Thursday, March 24, 2022
Fishing for Food,
Fishing for Souls,
Fishing with Generations To Come
Psalm 143:5
I remember the days of old, I think about all your deeds, I meditate on the works of your hands.
Luke 1:54-55
He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.
Words of Grace For Today
Wisely said often is that if we do not learn from history, we will repeat its mistakes.
More wisely said is that whether we learn from history or not, we will repeat its mistakes.
Huh! …
Honesty!
Clarity!
And hotly avoided or outright denied by so many, for it sets us up to know ourselves as fools and hopelessly forging ahead into the abyss that we ourselves create for others (and we get caught in the abyss, often before anyone else!)
How does remembering the past help with the future?
The first quote assumes that if we learn of the past, and learn from other’s mistakes in the past, even our own mistakes in the past, we can then avoid making those same mistakes.
This would make the world a wonderful place, since after so many generations the mistakes we humans make are never new or unique. They’ve been made so many, so many times in the past, often by even ourselves!
The second quote belies the flaw in human freewill: that given freewill by God so that we can freely choose to love, we do choose love, sometimes. But we are able, and so much more often we do, choose to hate instead. Sometimes we do this stupidly without noticing what we are doing. Most often we make the choice to hate and we deceive ourselves (with the help of the Great Deceiver) that we really are not choosing to hate, or only a little bit, so that our actions will not really cost us (too much) and they will cost others only what they deserve to pay for their sins against us or against others. The worst repeated piece from our histories is that even when we know and acknowledge that we are choosing to hate and that it will cost us and others tremendously, we forge ahead, full of hate and determination to take our revenge on others (which is really to take our revenge out on ourselves!)
Why bother with history then?
Why bother knowing of things of old, of anything at all, besides how to get ahead, in this time and place, whatever the cost?!
Remember …
Remember how God acted with our ancestors from of old, how God responded to their repeated choices to turn from love and choose to hate (and all the destruction that comes with hate.) God did not desert our ancestors of old, nor of recent time. Nor does God desert us to our choices to hate.
God acts.
God acts decisively.
God acts powerfully … with Grace, unconditional love, and freely giving us renewed life and purpose to hope for a future of peace, contentment, and thankful joy.
Looking out across the ice covered lake, the generator from the oil processing plant only a half mile away, drowning out all other sounds with its old and poor provisions for electric generation, it is not hard to be aware of the oil industries’ hugely destructive impact on this once ‘pristine’ land and waterways through the marshes and muskeg that so cleanse water to serve all life so well. That’s the fracking results that have forced all living here to haul water for the wells are contaminated and unpredictably flow with raw natural gas, even very deadly sour gas. In the land of some of the greatest fresh water on earth, we have poisoned huge tracts of it, and simply do not know how far our ‘poisoning the water’ has or will spread!
Taking a set of binoculars in hand one can then see the fishers minding their lines that sit below the ice to harvest food for their families. If you are so fortunate when those binoculars are to your eyes, you will also see a man, obviously old from his stilted and pained gait, obviously so content from his gentle movements with his young grandchildren, each with a hole, a line, and a hope that they will catch a fish. Looking closely you will see the love and care of the grandfather fisher, imparting knowledge of fishing to the youngest generation, as he kneels beside each one in turn, demonstrating and then encouraging, and proudly patting each on the back before moving on.
Looking at our past can be like the wide view of the oil industries’ destruction of precious resources, showing clearly the destruction of humans’ efforts to control their own lives through might and hate and revenge and greed and ….
OR
Looking at the past through the eyes of Christ we can see the wondrous, loving view of the saints handing on the Grace of God, the mission to share Grace with others, and the love, faith, and hope that makes life in all its minutiae so precious, and so hope-filled.
On our own we will inevitably repeat the mistakes of the past again and again.
With God’s Grace and Spirit healing and guiding us we can look to the past and say with the Psalmist: I remember the days of old, I think about all your deeds, I meditate on the works of your hands.
And we can thankfully share all we are and have so that the youngest generation will know God’s Grace from our lives … and first hand, as we demonstrate, encourage and proudly pat them on the back before moving on … with thankful and joyful contentment, come what may.