Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 8

Friday, May 8, 2020

Steps into the Waters

Come walk wet, baptized

no matter the challenges or frustrations of this day

Psalms 119:77

Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight.

Mark 1:30-31

Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

Words of Grace For Today

Since forever people have called upon God, and with various degrees of real expectation on a scale from demanded to hoped that God would respond and save them.

On the demand end of that scale of calling upon God for deliverance, the Psalm seems to reflect the old and very common perversion of faith that says: because I have done X then God must do Y for me.

It is about trying to control the uncontrollable things about life. It is trying to raise oneself above the reality of life to become a little godlet: ‘Look at me! I am so X, that I can control what happens to me, to you, in the universe, … why I even can control what God does!’

The hubris of it is astounding, or it would be, if it were not so common … to every human to some degree. After all life is cruel, short and brutish, right?

As Jesus does for Simon’s mother-in-law, why would we not want Jesus to be with us today, walking in to our elders’ sick rooms, struck with Covid 19 as they are, needing ventilators to stay alive and dialysis to cleanse the poisons from their blood?

It’s a bit harder to make this plea for Jesus’ healing with a sense of being able to demand intervention to save a life.

How are we to call upon God?

First off, if we are going to error about communication, then the best one to do this to is God. Save great exercise of kindness and politeness for those we live with and among. The people in our lives need our kindness and politeness. God, on the other hand, already knows we can be less than kind, faithful, loving, and even decent. God is not hurt by our stupidity, if we really come pleading (or angrily demanding) to God.

The gracious reality of God is that God chooses to listen to us, no matter what. God responds, most often with a chuckle and a quiet, ‘no way!’ Or too often with a tear dropping steadily in pain as God dismays at our behaviour so lacking in gratitude as we mostly are, as God must simply say, ‘No, that’s not how life works. You are free. Freedom means suffering is part of life. I am here, suffering with you. Do not let your hearts be troubled.’

Grace abounds also, and sometimes God’s answer is YES! and our request for life, health, and faith are fulfilled. Likely God had it in the works already. Or someone stepped up to make things change, or life just developed that way anyway. Those times of desperate need answered with a YES are more common than we seem to remember.

So we pray today again: God save us! Save us from ourselves, from each other, from the works of the Devil in us all. Save us from destruction, pain, illness, and death. Save others. Do this because you, God, choose. Do this because it will give witness that you watch over your people. Do this for whatever reason, but please do this for us, today; if that is not too much to ask.

Few if any of us can pray, save us from this Covid 19 pandemic; because almost all of us have already suffered some loss because of it. We can pray, loudly, clearly and hopefully,

God deliver us, that we may live to give you the glory!

Today …

Today we can start giving God the glory: be thankful for everything we have.

Share with those who desperately need what we take for granted.

Laugh heartily at the good things, the humorous things that surround us each day.

Smile gently at those you meet; we are almost all struggling in some way, more so these days.

Look up to see the Light

Life is colourful, and most coloured by our attitude. Life is beautiful.

Be part of that beauty at your core.

When the day is done, beauty is splendiforous.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 6

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Caught in Darkness?

The Light will Shine

And be reflected by all water and life in Creation

Isaiah 42:16

I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.

Luke 1:78-79

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Words of Grace For Today

Darkness. Total, deep, profound darkness of the soul. No light at the end of the tunnel.

When we find ourselves there, to put it into cosmic terms, in a black hole that pulls everything around it into nothingness …

When we find ourselves there it seems that everything is lost, not only things that build a sense of continuity and security (like jobs, homes, family, church, and even the tool that enables one to create – a camera, a pencil, a computer, a canvas), not just life and all good life at that for us and for creation, but meaning, history, presence and future ….

When time and hope are lost into the void and emptiness that is left to us, then only memory of, or re-spoken promises made in the past, or that little light at the end of the vortex can save us from going totally bonkers.

Covid 19’s threat (the lock-down, our isolations, our ‘staying the blazes home’, our financial concerns, the risk to our and our loved ones’ health and lives), for most of us does not approach the vortex of a black hole where no light exists. For some of us it does.

