Health and Healing – Page 14

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – November 7

Saturday, November 7, 2020

Under the Snow and Ice

Is the Beauty of Creation

Waiting to Blossom,

Also in Our Hearts

Jonah 2:8

Those who worship vain idols forsake their true loyalty.

Hebrews 6:12

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. And we want each one of you to show the same diligence, so as to realize the full assurance of hope to the very end, so that you may not become sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Words of Grace For Today

While this passage of Hebrews descends again into the If we but do, think, or believe; Then God will reward us kind of thinking that perverts the Gospel of Jesus, namely that God saves us freely, through Grace, though we deserve only condemnation. True to Jesus’ way we hold up always as the measure of all things: Because God saves us, makes us God’s children, and equips us to be Christ’s feet, hands, and voice in the world, Therefore we can be grateful and active every day in every way to be just that.

It is always tempting to revert to IF, THEN theology. It appears to place us in ‘control’, instead of being always ‘beggars’ for God’s Grace and Mercy. It does no such thing for us. It is a deception of the Great Deceiver.

This is one of those vain idols that God’s people so often worship, which corrupts their hearts, minds and strength.

We all turn to worship vain idols, pursue corrupt and futile dreams, and turn from those around us that need our love, empathy and compassionate justice to reflect Christ’s sacrifice to save us all.

God remains true, walks with us even into the Hell that we create for ourselves and those around us, and guides us to keep walking back out into the Light of Christ, once again saving us from perdition.

God is just, merciful, and steadfast in love … for us and all creation. God does not overlook anything. God cannot reward us for the good we do … there is none, not without God being the agent that brings us to do the good that comes out of us poor miserable wretched sinners.

God rewards us for the record that Jesus places before God on our behalf, Jesus’ own unblemished record.

Now that’s some record, and some reward, considering everything about us! Our response, when we realize again what Jesus has done for us, is nothing short of more gratitude than we could have imagined ever possible for anything … and a re-dedication to reflect Christ to each person we deal with each day, and to reach out to and provide the basics of life and God’s Grace to the outcasts, the forgotten, the homeless, the disadvantaged, the ill, especially the mentally ill.

The evils of injustices, abuses, and perversions destroy people constantly everyday.

Our reflecting God’s Grace, love, and compassionate justice make the world a wonderful place to live, for they counter evil at every turn, providing hope based not on our fickle promises and actions, doch on God’s steadfastness.

What a reality to notice everyday! It makes this quite a miraculous place to live!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – November 6

Friday, November 6, 2020

All Creation bends to honour Christ,

The Light of the World.

It’s there for the seeing!

Isaiah 45:6-7

So that they may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is no one besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things.

2 Thessalonians 3:5

May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

The constant question that a thinking, self-aware, honest, and inquisitive mind asks is what are miracles?

Are they the power of God above all else, to form light and create darkness, or make weal and create woe, making God’s ultimate absolute power over reality known from the rising of the sun and from the west?

Or are miracles the power of God to transform hearts and minds so that we people actually do some good in our small lives?

The question is then also, do miracles happen, or are they just things of the past? Does God exist? or is God dead? or a figment of our imaginations? and are we creatures or mistakes or happenstance in an ever changing universe?

The answer depends much on what one wants in and from life. If one wants to play godlet over others, then God cannot exist or God is just an imagination used to control other people. This manner of living provides great rewards, if one can stomach the dissonance in one’s heart and mind and conscience.

If one wants to be what everyone says what they want; peace, love, happiness and true prosperity, or at least giving lip service to the idea, then one cannot greedily work to secure life and privilege and comfort for oneself. One needs be comfort, compassion, and breath for the most downtrodden, outcasts that the rest of the world would ignore.

One’s experience in life is determined by how we choose to live … at least until we notice God knocking at the door to our hearts, minds and strength … from the inside, asking us, begging us, to open up to the whole of creation.

That’s where true joy is hidden in plain site.

So where do you want to go today, tonight, tomorrow and each day and night thereafter? Into your own self created hell, or into God’s city and into the wilderness of miracles in every little mundane thing and event?

