Selfish and destructive strivings, yearnings, and desires.
The world is going to ‘hell in a hand basket’ quickly enough. Why do we have to help it along it’s way so effectively?
How are we to deal with all this?
We need to understand the root causes and work to end or at least mitigate them!
We need to work to mitigate the ‘downstream’ effects on so many lives as much as we can.
We need to get our own ‘houses’ in order, our own hearts, minds, and souls in order, except that is impossible without God cleaning, organizing, and renewing us from the inside out.
This God does through Jesus, the Christ, moving us from thinking we can earn our way forward, to relying wholly on God’s grace each day anew. God heals our weary, embattled souls.
For this we give God thanks, as we gather, knowing God is present with us always, also where we gather. God listens, so we beg and pray for help and healing and resolution and mitigations, and freedom from destruction from without and from within.
Because God not only promises us exactly that healing, but also pours it over us prodigiously each day, we return God thanks in our songs of joy.
The world may be going to hell in a hand basket quickly enough. We do our part to impede this progress as we are able and we trust God that Evil and Hell will not triumph in the end; not in our lifetimes, and not in the time of humans in the universe.
On with the day’s work that promises to be enough or more for the precious time given to us.
Can a woman forget her nursing-child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
Hebrews 13:6
So we can say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?’
Words of Grace For Today
Will we be remembered, as we go through life, will anyone remember us when disaster strikes?! When we die, will anyone bother to remember us? When so many lies are repeated and spread like wildfire about us, creating a made-up monster that has our name, and otherwise has nothing to do with reality and our part in it, will anyone bother to remember who we really are?
When the worst comes at us, we can say with confidence that
‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?’
The day before us will have challenges, but we will not be forgotten for who we really are, for God does not forget anything. God knows us, gathers us in, forgives, renews, blesses, and sends us out to share God’s grace and blessings with all people.
God remembers us. Today is a good day to be remembered! (and forgiven.)
The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
Mark 8:6
Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd.
Words of Grace For Today
The prisoners, the blind, those bowed down, the righteous, the strangers (you know the ones who are different than us, by colour, posture, or due to neurodiversity), the orphan, the widow… all these get special mention as those that God favours and blesses, exactly because the world generally denigrates, casts out, and ignores them as real people.
The more complete view is Jesus. It always is. This here today is Jesus teaching and healing the huge crowd gathered out away from any village or city. It’s been a long day. The disciples are hungry. And they, like many are afraid. They have enough for themselves, but they do not have enough to feed this huge crowd. Jesus is not afraid. He sits the crowd down, takes what the disciples have to eat and shares it with the crowd. And…
Yesterday, a regular summer ‘visitor’ showed up again, this time riding on a noisy quad, accompanied by an even noisier side by side with two older people in it. The man, slender and unpredictable, has arrived each summer to claim ownership of a camper left by a man who has disappeared. He and his buddies, one and sometimes two, rifled through the camp, took out a great metal tripod to hang a cook pot over an open fire, and who knows what all else. It was set up in a camp nearby for a month or so and then it all disappeared. Each summer he’s said he’d move ‘his’ motor van camper out in a few weeks.
The camper still sits there.
This time he arrived and claimed to own this piece of land that I am renting. His way of denying that I am renting the land. Well it’s an agreement between the actual owner and myself. He and others can deny it to be true, but that does not change the truth. His claiming to be the owner, for two weeks, sounded ridiculous. And it turned out to be just that. More lies claiming ownership of what is not his.
He also claimed ownership of the 45 foot camper bus that showed up months ago, parked behind the abandoned camper van.
He also told me to take down a barrier that keeps quads, side by sides, snowmobiles and vehicles of all kinds from running into the edge of the meadow. He had arrived on a road that has a barb wire gate across it. They had taken it down to get through and left it in the woods when they left. They also took a piece of firewood used to hold up the bottom wire.
Unpredictable. Liar. Thief.
People like this are as they appear, and as dangerous as they can be, they are not as dangerous and destructive as people who behave civilized and appear somewhat intelligent. They do not make claims to own what is not theirs. They work greater evil to take what they want so that it is legally theirs. They do not lie about what can easily be proven to be false. They lie with unprovable lies that destroy lives. They exercise power with wealth, political sway, and smooth talk, and they exercise it for their own benefit, damned be who it hurts, takes life from, or destroys.
