Lake – Page 3

Feared Creator? Beloved Saviour!

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

The Fog Melds With the Clouds,

Bringing Heaven to Earth

for Precious Moments

Isaiah 12:4

Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted.

Revelation 14:6-7

Then I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation and tribe and language and people. He said in a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.’

Words of Grace For Today

It’s one of those nearly perfect mornings. After weeks of too much heat, it’s cooled off, and then this night brings quiet rains, fog lifting after sunrise, drips of the past rain everywhere off the camp and then leaves, and a quiet-stillness broken only by a few birds singing. A small sparrow hunts in the meadow grass, a robin listens and hops and listens and pecks out a worm and flies away to share the morning food.

A morning survey places in wait the pieces of a project that will be a huge step forward in security blocking possible CO out and capturing heat to warm the water hose so that water can run during the coldest days. A fire resistant, air tight membrane will arrive to move everything to the next steps. With tape measure in hand the next posts for a new wind-snow shield for preparing fire wood are measured out from the wood available. Plans move forward a step for work for today. Mouse traps are gathered readied to be baited and set out to ensure the mice of the meadow stay in the meadow and out of the camp.

Water is set to boil for coffee and washing, not in the camper where I will write and work today, which will help keep it cool through the day. The sun is already intense. The thermometer in the sun registers 24⁰ even though it’s a good 10⁰ cooler in the shade.

The wine (grape juice, since I cannot afford wine) and bread (crackers, since I can afford those, sort of) are set ready and the day begins:

With thanks for all that keeps me alive, the daily bread and the wonders of this place, and the amazing works of God walk with me each day.

With a petition for a young man suffering so much pain from small accumulative injuries from skate boarding that he can barely move.

With a petition for all the men who are abused, that God would make his presence obvious to them with kindness and love, giving them courage and protection, and a view to reality beyond their abusers.

With a petition of thanks that I am alive in spite of so many people’s unwarranted efforts to kill me.

The Eucharist celebrated, in Luther’s language, and the morning meal that sustains my body: creamy, smooth, sweet and bitter, cool and hot; all signs of the breadth of life that God intends for us each.

This is a morning to stand in awe at God’s wondrous works, evident in nature, in the wilderness, and in God’s sustaining life on planet earth despite our sustained attacks on it. We excuse ourselves saying it is progress, it is profit, it is energy, it is growth, it is a global economy. Still the attack is relentless and the planet becomes more angry, more wild, more extreme even beyond our own abilities to survive it’s wrath.

Are we to fear God?

Definitely, or we are patent fools!

In other words we would be airheads, birdbrains, blockheads, or dodos, dolts, donkeys, dopes, dorks, dumbbells, dummies, dunces, fatheads, ganders, goons, idiots, ignorami, imbeciles, know-nothings, knuckleheads, morons, numbskulls, pinheads, schlubs, schlumps, schnooks, stocks, featherbrains, scatterbrains, butts, dupes, laughingstocks, mockeries, monkeys, chumps, losers, schlemiels, crackbrains, crackpots, cranks, kooks, oddballs, screwballs, weirdos …

That should give at least an idea of who we would be.

If we only fear God, then we would be patent fools and … (same list.)

For God did not create all the wonders of the universe to create us who would fear our creator. God created the universe and holds it’s rhythm and rhyme together with divine love, so that we creatures could also participate in planting, growing, and producing love in every corner of this small planet earth.

To this end God created and gave to us such mornings as this!

To this end God created and gave to us such mornings as this, that in loving creation and creatures we might at least momentarily be the progenitors of wisdom, a counterpoint to our usual foolishness. As we fear and love God, God gifts us with the ability to be seers, mentors, and teachers who spread God’s steadfast love in kindness, listening, and healing.

From all these good works of God in us springs up in and among us the one thing that gives us breath: faith, hope and love.

[I know we usually count those three things, though here they constitute one. It’s math like Luther’s and the Trinity.]