Wherever you choose, God walks with you, waiting for you to ask what you can do for God, carrying you when you cannot even walk, and reminding you of God’s love and Christ’s steadfastness.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – November 5

Thursday, November 5, 2020

Ice on Shore

Shore is Solid Ice, Then it is Not.

Still we can trust God’s Promises

They are Solid

Joshua 21:45

Not one of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.

Galatians 4:28

Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac.

Words of Grace For Today

God speaks, the universe is created.

God promises, it comes to pass.

Jesus redeems us and makes us children of God, and we inherit the promises God has made through all the generations to all of God’s children, even Sarah and Abraham’s son Isaac.

The temperature floats above and below zero. Snow falls and covers the grass. The lake piles up ice on the shore and then freezes solid at the shore to the bottom, and covers the water with ice out over most of the lake, then melts it except in a band 50 feet or so along the shore. Snow melts, and freezes a hard crust over it all. It melts again to show the tallest grass, then corn snow falls and covers all but a few grass blades. The forecast is for deep cold in a few days, near -20⁰C and then a return to hovering around zero. This hovering above and below zero makes for dangerous driving, flying, and bicycling. It is also hard on plants and animals alike. We were not created to tolerate easily the freeze thaw cycle more than a few times a year, in the fall and then in the spring. This though is a deeper, longer cycle of freeze, thaw, hard freeze, big thaw every fall and spring. It killed more than a few trees last winter. It breaks down our resilience to everything, including Covid 19.

The challenge of climate change always before us, we expect the extreme weather of last year to be the norm for this year, and on for decades to come.

What new challenges will come at us this year, this month, this week, this day?!

Out of habit to preserve ourselves we too often force our old habits on the new reality.

A very mutually supportive group of pastors gathered each month before Covid 19. This week they met again in person in the city, a hot spot for Covid 19’s second wave! They gathered in a back yard with masks on, some keeping a good distance, to share stories of their work and challenges. Then the masks came off, to drink the provide coffee. Later they shared hot dogs roasted over the fire. One of the owners of the backyard survived a serious round of cancer last year, as it consumed everything about her life.

They could have met by Zoom, but chose in the middle of the second wave to do exactly what the health professionals tell us NOT to do, to unnecessarily increase our close contacts, share food and drink, and gather in person when we do not need to.

Dr. Tam said: “The balance between keeping the virus under control and keeping some of these important social, economic spaces open is a very delicate one,” Tam told The Current’s Matt Galloway.

“Keep that balance, and that see-saw in front of [your] frame of mind, and know that everything, every little thing that you do helps keep that balance in check,” she said. (CBC The Current)

To paraphrase that more succinctly: Do every little thing you can to protect yourself and everyone!

Some people wait for God to interrupt the laws of physics and biology with miracles in order to save us with miracles. For the longest time we held that Jesus fed the 5000 by miraculous physically multiplying fish and bread. The text does not exclude that explanation, but real world faith that gives life sees the text also supports the real miracle: Jesus transformed hearts from being selfish to being generous, even with strangers. Jesus miraculously finds the words and actions that motivate the people to reveal the bounty of food they collectively had brought and to share it with everyone.

The real challenge is for us not to sit back and wait for God’s promises to ‘somehow, miraculously’ come about. Rather, as children of God, God calls us, equips us, and sends us out to transform hearts and minds so that God’s will is done by billions of people!

All God’s promises come to pass.

Every little thing we can do!

That’s how all God’s promises come to pass!

Breathe. Trust. Act boldly, with kindness and grace.

Try not to be covidiots, but forgive yourselves and others who are, so that we all get back to doing every little thing we can do, to protect everyone from Covid 19, to make God’s will come about, and to make Grace the way we all interact with everyone.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – November 4

Wednesday, November 4, 2020

The muck of life

Jesus clears that all up,

Atoning for our sins,

for all the sins of the world.

1 John 2:2

Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

Zephaniah 3:14-15

Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;shout, O Israel!Rejoice and exult with all your heart,O daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you,he has turned away your enemies.The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;you shall fear disaster no more.

Words of Grace For Today

Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and ... for the sins of the whole world.

The Lord has taken away the judgments against [us],he has turned away [our] enemies.

