Category: Smoke

Cold Hard Truth

Friday, January 7, 2022

It May Look Soft and Comfy

Easy Light and Curves Shown by Shadows

But It’s Already -41⁰ at 18:00

So It’s Hard Cold

And Was Even as the Sun Set Golden Light All Over the Snow.

God is Exactly the Opposite:

Appearing Hard and Judging All,

God is Actually Gracious and Generous For All.

Deuteronomy 4:39

So acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.

Colossians 1:19-20

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Words of Grace For Today

The all in one package of God

Three in One, yet all One.

Acknowledge God and take it to heart that God is God. Simple

and

yet

So impossible

for us frail, sinful humans.

The real nugget in all that we can say about God is that Jesus is God’s clear statement that God is pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Jesus’ story is not God making a special appeal to special people.

Jesus’ story is God making a very demonstrable appeal to all humans of all time: God wants to reconcile us all to God, no one is left out.

When God is pleased to do something so gracious and generous for all people, all people being so equally undeserving, then this is something truly awesome. It changes everything we thought we might have known about how life works.

We get to respond.

So do we respond by lying about others, framing them for our own sins and failings? Do we hide behind lies told by others, and corrupt practices, and the corruption of people in high places?

OR

Do we start to exercise God’s grace and generosity for ourselves and for all other people?

Resolute

Saturday, January 1, 2022

Resolutely Cold

Cold Cuts

Cold Turkey

Cold Everything

Except God’s Grace,

Which Holds Us Safe In God’s Warm Loving Embrace

Psalm 57:2

I cry to God Most High, to God who fulfils his purpose for me.

John 1:16

From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

Words of Grace For Today

This year I am going to keep my New Year’s Resolution. I’m so tired of always making the same resolution only to fail to keep it sooner than I care to admit.

…

I would prefer to:

One – be reliable, for myself anyway, and always be able to do what I say I am going to do.

Two – make the best decisions possible, given the circumstances and all I know at the time, and then not be remorseful at all even if things turn out completely terrible for me. After all I would have done the best I could, and no one has any right to demand more from anyone, especially not someone of themselves.

Three – always tell the truth, no matter the cost, because God knows no one else is telling the truth, so I might as well get the best from it all that I can.

Four – be able to find the best in every situation and share that with as many people as possible.

Five – be wealthy enough to have my own airplane, fly when and where I want, travel to take photos, and share them with anyone who would enjoy them, have enough land to live in quiet privacy near a lake, travel to the mountains often, visit with family and friends (I’l like a few good reliable friends),

Six – visit and take photos of the seven wonders of the world, whether they are A: the Egyptian Pyramids, the Grand Canyon, the Eifel Tower, the Amazon forest, the Great Wall of China, Mount Everest, K2, a ride into space, the Antarctic, Australia’s Outback, Canada’s Tundra, the fall leaves of the East Coast, Tibet’s mountains, … OR B: touch, sight, taste, smell, delight, joy, trust, love and hope.

Seven – take a ride into space for a day or at least a few hours, with a good camera and fly by the International Space Station.

Or at least

Eight – I’d prefer the beauty of the day to be visible to my heart and mind each minute.

So this year again I will make my New Year’s Resolution that I will not make a New Year’s Resolution. It’s one I can always keep and fail at merely in the making of it.

It is in keeping with the reality that I already do One, Two, Three, Four, SixB, and Eight. The others are good dreams to hold on to, but not worth sacrificing the others.

Happy New Year’s!

What resolutions will you make?

Tender God, Tender Hope.

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

The Sun Goes Down

The Ice Captures the Weed

The Snow Covers the Ice

…

Always

By God’s Tender Mercy

We Are Healed and Live Abundantly

Psalm 30:2

O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.

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

By the tender mercy of our God …

Everything that is blessing and gift in this life is

By the tender mercy of our God.

…

By the tender mercy of our God we learn to treasure all that each day brings to us:

The sunrise, the sunset.

The COLD outside (-46⁰C), the HEAT of the furnace’s chimney (2000⁰C).

The relentless attack of our enemies’ (lies to destroy, destory, and kill us – by which we learn to trust God alone) and the gracious response of truth, both exposed by Christ’ light (by which we learn to hope only in God’s tender mercy).

New food allergies and intolerances (that increase our food costs and teach us with pain how to eat well) and the plethora of good and nutritious food available from the food bank and the grocery stores (from which we can choose how to deal with new dietary limits.)

The skills of many decades of capturing the good beauty of life in photos, of writing words that inspire hearts and minds to live better, to live well, the dancing steps to music and through the snow and woods and atop the roofs, the knowing of languages from ancient times, of foreign lands and using ‘artificial intelligence’, the piloting precision-decision-making over and under clouds, around obstacles on the ground, and between hills and mountains and leaving & returning to earth, the melding with machines to accomplish work and travel safely in all kinds of conditions, and the seeing God present walking with us each moment (good and terrible).

And most of all the miracle of being healed so that we are able to love those that love in return and those who return for love betrayal, who return for love hatred and evil, and even for those who corrupt justice for so many giving privilege to the wealthy and connected.