Whether its a total black out, or a brown out, or we have already gone a bit bonkers so that it all looks like dark colours everywhere …

However this affects us,

We yearn for Light, if yearning is still possible.

God promises to turn darkness into light, rough places into level ground. The dawn from on high breaks in on us in darkness, in the shadow of death, and guides us in the way of peace.

That’s the promise that we can remember … if we can remember.

That’s the promise that we can re-speak for others … when they cannot remember, we can, and we can still speak.

That’s the promise that we need to re-speak, to proclaim with all the vivid colours of the rainbow splashing about …

because even if we do not notice them, there is someone onto whom those colours (carrying Light) will splash.

And they will be saved from the vortex of absolute darkness, by our generous, reckless, prodigal re-speaking a promise that created, redeemed, and guides this whole universe of creation to be able to seek peace.

Peace is not something we attain and hold on to.

Peace is a manner of being in this universe, when participated in brings us to reflect God’s intent for us, but which is lost as quickly as a candle is snuffed out by even a gentle breeze.

Peace be with you, also this day, whatever this day is for you.

Splash and be splashed by the Light and Colours of the rainbow, God’s rainbow of promise, faith, hope, love, grace, and life – abundant life.

We may be off kilter a bit

Doch God’s Light Shines

in full colour for even us!

Yearning

Yearning for Everythings to be put Right

In darkness of our own making
we are yearning for the light,
for the moon to shine,
for the end of night.

We are yearning for things to be put right.

Christ alone can put us

in the light,

safe,

and right.

Sometimes everything is off kilter

The expected tilts so wrong, undermined.

We want some light, even reflected light, to find our way

We want earth to reflect the rightness of heaven

Catch the Light in Colour, before Dark returns

We want the Light, Right?

Based on the Truth!

Jesus alone is the Way, the Truth, the Life.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 1

Friday, May 1, 2020

never got any good result.

Looking at things from God’s perspective always does

net us truth.

Numbers 11:23

The Lord said to Moses, ‘Is the Lord’s power limited? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not.’

Matthew 6:28-29.31

And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?”

Words of Grace For Today

Part of the human condition, built in for survival, is that we can worry, or anticipate with concern, dangers that we may face. And we can do this in such an engaging way that we do something about the danger.

In the summer, there is little pressing reason to make warm clothes. When the bitter winds blow the light blizzardy snow over the thick lake ice set by weeks of -35⁰ and colder temperatures, then the need for warm clothes is clear!

Worry, or being able to anticipate with fully engaging concern, helps us get on with the hard work in the warm weather of making warm clothes for our family for the winter. And for those who cannot make clothes for themselves.

Jump ahead a few eons, and we just need to have a job that pays well enough so that we can go to the store where warm clothes are offered for sale, because someone else has made them, someone else transported them, and someone else has put them in the store for sale.

Now our worry or anticipatory concern drives us to have a job that pays enough so that we can afford warm clothes. Note that our ‘worry’ drive becomes more and more disconnected from our real needs as we face real dangers in the cold winters.

So why does Jesus teach that we should not worry. God clothes the birds of the air and flowers in the field with great beauty. God will also clothe us. Will God? Can we just quit our jobs and go to the store and get the clothes we need for the winter come October? Simply put no.

God provides. God provides everything we need. God provides the drive to be concerned before a danger presents itself. God also provides enough rational capabilities for us to sort out how our drives are disconnected from our real needs and real dangers.

But we are lazy. Part of the human condition so that we do not waste limited energy on useless activities. Thinking clearly is hard work. We like to not think about what is going to happen and just let our God given ‘instinctual’ drives run us. We like to give in to the easy temptations the Devil offers, and instead of using our instinctual drives according to some clearly thought out value system, an ethic, we just let it all happen to us and we take no responsibility. Meanwhile the Devil builds up a perverted rationalization in our minds as to how and why we do what we do. Easy sins are easy to rationalize.

And all hell breaks loose in our lives, because the disconnect between our drive, the dangers we face, and the anticipatory concern to address the dangers are so distantly disconnected that our ‘worry’ now drives us to do all sorts of foolish things, things that rob us and others of life.