What happened to your morning and the wonders that hold the universe together? Did you see God again? Right there … to be feared and loved?

Taste and See … Yuck!

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

That’s Real, Up Close and Real, Down Low and Real;

Not-People Up-Close Are Everything But Real

Psalm 34:8

O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.

Acts 12:7

Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, ‘Get up quickly.’ And the chains fell off his wrists.

Words of Grace For Today

O taste and see that the Lord is good!

Yes!

But in life for us there is so much that does not taste good, or right, or real.

Since I cannot eat meat anymore as my body deteriorates with age and needs special attention to continue on, at the food bank they keep giving me ‘interesting’ food. Most of it is harmless if useless when it comes to nutrition. I’ve long since given up on food needing to taste even good. I just watch for nourishing and helpful for a few more years, so anything in the Mediterranean diet always sounds good.

Last time I has handed a pack of frozen burgers, ‘no meat so they’ll be good for you.’ I couldn’t say no.

I fried them up the other day. They don’t really have any protein in them, just wheat and palm oil and spices and oils and things I can’t pronounce or remember. And they taste like … well I can’t afford to throw out food, but I stopped eating that meal before I was half-full. Couldn’t swallow any more of those not-burgers. It’s never happened to me before: I started to gag on each bite.

As at the times in my life when I’ve cooked for myself I eat lots of tofu, lots of beans, peas, vegetables, fruits. I like fish, though I’m not partial to other kinds of seafood that are, shall we say, slimy or gooey. I particularly like refried beans. I don’t need to eat vegetarian but I like it.

What I can’t stand is when food tries to be something it is not. Not-burgers are like not-people; you wish you’d never seen them. I don’t mean any disrespect, but there are people, too, who try to be something they are not. Along the way they forget truth and honesty, justice and mercy, love and hope. Instead they try to make up for losing these with fake charms, broken promises, and chemically induced happiness. They just are not authentic at all any more. Everything they say and do is based on lies. And you can smell trouble coming behind them.

I’ve met drug dealers, murderers, and thieves, all who have said up front exactly who they were and what they did. Can’t say I liked what they did, but they were not trying to manipulate or con or dishonour everyone in their wake. Not-people leave nearly everyone in their wake wondering what happened and who did it to them. When you figure out who’s been conning everyone it’s usually too late and most people do not want to admit they’ve been played, so there’s little help fixing anything, if anything could be made right.

Not-burgers are like that. They promise the world and then they taste terrible going down, they mess with your system going through, and they pass with a vengeance as if they had something to prove to the world.

The most destructive kind of not-people are those that cloak themselves in religion. They promise and pretend to be oh, so good, when really they are oh, so unbelievably evil.

…

We need angels to come and knock the chains off our wrists, minds, and hearts so that we can, all of us, taste and see the goodness of God’s truth for all creation. We need not try to be what we are not, or try to force others to what they are not or lie about others so that the world thinks they are other than they are.

Hey Grandpa and Grandma, Mom and Dad, Thanks!

Monday, July 11, 2022

As Far As The Horizons Stretch and Beyond:

There’s Lots of History, Everywhere, for Everyone,

Can You Be Thankful For Yours?

Jeremiah 16:19

O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge on the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: Our ancestors have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit.

2 Corinthians 4:8

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

Words of Grace For Today

As I started to contemplate that nations will come and say that their ancestors had left nothing but lies to inherit,

a big, old, fat fly started to disrupt my view. Caught my attention it did. Distracted me, until it was dispatched.

Flies are not good to have around food, eating spaces, sleeping spaces or any living space for that matter.