Therefore we can sing aloud … rejoice and we can trust that God is with us.

Enemies are plentiful. A judge is still trying to kill me, the consummation of many judges’ false judgments and corrupt decisions. What can one expect? Well, one can expect that those with authority behave with the honour that is due their offices, can’t one? And one can expect that they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one.

Of course the natural progression would seem to be that the corrupt would be exposed. That never seems to be what happens.

In the end (penultimately), while the corrupt may get off scott-free (for now), we can place our trust in God’s Grace, for Jesus is atoning still for our sins, and for all the sins of the world. Now that’s quite the thing to have completed, for us and for all the world! Is it completed for all the corrupt enemies who still try to kill us and others just for fun?

God’s grace is something … something we can trust for ourselves. God’s grace is something else, something extraordinary, for it can convert corrupt authorities into God’s children.

Rejoice? Yes! For Jesus has paid the price for all our sins.

We are free! Free of condemnation, free of guilt, and free for life!

What more could we want!?!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – November 3

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

No matter how cold we are to God’s love

the Light of Christ finds us

and we will reflect God’s Grace

as surely as ice reflects still the sun.

Isaiah 66:10

Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy.

Luke 2:38

At that moment Anna came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Words of Grace For Today

Once we realize what God has done for us, for all of us children of God, Israel and all, there is great cause for celebration.

Some people among us have the ability to see what God is doing, while others remain blind and work against all that God calls us to be and do.

Those who see like a child, like Anna, see God at work in the simplest things. Like seeing children who are the future. Like children who can be treated like the important people, the intelligent people, like the loving people they are and will be.

It is a wonder to behold, to see an adult finally realize that all the pretense and pomp they have tried in vain to hide behind is worthless, and the only saving thing about life at all, at all, is the Grace of God … for them and for all people.

Then we get to celebrate with God that one more person has seen the Light of Christ, and that God wins hearts and minds from the Devil even among the worst people we meet.

I know more than one pastor who is a clear sign that God’s Grace is stronger than evil, for they are pure evil, liars to the bottom of their lives as they make their way to power in the church, to power over people, to power over … well actually over nothing, for it is power that is a pretense, the Devil’s work. They only pretend to live and speak as if God were real, to be feared and loved. In reality they make themselves to be their own godlets, or they make power, wealth, or privilege and comfort their godlets. Yet God makes wondrous things come of their work, in spite of the rotten stench that is their lives.

Pastors are not the only ones. Those who make the country what it is, those with power, those who judge and arbitrate corruptly, those who patrol and say it is for peace but whom wreak havoc on others with their lies and bullying, those who hire themselves out to protect others and merely take their money to sell them out, i.e. lawyers. And there are doctors who treat their patients to shorten and end their lives and falsely accuse the patients of being improper, when they are they ones who seek to destroy life. Really there is no one who is not included. They are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one.

So when God saves one more, we have every reason to celebrate.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – November 2

Monday, November 2, 2020

A Beauty

that could not stand on it’s own

falls hard, and skews it’s world

but not God’s.

Psalm 14:3

They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one.

Romans 3:22-24

The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Words of Grace For Today

They have all gone astray …

We would like to think that these are other people of whom it is spoken, because the truth is frightening indeed. While many gaslight others (as they have me), and falsely accuse and convict them of terrible things (which are simply not true at all, not at all) before God we are all the ones who have gone astray.

Before God, only through the justification of Christ given to us as a pure gift are we redeemed, and made worthy of anything before God. We are not just made something. God makes us pure and righteous, though we deserve nothing but extreme condemnation. We are made holy saints, God’s own children.

Gift has a new meaning for us after we realize once again how costly a gift this is that God gives us: both how much it cost God to give it to us, and how precious it is for us.

We should never live, and yet we live abundantly.

Now what are we going to do with this gift? Will we pretend we have earned our place in life, the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat to survive yet another day? Or will we pretend that we have made it this far without God? Or will we pretend that we are powerful enough to beat God in a game of life, when all we’ve done is sell our souls to the Devil thinking we can get away with doing evil to others in order to ‘get ahead’? No, thinking we can live without God’s grace is trying to live without a head. A chicken can appear to live without a head for a short while, but we vanish into the folds of time never to emerge again …

Doch God’s children life in peace and prosperity of spirit, until the day God gathers us in and gives us an everlasting home.