We develop, instead of utilitarian answers to our needs for life, an adornment on top of our needs that encroaches on the utilitarian value of the things that meet our needs … and it spirals out of control until, instead of utilitarian things, we acquire pure aesthetics that do not meet our need at all. Our real needs are not met. Our ‘worry’ spirals up, we acquire more things that also do not meet the real needs we have. More and more until we cannot even see the real needs as they are covered by ‘fictionalized needs’ that must be met.

We worry ourselves sick about ‘meeting’ these ‘needs’.

These are the worries that Jesus advises we leave behind, and trust that God will clothe us, as God does the birds of the air and the flowers of the field.

God will clothe us by reconnecting our real anticipatory concerns, and drive thereof, to meet our real needs.

Throw into that mix, since we’ve escaped into aesthetics instead of utilitarian things, that we actually do need to create, enjoy, and admire beauty, both naturally occurring and human created. The first reflects God’s Spirit showing itself for us to marvel at. The later reflects the human spirit, given to us by God, that can overcome otherwise insurmountable dangers and challenges.

Simply put, art and beauty (not necessarily the same, but they can overlap) direct our minds and spirits to connect with people out of the past. Connected to the past we can see the present more clearly, more profoundly. And then we are equipped to ‘see’ the future as it is. It is in God’s hands. We can approach each day with hope.

God’s work will come about. We need not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” Instead we can lighten our minds to see the real challenges and expend our energies to meet them. Sometimes that will mean working hard to provide food, drink, or clothing.

Always that will mean giving God thanks for all that is possible each day.

The worry that Jesus directs us away from is the destructive, downward-spiralling negative thought patterns aimed at things we really can do nothing about, or things around which we’d be better off if we actually did what we can to mitigate the challenges ahead.

Regardless, God will do as God promises. We are God’s, God is with us.

Covid 19: there are many things we can do. Hand washing and physical distancing and Staying the Blazes home and thinking clearly how we acquire things, or touch things that could have the virus on them, and self-isolating and quarantining if we show even small symptoms … these are only some of the basic and smart things we can do to mitigate the risk to ourselves and everyone around us. We can also help others do these things. Sometimes we need to figure out how to inspire others to do these things.

Then our lives are all about caring for ourselves and others, physically (to social distance ourselves from the fridge, but climb those stairs 10 to 100 times a day), spiritually (setting a specific time to read, pray, and sing each day), and mentally (get a few old fashion games going – even if that is like chess over the phone, or four-way board game, all by telephone – it goes slow, but then we’ve got time, right! OK, parents with children maybe not a second, but get the children playing with friends over the phone. Let them be creative, constructive, and helpful to others.)

And get on the phone: make a call list of people who could use a good word, and call them once a week or so. Model it for children. Do it for your elders. Take care of the vulnerable.

We can STOP worrying, by getting on with what we actually can do.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – April 30

Thursday, April 30, 2020

God blesses,

Humans mess’s

Grace alone saves us.

Psalms 73:1

Truly God is good to the upright, to those who are pure in heart.

1 John 3:21-22

Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

Words of Grace For Today

Covid 19 puts many things into perspective.

When our boys were young they came asking if they could have coffee. They were intelligent and persistent. Being occupied and having uttered a few no’s! already I said to them that if they drank coffee they would die. Sort of true and it bought me some peace.

Not for long. They came back a few days later insisting that they be given coffee, it smelled so good! I said no, and repeated the half truth from before. If you drink coffee you will die. … Well, OK back then, a recent study had said that coffee was real bad for you, and worse for children; or so I rationalized it. But the boys did not fall away from but rather into some intelligence beyond their parents’.

They responded, yes, if we drink coffee we will die, but if we don’t drink coffee we will die, also.

So we want coffee.

God is truly good to the upright and pure in heart. And God is even better to the worst sinners, for whom God sent God’s own son, Jesus, to teach, heal and forgive … and then give his own life to redeem.

If we have boldness before God and obey his commands and do what pleases God, God will give us whatever we ask. And God gives whatever they ask for to even those who displease God, sinners that all humans are!