These are the people and their ways that the Psalmist gives quick shrift: the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
Except, the way of the wicked seems to continue, to prevail, and to destroy generation after generation. It is the hope that this would end, but (naive me for thinking I would be exempt from suffering at the wrong end of this wickedness!) it goes on and on, so commonly that most people hardly blink when they hear it is their own backyard. It’s as if they say, ah dahh! Why do you think we bow to the evil ones, and keep our heads down so as not to attract attention, and why do you think we do not listen to those the evil ones destroy?
Jesus says no such thing. In the crowd are certainly evil ones, like the unpredictable summer visitor liar thief, like the civilized destroyers, like the selfish power people, and like the ones who duck (which is it’s own kind of evil.) Jesus then takes what is his and the disciples for their meal, breaks it and blesses it and shares it with all. It’s a few baskets filled with bread and fish.
This miracle is it is enough to feed a crowd of over 5000. Some say that Jesus had the bread multiply in the baskets against all the laws of physics. Not impossible. That would indeed be a miracle. The greater miracle is what likely happened: as the crowd saw that food was shared for all, they pulled out their meagre portions, took what they needed from them and from the baskets passed along, and added back into the baskets what they did not need. Thus all the people ate. The good prisoners, the blind, those bowed down, the righteous, the strangers (you know the ones who are different than us, by colour, posture, or due to neurodiversity), the orphan, the widow as well as all the evil and wicked ones in the crowd receive their fill of nourishment.
The greatest miracle is that Jesus overcomes the people’s fears, and inspires them to generosity with each other.
Now that would be one way to put the wicked ways to rest.
What does God have in store for us this fine summer day, when the temperatures are forecast to rise beyond comfortable levels, but not into the dangerous levels? How can we be the ones to continue Jesus’ miracle of helping people overcome their fears and inspire them to generosity, especially with those the ‘civilized’ people would rather forget because the outcasts suffer because of their ‘civilized’ wicked ways?
Maybe today in a small way we can, by Grace, help even one such doer of wickedness to convert to Jesus’ generosity.
God’s way is perfect; the promise of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all who take refuge in him.
2 Timothy 1:7
God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
Words of Grace For Today
God as shield stands between us and those who would attack, destroy, and bully us.
It matters not who attacks, though they may think they destroy us and kill us, though it may appear so to all who see their unjust attacks, God ensures that we live, and live well.
That is the promise God gives us in our baptisms, that we live with Christ, die with Christ, and rise again with Christ to eternal life.
Injustice will continue to abound, and in their due time, God will judge those who bring injustice upon others. They will forever be doomed, even as they are already. When they swing at us, we duck and their swing goes right around to impact them, even if they do not see it. BaalamBang! So much for doing us in!
Therefore we trust God, who gives us no reason for cowardice, and every reason for a powerful spirit of love, self-discipline, and hope.
It will be well, even this day, it will be well for us as we trust in God’s Promises.
Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me
1 Corinthians 10:13
No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.
Words of Grace For Today
Life is ….
Life is rather cruel, brutish, and short. It is impossible to get out of it alive. Or so they say.
God offers a different perspective … or rather the perspective of reality, the perspective of the creator of the entire universe, the perspective that life is …
well, that life is simply good.
Astounding as that may be, and even astounding just to say it when the bulls and the bullies surround one, jabbing and stabbing from each side, the front, and especially in the back (for bullies are cowards at heart), it is a simple truth.
As we live life expecting it to be good, it can be good, even as we succumb to the bulls and bullies, and find our rest in life after death … noting that we do get out of life alive!
That is not the result of bulls and bullies for the majority of people.
So how does one live day after day, week after weak, year after year, decade after decay under attack from bulls and bullies? One lives well!
Starting with noting that life is not determined entirely by the bulls and bullies. God does limit their effectiveness.
Starting with noting that one has many things to be grateful for. So many scientists from psychologists to cardiologists, to neurologists, joined lately by those specifically studying the chemical benefits of gratitude: increase dopamine, decreased adrenaline, increase endorphins and on goes the list of good chemical effects on ones body and mind. In general gratitude increases activity in the hypothalamus, which controls a huge array of essential bodily functions, including eating, drinking and sleeping. It also has a huge influence on your metabolism and stress levels.
