morning I remember that Jesus faced his betrayal, willingly suffering everything…

God knows exactly what this is like.

Jesus tried to show us it is not necessary that anyone else be scapegoated or sacrificed or Gaslit in order that we make our way through life.

We imitate Christ to make our way through life, striving to forgive the unforgivable.

Hoping that truth will be known.

Trusting God stands with us.

Leaning on the Holy Spirit.

Even as bit by bit our lives slip away into the hungry past as it gobbles up the present and our tomorrows.

Can we trust breath, ferocious wind, gentle silent breeze, spirit intangible

to guide our beating hearts, frantic minds, spasming muscles, and weary arthritic bones?

Truth, confessed, welcomes life and radiates it to others.

Let us strive for truth.

And sleep enough? Maybe?

Even as the dark of night retreats as light wriggles across the land and water

calling us to rise to a new day

But our minds slowly slip from us into the empty spaces between thoughts and visions

until in the bright baked light we scramble to catch up

with the obligations of life stacked up decades high

and search for

something out of the dim past … what is it … so fleeting. It is gone.

Oh, yes hope. It was hope.

Gone is hope?

Not at all!

…

The story that God gives us in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, so that we may know and believe God and understand that God is God, gives us all the purpose, love and hope we need.

….

Given that purpose, love and hope, we can go into all the world and proclaim the good news of Jesus’ story with our thoughts, words, and actions.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – July 20

Monday, July 20, 2020

John Lewis

Get into Trouble.

Good Trouble.

Isaiah 46:12-13

Listen to me, you stubborn of heart, you who are far from deliverance: I bring near my deliverance, it is not far off, and my salvation will not tarry; I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory.

Titus 2:11-12

For God shows no partiality. All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

Words of Grace For Today

“Get in trouble. Good trouble. Necessary trouble.” – John Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020).

One of the many who took part in the freedom rides, integrated interstate bus trips (a right guaranteed by the Supreme Court), he was beaten many times, once nearly killing him.

Stubborn hearts of racists and police who were eager to willing illegally arrest black and whites travelling together brought hardship, bigotry and hatred to the fore many times over.

Stubborn hearts do the same still today, everywhere. Even here.

Last night three quads showed up, about an hour apart, the last at 2:30 am, helping them selves to the wood I’ve collect, cut and stacked to help minimize the dangers of the coming winter. All together they took about two day’s worth, simply to party away with a fire in front of them. Shame on them.

I startled the last with a flashlight from 10 feet away, since he seemed only focused on finding the wood to take. He sped off running over a pine tree, careening to turn around to leave up on two wheels and nearly running off the path into the trees.

Maybe that will put an end to the theft.

God deals with stubborn hearts all the time, theirs and all of ours. God comes close, well God is always close, but God goes out of God’s way to make apparent to us God’s presence with us.

God shows no partiality, all is just based on truth, in God’s judgments of us. And there will be judgment for each of us.

The trouble these thieves get up to is trouble, but hardly good trouble or necessary trouble.

It’s just evil trouble. The devil’s work.

The end of course, carried on far enough, will be that I do not have enough wood for winter; and their theft can cause my death.

Good trouble, necessary trouble, is the kind that puts a stop to this kind of petty criminality, and to the widespread biases in the justice system, from the RCMP bullying, harassment and violence, to the Courts that turn a blind eye to the truth of abuse done to men by women (and men.) That blind eye invites women to lie profusely to the Courts, and for RCMP to act far outside properly or fairly … and everyone gets away with it.

Except God does judge fairly, equitably.

Thanks be for Jesus, who gives us his record for our judgment, for otherwise we would all be wiped off the face of the earth all before breakfast at 6 am.

Because Jesus steps in for us, we not go through life, making our way with violence. Jesus makes our way for us. We need not go through life full of anger. Each will get their due justice delivered by God. We need not go through life ashamed of lies told about us, or false accusations, or even false convictions. These do not define us. Jesus defines us … as his followers.

With Jesus always with us, the Holy Spirit guiding us, and God’s love pouring over us each day, we can boldly take on the trouble, the good trouble, that God sends us into each day. We do not need be shy or self-righteous (as if trouble did not belong to us at all).

No, today we can courageously get ourselves into trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble, trouble that will make a good difference possible for many other people.