I suppose I ‘inherited’ plenty of flies and wasps from someone. I’m sure it was not my ancestors, though Grandpa Sam and Grandma Dorothy did have an outhouse above the lake cottage on Lake Wabedo, back when it was an isolated lake. After each used we’d scatter a cupful of ashes down the hole to deal with smell and flies. Still there were always a bit more of both than I cared for. I also remember once in my University days arriving and finding the parking spot I chose was free because everyone else arriving earlier knew there was a wasp nest on that corner of the garage. Flies and wasps: I’m sure that since Lake Wabedo is more than 12 hours by car away, and that was about 3 or 4 decades ago, those flies and wasps have no direct lineage or causation effect on the fact there are flies and wasps here.

My ancestors, that I know of, where respectable people. (Thank you Goldie, Dorothy, Sam, Dort, Dennis.) I have not discovered any lies, foundational or formational or simply for the lark of it that are part of the family heritage. I count my blessings. I have a hard time imagining how devastating it must be to grow up knowing or to discover later that one’s ancestors passed down a pack of lies and not much else. I have seen the parents and grandparents who are such people, but the children were unawares or unapologetic, as they began a life of lies themselves, without regret or awareness of their great loss in doing so.

I have noticed friends of our offspring being very appreciative of us parents, since by comparison I guess we measure up as pretty decent, or the only parents of their circle of friends who are kind, gracious, welcoming and generous. I feel for the adult children who have parents whom they would rather forget, for remembering is costly.

We certainly can say with Paul: We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair. It’s not like life has left us unscathed, unscarred or un-‘rewarded’ for the good we’ve done. Life has at times knocked the living daylights out of us, for sure.

We are afflicted, perplexed, not crushed, not driven to despair. And we remain grateful for all God’s blessings, even if I am homeless, living off the grid in the wilderness. People hear that and say they always wanted to do that- it must be fun. – No, it’s just hard, and then harder, and quite dangerous pretty much every day. Weather getting more severe is a greater portion of that danger, though the greatest danger still remains the two legged wild animals that are fuelled by unnatural things, like drugs and revenge (for nothing I’ve done) and jealousy (that I can survive in the wild.) The wonders I experience do not make it safer, but they do make it blessed.

In fact, by celebrating the Eucharist each morning, my time is blessed, and this space, this piece of wilderness, is consecrated and made holy. I get to live in a sacred place. Nothing beats that!

In the face of each life-threatening adversity and challenge that I face I am shown again and again that God is my refuge from trouble and my strength and stronghold in the face of every adversity and challenge.

Nothing beats that.

So another day starts, and though it will have it’s dangers in quantities most people would run from, I know that in this sacred place and wherever I go all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well … so onward with the work to meet the needs and best preparations for safety in the coming months.

How is your past and present measuring up?

Crying Out “Let the thirsty, come!”

Saturday, July 9, 2022

Take the Steps to the Water,

the Reflection of God’s Glory Awaits.

Isaiah 48:21

They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split open the rock and the water gushed out.

John 7:37-38

On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.

Words of Grace For Today

While climate change has brought us to experience first-, second-, and internet-hand drought like never before, and likewise floods, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, drechos, and disasters like glaciers and mountains collapsing on pristine areas, towns, and people, Jesus still stands up in the busy festivals and market places and cries out to us:

Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Come all you who are thirsty, come drink your fill.

Right, that was not Jesus, that was Isaiah 55.1.

The theme of thirst and of God providing water is often repeated in scriptures, as well it may be since water is essential for life and it is a symbol of God’s providing for us in all ways (not just physical water) when we are in need.

Isaiah 48 recounts how God provided water for the people during the Exodus, their fleeing from slavery in Egypt into the wilderness. Rocks usually do not provide water, but with God all things are possible.

So, how do you thirst this day?

For Justice?

For Truth?

For water or hunger for food?

For a faith strong enough to see past this day’s challenges and pitfalls to the blessings God pours over you?

However we thirst, God provides what we need.

Just Desserts!

Friday, July 8, 2022

The Platinum Halo Awaits … But For Whom?

Jeremiah 21:14

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.

Just Right

Saturday, July 2, 2022

Fresh, Clean, Wet Morning

Psalm 139:9-10

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.