One sleeps better. One wakes better. One responds to challenges better. One lives healthier, longer, with a clearer mind. One enjoys the small joys of life more … and the bulls and bullies effect on one’s life shrink again.
Who woulda thunk that gratitude is the key to defeating bulls and bullies?
Well, just about everyone who is not ‘pressed down and out’ by bulls and bullies. From down there it’s hard to see reality.
For that we have God’s Word, and God’s people to speak it, often and everywhere.
Freedom from Bulls and Bullies, now that’s a gift that keeps on giving, literally.
I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says the Lord; I will kindle a fire in its forest, and it shall devour all that is around it.
Galatians 6:9
So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.
Words of Grace For Today
When it comes to our enemies we jump on the band wagon and toot our horn: go God, get ‘em! Give ‘em what they deserve! We are more than ready to see our enemies (who would do us in) get their just desserts.
We re-write Jeremiah to read: “I will punish them according to the fruit of their doings”, says the Lord; “I will kindle a fire in their forest and it shall devour them and all that is theirs!”
But that is not quite Jeremiah, now is it.
We don’t get to see our enemies burn to the ground.
We don’t get to see God devouring them for the evil they have done.
God’s hope, and ours as well (if we’ve matured enough for it to be so) is that God will finally reach our enemies’ hearts, they will confess, amend their lives and live justly and graciously the rest of their days. We’d like some restitution, but if they amended their lives, we could even forgive them almost everything they’ve done so far, almost everything.
Meanwhile, we hear Paul loud and clear: do “not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up.” Actually we hope we do not reap all that we have sown, for all of us have enough sins in our past to earn eternal damnation (we’ve just not earned it so clearly so many times over as our enemies who seek our death.) We trust that God’s promises to be gracious with us, already since our baptisms, are sure, uncompromisable, and … well life-giving, not only for us, but as a witness to all people how gracious and generous God is with us, so just maybe for many people, even our enemies perhaps?
This day we work again, in spite of being very weary, at doing all that is good and right, so that God’s harvest will be gathered in with great abundance, and all people will have life, living in Christ’ light.
If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
Matthew 28:19-20
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And
Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Words of Grace For Today
Some mornings the joy of life permeates everything (despite all the possibilities of so much shtako colouring the view)!
Everything is wonderful today. The monster has eaten it’s fill of dry wood and produces in return warm dry heat to dry out the wet towels and clothes that need drying every day. Outside the rain falls on and off heavy, pounding the air clear, washing the camp clean. The rain is cool. The air is fresh, refreshing coming in the windows, countering the intense heat available from the monster (the wood stove that eats so much wood in the cold winter weeks). I pull two spoons full from a newly opened can of coffee and the aroma fills the small living space. The water boils briskly on the monster so I need not spend propane for that this morning, a savings when every savings is life. Great creamy Silk half-n-half with coffee coffee in the mug warms my hands, minimizing the arthritic pains, and soothing my throat all the way down! Creamy tart berries wait on my cereal where every spoonful is both smooth and crunchy, sweat-creamy and biting with Vitamin C in the black berries.
It’s a new month. The start of the second half the year, so it’s a new log file, crisp and clean. The calendar pages get turned up and held with tape for the small calendar, and up and over the board for the large calendar.
Since it’s not cold outside freezing the living daylights out of everything, I need no monster heat to survive. It’s like grits, ‘its extra, only 25 cents.’ And that (the gathering of an armful of small wood sticks) I can afford today. Maybe not in four months, but today I’ll burn this resource, upon which my life depends in the winter.
The heavy rain lets up, the sun shines in the windows, the birds start to sing and the stupid squirrels (and 2-legged animals) are silent so far this day. All seems just right.
I’ll take it. It’s rare.
Today, a holiday weekend, I’ll take a break from ‘going to the nations, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey.’ Or maybe I’ll be able to, we will see what this day brings.