Not really. God answers everyone who calls on God. Most often God gives us what we need, not what we ask for. Most often the answer is simply NO, or wait, or maybe. Rarely God answers with a resounding YES! giving exactly what we ask for.

The temptation is to think that IF we behave rightly (and/or fill in whatever correct description you choose) THEN God will bless us with good things (and/or fill in whatever correct description of benefit from God you choose). This is the Devil’s way of getting us to think that we are little gods unto ourselves, that our behaviour controls God’s response to us.

When we start down that path, the Devil has us for life! Again. Until Jesus saves us again!

God’s reality is that BECAUSE God chooses (fill in whatever God chooses) THEREFORE we are blessed (and can think, say, or do whatever, or receive or fill in whatever blessing you want to include.

God’s reality is only God can choose to bless us. And we can only choose to refuse it. As we embrace God’s blessings it is only because the Holy Spirit moves us to do so.

The kind of religion that says we have to earn our way to God is as meaningless as counting backwards from ten. The best result is we end up unconscious. Anything else is painful to watch or experience.

God’s Grace though changes the whole world, from church being a social club with great language, coffee and tax deductions, to church being a calling to be more than we ever thought we could be, bringing abundant life to others in need.

After God acts, and we respond, then life lets loose, and our tasks vary according to our gifts and jobs and time. For now that will be a photo to share, occasionally. I get to create, you get to enjoy the result (or not.) Regardless whether we survive Covid 19 or not, we will all eventually die … for now the challenge is to be better than the best we imagined we could be. Pure of heart and obedient are just starters.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – April 29

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

So be diligent about moving on to the new reality

whatever that may be that the Holy Spirit has in store for us!

Ecclesiastes 9:10

Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.

Romans 12:11

Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.

Words of Grace For Today

Ecclesiastes is always so much fun to read, as long as you bring the humour!

The writer has a universe-size chip on his shoulder, which he called wisdom. Listen to the lack of Grace he exercises for others: ‘you are all going to Sheol’. In modern English … ‘to hell with you all. Work hard now, it’s all that counts.’

Sorry the idea is sort of right, but the reasons are outta this world, at least the one that God created. We do not need to work hard because this is our only chance; in hell there is no work!

That might at first glance make hell a place we’d like to live in … or at least visit to check it out. Plenty of people take the Devil up on his offer and create a hell for themselves here and now, and they are diligent about sharing it with others.

Truth is I have no idea if work, thought, knowledge and so called wisdom are part of hell. It would seem they are a lot of what people use to create hell on earth already. What I trust is that God created us capable of working hard, thinking diligently, knowing clearly, and possessing extraordinary wisdom. God also created us with plenty of zeal and ardent spirits.

Not that we always exercise hard work, diligent thinking, clear knowledge, extraordinary wisdom, zeal or our ardent spirits. Another temptation the Devil places before us is to be none of that, rather he tempts us to be lazy.

Yet this is exactly what God equips us to do, calls us to do … not the lazy part rather being zealously engaged in working, thinking, knowing and being wise.

All so that others may enjoy God’s blessings through us, God makes and redeems us so that we can work hard, very hard, physically and otherwise. We can pursue diligent discipline thinking about ourselves, God and others in this creation. We can possess clear and truthful knowledge, and above all we can have the wisdom how to exercise all of that: not for ourselves, but for others.

That is serving God

Instead of serving ourselves, manna, or the false promises of the Devil.

Choose as you may, as for me (since I have no house, nor household) I choose to love: hard work, diligent thinking, clear knowledge and maybe I can enjoy some wisdom.

So may we all work hard at not touching anyone else, or any surface someone else may have touched. Think clearly about how the virus could be on our hands. Don’t pause though to rub our eye as we ponder the new reality. Know what is true about the virus, and sort out stuff like Trump’s suggestion to ingest disinfectant, sarcastically or not! Finally be wise beyond our years: know that as we get older, this virus is harder on us; so enjoy everything we can, carefully, at home, or on walks with no one around.

Solitude, Beauty, and Hope. God provides these in abundance now.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – April 28

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

*The Goal of life is not to see who can get to the sunrise first,*

nor to the sunset of life with the most power or possessions

but to see if you can bring to Grace all the people God places in your path.