Choose?

Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Entering Our Golden Years,

We May Find That

The Golden Hue is Actually

Orange Rust,

and We Are All

Rusted Out,

Done In,

Kaputt,

Until The Spirit

Renews Us

For Another Day

of Service.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

John 17:3

[Referring to himself in the third person, Jesus prays:] Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Words of Grace For Today

Sophie was old and tired, worn right out, leaking where leaking definitely should not happen. Through the years so many different people had taken her out to the most remote places, far away places, beautiful places in the wonderful creation of God, and used her and abused her, and then dragged her back home and left her and ignored her until the next time they wanted to drag her out again. Then she would be sold to others who would do the same to her, over and over. She could barely stand up right anymore. It’s as if someone had taken her spring right out of her step, if she had had a step left at all. While she had been all cut up to fit someone’s fantasy, it had not worked too well. Most of all that pesty leak grew into a big leak, and a second started, and her pretty skin started to turn black, oozing with stink.

Gillis was smaller than Sophie, but his history was pretty much the same, though more extreme. He’d been jacked all around, dragged through all kinds of mud, out into the boonies far from civilization, and there used and abused, smeared with mud, gunk, and all kinds of unspeakables. Lucky for Gillis, though he too was worn right out and had started to leak where leaks should not happen, his did not progress to the stinking, oozing stage that Sophie’s had.

Both Gillis and Sophie came to the hermitage in the meadow, bought to give them their freedom, to be fixed up well for their last years. In the peaceful surroundings, with much time, soothing talk, hard work using the tools of a counsellor and healer-fixer-whatnot, at least Gillis became something. First his leak was dealt with, cured and healed with barely a scar left. Then he was treated and cured and fixed up from the inside out, given a new look, if not new, at least respectable. Even his water works were fixed and started to flow as they should.

Sophie sat, waiting her turn, her leaks bandaged up for the time being, the black oozing stopped so that more damage would not take her down. Some of her parts that she could not use were transplanted into Gillis to give him new life. When her time came, she would get brand new organs, parts and pieces until she, too, could go out, if not new, then respectably providing for at least a few people.

Moses puts before the people, after reminding them of the wondrous works of God to bring them to where they are, alive and free, ready to enter the Promised Land, that they have a choice: to serve God who has provided for them and their ancestors following God’s Law provided to them, or to turn to other gods, and other ways of living, cursed ways. They get to choose: blessings or curses.

We, too, even today, are free to choose to either serve God and enjoy blessings unending or to turn to other gods and to serve the Devil in all his many guises, bringing curses down upon us and ours.

We have free choice.

Jesus comes to save us from our choices to turn from God, to renew for us the possiblities to choose God, and to follow God’s Law, updated as it needed to be, from the many hundreds of thousand of words to a concise comprehensible ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself, loving especially your enemy.’ Of course this Law, Jesus’ law taking into it all the Law of Moses and all the commentaries and guides provided to it, is just as impossible for us to keep.

We with free choice, can only ‘choose’ to serve God and keep God’s Law, when the Holy Spirit brings us to so choose and live. A bit of a paradox: free but not able to be free. Martin Luther held it to be single predestination: We can fully choose to turn from God, but only God can and does save us.

This is life, and we have, by the blessing poured over us by the Holy Spirit and the gift of renewed free choice, the ability to choose to ‘try’ to serve God.

Sophie and Gillis, part of God’s good creation and having brought great joy to so many people, now entering their last years of useful life, have no such choice. They are, as one might suspect, merely recreational vehicles, camper trailers, small campers 14’ and 12’ respectively, both built in the 70’s and now near 50 years old. People have used and abused them to camp in. Some with some respect for the camper and creation that the camper made them able to visit and overnight in, some not with tremendous abuse of camper and creation.

Let us give God thanks, this day again, for all that God has made us to be, even if we are old and worn and have sprung leaks and, and, and ….