These are small celebrations of life, enjoyed fully, before it is taken, shaken, and made nearly impossible by my ex’s lies (added to by so many, even the judges) in court. (What illness, evil, and cruelty bring people to lie so profusely and then defend the lies as if they had become truth? Some say it is the necessity of relieving conflict by scapegoating innocent people. Some say it is as good as it gets. Some say the lies do become truth. Most people bury their heads in the sand, unwilling to realize that this kind of lying in court is what brings violence to the doors of governments and courts and individuals. When you live by the lie, unfortunately you will die by the lie as well. If you are to uphold justice and you dispense injustice based on lies, allowing that barbarism to play a part in so many people’s lives – those that benefit and those destroyed by your lies – really a barbarism in themselves – then it should be no surprise that those who are violent will rise up and cut out of society those liars and injustice-dispensers. Once barbarism is in play, it will dominate, as easily and surely as Omicron.)
But let’s set that aside for a few more days, and not let the evil of it ruin these days. It will have it’s deadly effect soon enough.
Now and always, I rest in the peace of knowing that Jesus is with me always, to the end of the age
This morning I’ll take the wings of the morning and sing with the Psalmist:
If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
You, who have made me see many troubles and calamities, will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again.
John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
Words of Grace For Today
For generations people have gathered at the smaller lakes surrounding the larger Cold Lake. Cold Lake’s 210 square miles of water surface stretches for 21 km and it’s 142 meters depth keep it cold even in the hot short summers. While it has a great variety of fish, it’s catch and release today. Back as long as memory serves (some days that’s just hours) people of the area have gravitated to the many smaller lakes that dot the bush around Cold Lake. They warm up in the summer making swimming a real possibility (sort of) and freeze over sooner in the winter making ice fishing possible much earlier. Their smaller size also means that storms year around and the cold winds of winter are less drastic. Sometimes that’s a real factor when out fishing. And it makes for a better camping experience when camping, which usually means June through August, and maybe also September and May, for most people. Only the hardiest camp earlier in March and April and later in October and November. Only the real desperate homeless or the most die-hard campers stay at all in or through the winter.
The problem with the campers through the generations is that, while camping in a number of areas is by reservation and with payment only, there are plenty of ‘free’ places to camp, some even legally. That ‘free’ cost has meant that a number of people, incapable of caring for the land or water or other people have gravitated to these ‘free’ sites. During Covid restrictions they were abused as places to gather huge numbers of people to party, drink, eat, and drug up with no measures for anyone’s safety. Long before Covid the ‘bush party’ attitude descended on a number of these sites as well. Annual ‘Grad Parties’, organized by parents and grandparents descend on these sites, bringing hundreds of young people to drink, drug, and music their sanity into oblivion, as if that were the best life had to offer them. While a 14 day limit exists, there are many who claim the ‘right’ to camp for months on end. Among the many who have shown up and still do camp more discreetly are known drug dealers. The traffic in to their campsites to share a drink and buy supplies is constant. Now it’s into the third and fourth generations of people who show up, demanding that they have a heritage right to party away, without any limit, their brains, bodies and souls. To hell with the land, the trees, the animals, the water, or other people. Their claim extends to the surrounding privately owned land as well. They bring the loudest ‘toys’ to rip up the ground, traverse the private lands, belching noise and fumes as much as possible, exercising their ‘rights’ and demonstrating the value of their lives.
The land, the water, the animals, the trees, the sane people ask: where is peace to be found? Those with enough money find a quieter lake, buy property, and secure their piece of paradise with their money and ability to pay taxes, build cabins, and fence out intruders. Those without any money or choice to live elsewhere wonder aloud: how long oh Lord, how long, before peace is possible, not only when the bitter cold keeps the most dangerous of animals away?!
Would it not be nice to know that blatant disregard for life is only present here? It is everywhere. It is obvious here because there are fewer things that provide ‘cover’ for the abuses of life.
Yet, when the abuse subsides for a few hours, a day, or a week, even though nature may storm away, biting bitterly cold or thrashing wildly with ferocious winds, the beauty of God’s creation not visibly overwhelmed by human domination renews one’s spirit.
The unrelenting human need to draw out energy from the ground is all around: with bitumen drilled for, extracted, processed and shipped out. Though in the woods one can ignore it for the most part. Knowing eyes and ears discern the mark oil extraction has made everywhere.
So we pray: “Lord, when will peace come to this land, and to it’s people?”