By the tender mercy of our God we live filled with hope for our tomorrows, and for theirs.

By the tender mercy of our God.

Mercy! Mercy Me! Mercy All!

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

God’s Mercy Shines As Life-giving Light On Us.

It may be below -40⁰ out,

And still we live only by the grace and mercy of God,

that allows us to keep warm and

breathe and

love and

hope

In the Light of Christ

Joshua 24:16-17

Then the people answered, ‘Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed.’

Jude 1:20-21

But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

Words of Grace For Today

After a full generation wandering in the wilderness, and before that generations in harsh slavery in Egypt (that is the thanks Joseph’s people are given for his saving them all from famine!) Joshua puts to the people a choice, to serve God who has delivered them, or to serve others gods, the gods of the people of the lands they have entered and will enter.

The people respond with a choice that pleases God: they choose to follow Joshua and to follow God, their saviour, who has protected them all the way in every time.

Jude, as many before and since, present to his beloved readers, that they should act righteously, that they should build up their holy faith, that they should pray to the Holy Spirit, that they should keep themselves living and speaking and acting in the love of God, and they should look forward to the mercy of Jesus that will lead them to eternal life.

There is always much to do to be about doing God’s will, living out one’s faith, building up one’s faith, to pray in the Holy Spirit for all people and to keep oneself in the love of God … and to choose to serve the God who has been our Saviour through every generation, and will be our Saviour in every generation yet to come.

Ah, to always be able to make the right choices, and to always do God’s will, live out God’s love for all people, to build up our faith. It is never so with us.

Joshua’s people enter the Promised Land and their stories are just like our stories: we continually choose to do the right thing, to follow God … and then we go about the sinful and evil things, we serve other gods, the gods of the land we are in, the gods of consumerism, the gods of capitalism/greed for money, the gods of privilege and comfort at others’ expense, at the cost of other people’s lives.

The only thing that saves us is …

as always,

the mercy of God demonstrated to us in the story of Jesus the Christ.

The only thing that gives us any hope that God will continue to walk with us, to guide us, to love us … is that in spite of our sins, God continually comes to save us, to redeem us, to forgive us, and to give us new life in God’s love.

From this we hope that our enemies may also experience the truth of God’s mercy and relent from trying to kill us to save themselves (which cannot work for them anyway.)

For this we hope.

And with this hope we live, each day, blessed by God’s doing mercy for us, not our choices.

Record Lows

Sunday, December 26, 2021

Blue Christmas Morning

-40⁰

Take Your Pick F or C

Temperatures are cold

And Hearts are Frozen Hard.

Maybe no records there, It’s been that way in each generation.

Psalm 109:21

But you, O Lord my Lord,
act on my behalf for your name’s sake;
because your steadfast love is good, deliver me.

Acts 7:59-60

While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he died.

Words of Grace For Today

Courageous of Stephen to forgive those who killed him without just cause. They were filled with hate at someone different, someone with hope, someone who knew Jesus as his Lord and Saviour.

So they gathered around him and threw stones at him until he was dead. Blunt force trauma, repeated, and repeated, and repeated by a mob.

We think that we do not do such things today, but …

My story and many like it give clear evidence (denied by most – what can one do for the mob?) prove that mobs of many kinds exist today. Women trying to assert themselves make up stories about good men so they have a man to abuse, ruin, and kill … and feel like they have gained power over men. Cops who need to bully someone like they are bullied so they encourage civilians to create damning false stories about their target. Cops who lie in court. Lawyers who leave the cops’ victim defenceless in court, and judges who love to add their own lies to the blatantly false evidence in order to convict good people, just because they all can. Just because they hate life. Just because they fear truth. Just because.

We should cry day and night to God to act on our behalf. Our only hope, as ever it has been, is that God’s steadfast love is good and God promises to deliver us.

Christ was born, and killed for being good, a threat to corrupt, dirty and evil powers, and simple fear and hatred of what is good in life.

So we live, pray, and hope, also these c…c…c…cold days that God would deliver us, from the hatred in us, from the fear in us, and from the hatred and fear in those who would kill us by any means possible.

We pray, God let not our enemies triumph. Rather show your steadfast love as more powerful in the weakness of forgiveness and steadfast love.

Mighty in Gentle Service

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Choose to

See the Pen of God Writing in the Heavens

‘Forgive and Heal and Love One Another’

or

see only the smoke that clouds our eyes of the beauty of reality.

Which will we choose to see today?

Psalm 24:8

Who is the King of glory?
The Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord, mighty in battle.

Matthew 21:9

The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
‘Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!’

Words of Grace For Today

We have this vision from the earliest of times that God is mighty as we are mighty, when we are mighty (or think we are), namely when we are violent and fight in battles to make our way in the world.

So God (in our shared fictional image) is a mighty warrior who show God’s strength in fighting more mightily than we ever can.

Jesus, God’s son born in a most humble way to poor parents (not the privilege and comfort that so many enjoy and would demand their Saviour be born into as well), teaches and heals the people God’s way, God love, God strength in service and forgiveness. The people, having that image of God from of old as a mighty warrior, see Jesus taking over the ruling of the country, staging a revolution like many before have tried and failed to do. Jesus enters Jerusalem and the people are ready to throw off the injustice and oppression of their foreign and home-grown corrupt rulers, political and religious.