Meanwhile we children have the work of God on earth to be about, sharing Grace with all, and being the bearers of Good News.

Breathe, for God loves you! God loves us, poor wretched sinners, all of us who have gone astray…. Only Christ makes anything good come of us, for Christ shows us how to see and share the beauty of creation, astounding as it is as it is to be loved, unconditionally.

Breathe. Rest. Live courageously, share the Good News, and trust that God walks with us.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – October 30

Friday, October 30, 2020

Dr. Prausnitz

Inspiration for thousands

to work hard, write well and rest, too!

Exodus 34:21

For six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in ploughing time and in harvest time you shall rest.

1 Timothy 4:16

Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Words of Grace For Today

The earth was made in six days and finished on the seventh.
According to the contract it should have been the eleventh.
But the painters wouldn’t paint and the workers wouldn’t work,
Soooo
The quickest thing to do was to fill it up with dirt.

Creation according to the Old Norske Sunday School.

The dirt refers to humans, but that is the upper level of the Sunday School curriculum.

Even so God gave us the model, picked up by the priests (or was it made up by the priests?) that we need to work like mad on six days so that we can rest on the seventh.

Like all religious rules there is a bit, and here quite a bit, of wisdom in this rule.

Working flat out to survive … robs one of the life one tries who hard to sustain.

We humans were made to work like the dickens, and God made us so that after working flat out, we need to rest.

It’s not just a muscle thing. It’s everything about our biology, physiology and psychology … and spirit.

If we do not rest, we work ourselves, literally to death.

Dr. Prausnitz will live on as the example that is clearest for me, in the negative. He taught English, had an office in the library next to Dr. Christenson’s, the philosophy department head. I worked nights in the library as a supervisor, and had an invitation from both professors to use their offices at night if I wished to study late. Occasionally I did, but rarely in Prausnitz’s office. Prausnitz worked through every second night, working, writing and teaching at least 36 hours straight and sleeping every other night. Shortly after I graduated he had a massive fatal heart attack ‘out of the blue’.

That’s what working too hard will do to you! One must rest. Got it? Got it!

Just so, the human needs to have care. Love is as essential to life as water and food, and self-care is a huge ingredient of that required love.

So even at planting time and in harvest, the 7th day is for rest.

…

Except Walt actually never had a fatal heart attack. He lived and worked for many more years, contributing to the learning of so many students, far beyond Concordia College.

I’ve been known to take great care for ‘rest’ on the 7th day.

Most often that is at least some kind of alternate to normal life and it’s regular work-rest routines.

Occasionally I’ve understood that ‘rest’ is the rest of the work that remains to be done to meet a pressing deadline.

Rules, health, wisdom, heart attacks as warnings (better someone else’s – even if it never was as one heard, fatal, which makes for the best kind of lesson!)

There is a reason why they are called ‘dead’lines.

Live long and prosper, and mostly enjoy the abundant life God created us to enjoy, no matter the power of evil to rob many coveted things from us.

Walt Prausnitz, October 2, 1924 – September 17, 2005, ….

many years after I graduated from Concordia in 1979.

Beauty and Kindness, faith, hope and love … these are some of the things ‘deadlines’, evil, and the twin destroyers (ignorance and apathy) cannot steal from us … if we trust God to carry us even when we are too tired to carry on.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – October 18

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Ritual,

Taking the same shot, nearly everyday.

Until the poor, bright light

seems refreshingly clear.

Boring or revealing

of nature,

of self!?

or of God’s Grace?

1 Samuel 15:22

Samuel said, ‘Has the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obedience to the voice of the Lord? Surely, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.

Romans 16:19

For while your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, I want you to be wise in what is good, and guileless in what is evil.

Words of Grace For Today

It is common, too common, that we humans point to meaningless ritual that we keep, so as to divert attention from the truth of our sins as we try to ‘prove,’ or at least make the appearance to others, that we are ‘good’ people.