1 Chronicles 22:19

Now set your mind and heart to seek the Lord your God. Go and build the sanctuary of the Lord God so that the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the holy vessels of God may be brought into a house built for the name of the Lord.’

1 Corinthians 9:24

Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it.

Words of Grace For Today

Goals, competitions, setting one’s mind … these all are very human endeavours, good endeavours, too.

They cannot net us real security, real love, real faith, real hope, or real life, no matter how hard we try.

These are gifts from God, already at our baptisms. Seeking them is to first deny that God has given them to us. We get to rest assured that these are already ours. We need not set our minds and hearts on seeking and finding the Lord our God. God has found us. That game never was one we could succeed at anyway.

So why all the images in these scripture passages?

Is there something about goals, competitions, setting one’ heart and mind to doing something that is part of our life as God-made saints?

Naturally. All humans have some degree of drive. God designed us so. Exercising this drive is a large part of a full life, life lived as God created and redeemed us to live.

These drives cannot win God’s favour. We already have it, along with salvation, joy, and the fullness of life that goes along with being claimed by God.

These drives cannot win us joy. God has completed our joy with Christ’s resurrection.

These drives cannot win us security, faith, or hope, nor love. All these God has already lavishly poured over us, so that we can share them with others.

These drives move us there, to share all that God has given us with others.

There most certainly is a race, and it is good for the heart to participate in it every day. The race is to see who can give away the greatest percentage to the benefit of the most people. The best we can do is come in tied for second place, along with all the other God-made saints. Jesus has first place wrapped up.

So, if you can at all, get in on that race, at least take a daily walk in that direction. It is very counter intuitive to what the Devil plants in our hearts and minds as the way to success. It fits with the best of creation made by God.

Be the best you can. There are lots of people needing what we have to share during this pandemic, and it’s not the virus!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – April 27

Monday, April 27, 2020

God’s Light Reflects

Into Every nook and cranny of creation (and our lives.)

Genesis 3:8

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Romans 8:15

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’

Words of Grace For Today

Fear and anxiety are our greatest enemies, the factors in our lives that most thoroughly bring us to our destruction, to do inane things, and to fight for the worst causes.

Anxiety not only destroys the person it controls, devouring our souls from the inside out, it’s effects destroy people around the anxious one. Anxiety breeds anxiety. It is more contagious than the fastest spreading virus.

Anxiety does not require anything in reality to be compromised or threatened, but it’s effects compromise and threaten all reality.

Adam and Eve walk in the Garden of Eden. God created Paradise for them, and gave them freedom to choose to obey, to not touch the tree in the centre of the garden and live full of joy from base to peak, or to disobey and be exiled out of the garden to face death in the dark valleys of despair.

Ah, arch-typically, Adam and Eve succumb to curiosity and the desire to know more than God and to be ‘gods’ themselves. As we all would, and do, again and again in our lives.

After we have turned from God, then fear sets in. That’s real and appropriate. The huge problem arises when they/we try to deny we’ve done against God. That’s when anxiety sets in and controls us. We begin to believe that if we lie even more and more, somehow God will not notice. If we can fool ourselves into believing we have not turned away from obeying God, and somehow if we believe it then it becomes true and God will be fooled as well. Not at all.

God has mercy.

God’s mercy is ours to claim, imbibe, and live out of. OR we can choose to ignore all God does for us, redeeming us, claiming us as God’s own children. We can continue in our anxiousness to choose to fool ourselves. Doch God is not fooled and

God still has mercy.

God redeems us at a great cost, to frees us from slavery to sin.

Yet we can still anxiously choose to live in that slavery, to try to fool ourselves and hope to fool God, though we know there is no fooling God, not ever.

So we cry Abba, save us. This cry is ours constantly to cry out with all desperation. For we need God’s mercy and protection, or we end up living anxiously as if we were separated from God.

God is merciful, God is trustworthy. God claims us and never lets go. God is with us

even now, in our anxiety wrapped in Covid 19.

Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Apr 24

Friday, April 24, 2020

Demonstrates Glory by Healing our Souls.

Jeremiah 14:21

Do not spurn us, for your name’s sake; do not dishonour your glorious throne; remember and do not break your covenant with us.

1 Corinthians 1:9

God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Words of Grace For Today

Jeremiah pleads with God not to break the covenant God made with their ancestor, Abraham. God alone made the covenant. It was not a bi-lateral agreement. It was not tit-for-tat. It was not a contract with the members agreeing on the exchange of things of value.

God made the covenant, simply because God choose to make the covenant. Thereafter, God returns numerous times to restate the promises. In addition to Abraham and his family and descendants being made, by God’s act alone, into the people of God, God makes promises: God will give the wandering Arameans land flowing with milk and honey. God will give Abraham and Sarah descendants as numerous as the stars.

God makes good on God’s promises. God makes good on more than that.

God comes in the human life of Jesus of Nazareth, God’s own son on earth, to live, heal, teach, suffer, and die … to pay for what you and I and all our ancestors and their descendants (i.e. all people) have done against God and the goodness of creation.

The story continues. Death does not win out, because God raises Jesus back to life.

God does this not because we deserve it, but because God so chooses.

God also chooses you and me to join in the fellowship of Jesus, the body of Christ on earth.

We may turn from God.

We may suffer as a result of sins.

We may face challenges we may not know we can even survive, like Covid 19.

God remains trustworthy. God remains a Rock for us to rely on. God remains with us!

This is the ongoing story of God. God remains with us, even when we no longer deserve the great blessings God has given us.

All good is to God’s glory. God’s glory is not our brokenness, doch God’s will to heal us.

May we be healed of all the ills that we face because of isolation, because of loss of loved ones, because of the illness we face, which may indeed bring us to death’s door.

On this and the far side of that door, God stands with us. God is worthy of our trust.

Covid 19: Music Heals the Soul and Body

Covid 19 Advice?

In devotions and sermons plenty of advice is dispensed, as proclamation of the Gospel: that we are equipped to be God-made saints (though simultaneously remaining sinners), so why not do what is good and right, and healthy; and if not now, When!

Today I offer a simple observation about Covid 19 that certainly is advice:

Get good music, and listen to it often.

…

There are of course hammers and blows, rage and chaos, yelling and ranting, or all sorts of dystopia expressions that are viewed as music.

If that is what turns your crank, don’t let me separate you from what keeps you going.

This is not the time, though, to sink obliviously into dystopia. This is time to find a connection to the music of the spheres.

One of the forefronts of physics today is String Theory, which is, in a superbly simplistic peak into it: the universe is made up of teeny strings that vibrate, like strings on a guitar, at different frequencies etc. to make up the differences of energy-matter-time of which the universe is composed.

So, the ancient idea of the music of the spheres re-emerges. And a basic truth of the human psyche-body comes into play: music touches the soul, and if it is music that reflects the marvels of creation, it can heal mind and body.

Dystopia music, music of rage and rant, and music of chaos, on the other hand, actually works against the healing of both body and mind.

What does this mean for us during the quarantine experience of Covid 19? (Okay, I got it: only in the Quarante province of France is it quarantine, for the rest of us it’s sparkling isolation, but the name is not that important, is it? Yes, even the music of words make a small difference in our health!)

This all means that one part, and it can be a large part, of our staying healthy, is to create, or at least listen to, music that heals.

I played Euphonium in college with a professional level band at Concordia College, Moorhead MN. Thanks to Russel Pesola! and all the music classes I took I learned to appreciate the intricacies of brass music.

So these moved my heart and soul once again. They are about bringing health, to the players and to the audiences:

Precisely during Covid 19, a piece for us all:

A Hope for the Future at

and

Cancer Blows 2015 at

Which Ryan Anthony, professional soloist and former member of the beloved Canadian Brass, organized, first as a lark when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2012. Then it solidified into a series of concerts and a foundation, The Ryan Anthony Foundation.

And yes, he is the soloist that closes out A Hope for the Future from his isolation bed in hospital.

The Light of Hope for the Future is There! Play it!