Even if we are not afraid, how long before the nights are not broken by loud ‘music’ or exhaust pipes untamed? How long before drugs, alcohol, ‘music’, and sex are not constant escapes for so many people who might otherwise have lived productive lives? How long before … before your blessings flow to these people so far lost from life as you created us to live it?
How long, Lord, before, You, who have made me see many troubles and calamities, revive me again?
How long before your peace is apparent each day?
Or is it enough that it is only occasionally to be found here?
You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.
James 5:11
Indeed we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.
Words of Grace For Today
Job showed great endurance, suffering greater losses and illness and pain than most of us care to imagine. Endurance is a gift from God, as it is fueled by faith, as Job’s demonstrated.
What are we to do when the earth and it’s fragile systems cannot endure the onslaught we have brought against her?
In Canada the law has sought to protect bodies of water and the fragile ecosystems on their shores by proscribing camping within 30 meters of a body of water and driving through any waterway.
Here the area used by many campers each summer is a random camping area, which used to be a municipal campground decades ago before it was handed back over to the province to ‘care for’ as Crown Land. Signs ask that people respect the land, not cut down trees for firewood (logs already on the ground can be used for firewood), stay no longer than 14 days, and take out with them everything they bring in.
Still many leave garbage, unbelievable garbage behind, stay months on end (it’s supposedly their right!) and they hack down living trees and worse scar trees so that in a few years they will die, and generally show great disrespect for the land, tearing it up with motorized deep tread tires among many other things. What no sign says is that camping is prohibited within 30 metres of the shoreline, and scores of campers dig up the sand to park within 10 meters of the shore everything from subcompact cars with tents to 50 foot 5th wheel campers.
This first long weekend, the start of the camping season for many, is certainly no exception. Only noteworthy is that there are ‘only’ ten vehicles parked within 20 meters of the shore, and only two larger camper units within 10 metres. That will change, for the worse … or for the better … as the summer progresses?
One can only hope.
And trust that as the Lord is compassionate and merciful so too will the enforcement officers first be clear with what is legal and what is not, and then be compassionate and merciful, but not afraid to ban people who cannot seem to learn to camp responsibly and respectfully.
Now excessive noise from partying and quads or side-by-sides that do not have sufficient mufflers are another problem, as is the public drinking, that is the drinking of alcoholic beverages anywhere other than in one’s own camping area, which begins to beg the question if there are ten units parked around one campfire, is all that drinking still at each person’s campsite? Stretch it far enough and anyone can drink anywhere in the whole random camping area. Or rather, that is how far it is stretched and tolerated by any enforcement persons I’ve ever witnessed out here. Some of the partiers are off-duty enforcement officers.
So we will endure, for the damage is not to us, but to the land … as long as God keeps the craziness of these ‘illegal’ campers at a great distance from us. After all, compassionate and merciful as God calls us also to be does not mean that we need to be ignorant, naive, or stupid about other’s stupidities, does it?
We pray the earth will endure, for generations and generations to come, so that they can enjoy the beauty of such a camping area.
This day will be marvellous, a wonder to behold, in spite of the disrespect so plentiful here.
One Would Hope Enough Brains to Figure Out Something Better for the Environment,
Like Haul It Out (As The Law Requires)
1 Samuel 3:19
As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.
Luke 10:16
‘Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.’
Words of Grace For Today
Letting one’s words fall to the ground.
That’s a great image of losing one’s voice, of not being heard, of not being enough that one’s voice reaches any ear and merely peters out like a plane out of fuel and they bite the dust.
But
To have God ensure that one’s words do not fall to the ground! Now that is something blessed.
We really don’t know what we’ve got until we lose it. And then when we lose our voice, and people shun us (though we’ve done nothing to deserve it, it’s all lies and deception made up to cover other’s sins), and we are cast out, unable to work, or earn a living, and we become dependent at best and desperate at least, and dead at worst.
So after one has been made to be nothing by other people’s cruelties that seem to have no end, when God comes along and promises to ‘not let your words fall to the ground’, it is to be raised from the dead and to be brought home again.
So it is.
Whoever listens, listens. And whoever rejects a person, rejects the one who gives life to that person.
May we learn to listen more carefully, kindly, with empathy to those ‘cast out’ by the world’s ways.
That’s what those two good ears God gave us are for, after all! Holding glasses in place and hanging ear rings from them may be good and even beautiful, but listening …