From powerful politicians fear mongering or even starting senseless wars to divert attention to their terrible politicking, to the abusive and neglectful mother who easily created lies about her husband to divert blame from herself to him, to even the youngest of children who point to their siblings or pets to lay blame for something bad anywhere. Just not on themselves.

Sacrifices on the altars started out as a meaningful observance of God’s right to all one had, and they became ways to keep up appearances for the rich, powerful and corrupt while they wreaked havoc on God’s good people, all in order to maintain their undeserved wealth, power, and fame.

Obedience to God’s Law was never taken seriously by such appearance keepers. So Samuel calls the people to be obedient to God’s Law.

Then playing out one’s obedience while breaking the spirit of it became the game the corrupt played with themselves, each other, and they thought with God.

God was not fooled, nor amused. God wept.

Paul encourages new Christians to not only be obedient to God’s Law, even it’s spirit, but to go much further. Paul calls them to become wise, to know beyond the letter and spirit of the Law. Paul calls them to know the Spirit of God (revealed to them by the Holy Spirit, and by Jesus’ example).

And not only to know, but to live accordingly, since the Spirit of God is not about anything if it is not about everything, including how one lives each moment, starting when one rises, and ending … well never ending!

What a life! To live according to God’s Spirit. Not that we can do it on our own at all, not at all. Instead the Holy Spirit transforms us and our thoughts, words and actions so that we live as God intended when God created us, forgave us, redeemed us, and made us holy people.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – October 13

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Dark Days,

Many Darker Days Ahead

Fear Not!

God is With Us, Grace Saves and Sustains Us

So Act

to bring in the Light!

1 Chronicles 28:20

David said further to his son Solomon, ‘Be strong and of good courage, and act. Do not be afraid or dismayed; for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you, until all the work for the service of the house of the Lord is finished.

1 Corinthians 4:1

Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries.

Words of Grace For Today

If ever there was a time when we needed good people to be courageous and act, it is now. Evil has found a home in so many institutions, so many pieces of civilization, and in so many hearts and minds. The social contract that underpins civilization has been under attack by those who abuse their power and position and wealth for so long, no one can predict how long it will last, as it teeters next to the abyss with one foot on a banana peel. Predictions are that no matter the election results this November in the USA there will be civil unrest and violence. Among many others who are corrupt (including those with power in the Courts, with positions in politics, with wealth from oil and the inflated economy that surrounds it) Trump is trouble, bad trouble, real bad trouble.

Fortunately not everyone is corrupt, yet. Before corruption, well past the critical mass for unrest, reaches so many people that civilization is shredded by it, we need many many many people who are willing to make good trouble, good trouble for Christ.

Martin Luther wrote, shortly after his trial where he was found guilty:

If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitioussinners. Be a sinner and sinboldly,but believe andrejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here [in this world]we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness,but, as Peter says,we look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousnessdwells. It is enough that bythe riches of God’s glory we have come to know the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world.

No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day. Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sinsby so great a Lamb is too small? Pray boldly—you too are a mighty sinner.

Luther is not encouraging us to sin wildly. He states clearly that we sin already, no matter what we believe, think, do or do not do. The matter is then what? Do we recognize God’s Grace as the ultimate determination of our lives (each breath we take and each action we commit?) When we do, then we move beyond fearing our own sin. We accept it. We accept others’ sins. We exercise God’s Grace for ourselves and for others.

Levelled down to begging God for mercy, then we all can start to act, and act courageously. We can do everything the Holy Spirit gives us the power to do to counter the work of the Devil. So acting courageously we will continue to sin. This does not stop us for we trust God’ Grace.

David instructs Solomon to act, to serve God, for God will be with him.

Paul writes that we are servants of Jesus, stewards of God’s mysteries.

I gave thanks yesterday for water and fire, sufficient safe water and contained fire that keeps me warm, cooks food, and boils water.

It’s difficult to get water. Gas is too expensive to borrow a truck to travel the 25+ km there and 25 km back to get town water. There is no well and the lake water is contaminated far to much to use more than occasionally. No children have emerged from a swim with an extra leg or hand, but it’s bad. I have a bicycle that costs just my energy to run, though it’s not suitable for hauling water in any quantity. I have developed a way to collect rainwater. Since the recent rains I now have nearly full stores of rainwater, filtered and treated.