It’s another day in God’s Promised Land, the wonders always before us, the blessings flowing freely over us, the work never ending.

Blind Bullies

Monday, June 27, 2022

Here, in the Hermitage Meadow, the Sun Goes Down

And No One Is Falsely Accused, Not People, Not God,

but it is not so beyond this small refuge.

Ezekiel 33:17

Your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just’, when it is their own way that is not just.

Ephesians 5:10

Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord.

Words of Grace For Today

A common illness among humans is to know full well something is wrong, but somehow be unable to identify oneself as the source. Instead we blame others, believing the fault cannot possibly be ourselves. Innocent people are blamed. It may be simple scapegoating. The blamed person never even knows they are blamed. Seems innocent way to deflect responsibility for one’s sins.

Until it is not so simple, for one has been doing this for so long one does not know when one is blaming others for one’s own sins, and when others actually are the wrongdoers, and one carries on, driving people out of town with their reputations ruined, taking people to court, fully perjurying oneself, and sending innocent people to jail. These things just get out of hand.

Lawyers, Prosecutors, Clerks and Judges see this so often and care not one wit, simply carrying, knowing full well innocent people are accused and then convicted, and very not innocent people blatantly lie under oath in court. The courts care not one bit because they, too, add their lies on top of the perjury provided, in order to convict innocent, unfavoured people, and giving guilty, favoured people the privilege of destroying other people, as the courts themselves participate. There must be some kind of reward for the courts, prosecutors, lawyers, rcmp, and the actually guilty people who perjure themselves. It’s the reward all bullies enjoy as they beat up others who certainly do not deserve to be beaten.

It is an easy step to blaming God for one’s own sins, claiming God is unjust, when the guilty and unjust player is oneself.

Against this there is little defence.

There is only the comfort in knowing that saints of all generations have suffered the same kind of injustice, and even Jesus himself was falsely accused and convicted, and killed in a most torturous way, by crucifixion. The comfort comes in knowing that one is not the only person so unjustly dealt with, and that through the generations, God has always accompanied those falsely accused and convicted, and killed.

While we live, we pray, God save us from such injustice, from such blind and sick people.

While we live, we pray, God helps us each day to find what pleases you, and to think, speak, and do as you would have us.

Small Pieces, Profound Peace?

Sunday, June 26, 2022

Great Country,

God’s Country!

Humans Doing Their Best

to Undo It All.

Psalm 71:20

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?

Stinking Dirty

Saturday, June 25, 2022

This is the Servant-Slave’s view

through the weeds,

near the dirt.

Deuteronomy 8:5

Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disciplines you.

John 13:15

For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.

Words of Grace For Today

Jesus hosts the disciples for his last supper, and provides for them as a good servant/slave. He washes their feet, dusty from the day walking with sandals (socks were not yet a thing, nor boots the common footwear, yet, oh, you say it’s shoes, ok. Still back then it was sandals for everyone). At the end of the day one’s feet would be just a tad, shall we say, stinking yucky dirty. So the one who washed feet was not just a small bowl and cloth routine. It meant a lot of stinking, really stinking, dirt and grime. It’s no small job, and it’s not a pleasant one.

Then Jesus continues: I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. So we are to serve others, even doing the most servant/slave kind of service even if it just plain stinks.

We certainly are not to be the one’s who set our discipline over others, lording it over them, thinking that our example can be set before them and either by punishment or carrots of encouragement we can change others to be better.

Our work is to be the one’s who make others stink less by our work. We leave the ‘making others aware of their failures’ to God.

And we understand that God will discipline us to put us back in line. (If we can even find a line to be in, serving others needs.)

A great day: finding our way out of being lord over others and into being servant/slave for others.

Great joy. (May not seem like it, but when you give it a go, you find the servant/slave for Christ is always living a better life than any rich, powerful, or famous master.)

Enjoy, today as well as every other day.