The stove that keeps me warm burns wood. LOTS of work. Every year the stove needs to be serviced, or more accurately rebuilt, fixed again and again, in order to eek out another winter of warmth from it. I was able to get this done over the Thanksgiving weekend, and it’s ready for the coming winter. There are other things I have to complete, but that one is the primary one.

Now I am set to work at surviving the winter, and living well!

What do we do with all that is life that God has given us?

David hoped his son would be faithful and serve God as Solomon ruled as king of Israel following David’s reign.

Paul hoped the Corinthians would learn to respect each other, not get caught in senseless squabbles, and look to serve (instead of rule over) others.

What do you hope for?

To live without sin and without trouble is not possible.

So serving Christ, trusting God’s Grace alone to save us, we can be so bold as opportunities provide for us, so that (though we may fail and likely will do something terribly wrong) God’s Grace will be known by many people through our words and actions (not by our sins.)

The point is, we will sin anyway, no matter what. Trying all your life not to sin is a useless consumption of our limited time alive. To do so would guarantee that we did nothing good at all. Not one little good thing at all.

Better to sin boldly.

Better to trust God to be with us.

Better to serve Christ and hold on to the mysteries we know about God.

Make trouble, good trouble. Invite others to make good trouble. We’re going to make trouble of some kind. Best we choose to make trouble, good trouble, serving Christ…

and trusting God’s forgiveness will extend also to us … especially when we need it.

And how we need it these days!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – October 8

Thursday, October 8, 2020

Driftwood, Tossed by Winds and Waves, As are We

Foggy Morning

Don’t Let a Little Fog

Keep You from Noticing and Participating in

The Beauty of Creation

Joshua 24:22

Then Joshua said to the people, ‘You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him.’ And they said, ‘We are witnesses.’

Colossians 2:18

Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking.

Words of Grace For Today

You have chosen … and are witnesses against yourselves … to serve the Lord!

Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on practices of piety that are claimed to bring you a good relationship with God and salvation.

There are always challenges in life. Covid 19 is one serious one that everyone shares … and everyone suffers from everyone else’s stupidity in not being one who protects against it. It is the community maker or breaker kind of virus. We cannot as much protect ourselves as we can protect others. We must rely on others to protect us. One person cannot protect anyone or any group. The weakest, stupidest link in the chain causes the infection to spread. And many weak links allow the virus to spread like wildfire in a dry, tinder-laden forest.

Covid 19 protection demands of us practices, not unlike piety (for one has to be consistent, one might say ‘religious’, about keeping vigilant with these practices). These practices for other people’s protection must be engaged in to save us all.

While we each can and must do things to protect ourselves, they are not enough by themselves. We each require many other people to engage in the protection practices to keep us safe. We never know who it may be that we need to be consistent and diligent for us to be safe.

We are not in control of our own safety, our own ability to survive this pandemic. It is in other peoples’ hands.

We are less in control of our relationship with God. Anyone who claims we control our own salvation with our choices is an utter fool, trying to entice us down a path of human effort to become godlets for ourselves. Only God can save us from our sin. At most we can strive to respond, and hope that occasionally the Holy Spirit will pull from us the miracle of us actually doing something for God in this world!

We can choose to serve God. We can be witnesses against and for ourselves. It is good to so respond and choose and strive to serve God. As far as our relationship with God and our salvation go, it counts for next to nothing, because we never can be consistent in serving God alone! We continually break away from and work against God. We are, all our lives long, captive to sin. Only God can save us.

That said, God does save us, through the sacrifice of Jesus, the Christ. And by the power of the Holy Spirit God promises to pull out of us miracles, miracles that we, pitiful us, can actually do God’s will on this earth, at least occasionally.

Strive we must. Striving has it’s own rewards, not unlike hard exercise to provide the basics of life for ourselves, our loved ones, and for others, especially our enemies and the needy, the stranger, and the homeless.

It’s another day. Another night. Every day has its opportunities and beauty. Every night its beauty and rest for recovery. Hard work is before us. May the Holy Spirit use it to accomplish God’s will also among us!