They throw down their palm leaves and garments for Jesus’ donkey to walk on as he enters Jerusalem. No one is wealthy enough to have found a horse for this ‘new king’?

No, that is not it. God is not about conquering our mighty corruption of the goodness of creation by being like us. Jesus enters as a humble ‘king’, a peasant at most, a teacher and guide, a healer, riding a small donkey.

It matters not really how we imagine Jesus enters our lives, enters our world. What matters is that God is not mighty as a warrior, for God created and rules the universe. God need not defeat any enemy. It is already accomplished. The work God seeks to accomplish is to let us, free willed creatures that God created us to be, God seeks to have us choose freely to love God and each other and all creation. That is a work that violent might simply cannot begin to accomplish.

Our choosing can only be accomplished by inspiring us to not be mighty in violence, but rather mighty in meekness, service, healing, and forgiving one another.

It’s your God-given choice! What will it be today?

God Created Also This!

Saturday, December 18, 2021

…

G g g g g good Morning!

…

(It ain’t Vietnam!)

Genesis 5:2

Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them ‘Humankind’ when they were created.

Jude 1:2

May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.

Words of Grace For Today

It’s c c c cold outside.

God created this?!

God created us to share one another’s company so that we could warm each other against the cold?

Would that even help in this cold of below -30⁰ C?

…

Maybe a little, but certainly not enough, unless …

…

unless one of us is able to plan and prepare and build a shelter that can be warmed by heating fuel to the burning point … safely.

So the wood stove gobbles up wood and produces heat, mostly safely (if one is particularly alert to the immediate dangers of burning the whole thing down or gassing the occupants with carbon monoxide or … well there is a whole host of dangers to be avoided while heating a stove to 400⁰C and a chimney to 2000⁰ C

and there are benefits, like sitting in a sauna after jumping through the ice into the lake.

Not that I have a sauna or a hole in the ice, nor the foolishness in these temperatures to jump in such a hole! But walking outside is bracing and then biting and then dangerous, so it’s nice to know the ‘wood eating monster’ has done it’s thing well and 40⁰C awaits me to warm up by. Of course the floor temperatures are anywhere from 20⁰ to 60⁰ cooler than at head level. At Advent we remember that God comes to level … well, this variation could use some levelling!

Still, we breathe and live, and marvel at systems that work in such cold were metal looses half its strength and oil congeals and skin freezes in minutes or seconds.

So we give thanks that God’s mercy, peace, and love are ours in abundance!

And we pray that they may be yours as well!

Encounter God … And Live

Thursday, December 16, 2021

Hear God’s Word

As Clearly As We See

The Ice Between the Snow

Joshua 2:11

As soon as we heard it, our hearts failed, and there was no courage left in any of us because of you. The Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below.

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

To encounter God is an awesome thing,

more terrifying than anything we have imagined or ever could imagine,

which brings our hearts to stop, and all things in us to cease to be, other than what God has given us.

…

When we realize that everything we need for life, abundant life, God has already given to us, then we can but be grateful for all that life has for us

…

and we will be ready to hand on everything that God has given us to others so that they may also live and live abundantly.

So we go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey the commandment Jesus gives us, to love our neighbours as ourselves, and even our enemies, and first that we love God with all our hearts, minds, and strengths.

Even when we see the face of God and hear God’s Word for us, as awesome and fearful as that is for us, we then trust always that God will walk with us to the end of all time.

All courage is given to us by the God that walks with us, each day, no matter how cold, no matter how hot, no matter the challenges our enemies place in our paths.

Let us celebrate each moment all the great wonders of each day.

Shine, Baby Shine!

Saturday, September 18, 2021

Sunrise

Promises

…

Numbers 6:25

The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you.

John 20:21

Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’

Words of Grace For Today

Waking to -2⁰, the first freeze of the autumn, was anticipated eagerly … until it followed a day of chilly, blustery wind and rain that tore at everything with a dogged vengeance soaking even the best protections against such moisture.

It’s great to freeze. Part of the great of it is, is that wet disappears as water freezes into snow and ice and frost, all which can be removed with either effort or with preparation to avoid their accumulation where they are not wanted, like covers at night keeping frost off the solar panels.

This morning, the Aaronic blessing that: God will make God’s face shine on me, is more than welcome. It is desperately needed. Bring on the sun. Give me a few more days to get the insulated tarps in place, the ropes to hold them, the tape to seal them, so that (after the yearly repairs are completed) that monster in the insulated tarp shelter can be fed once again all the wood it wants, just as long as it produces HEAT, DRY HEAT!

In the chill of this morning, I am reminded, as seems needed so nearly every morning, that the challenges and pains of each morning are signs of being alive in the world that requires labour of me in order that I survive – all part of engaging as a creature in God’s good creation – and …

that the challenges and pains of each morning are not to be given too much due, for the reality is that this IS God’s good creation, that God walks with me, and that this is a holy hermitage, made so by God’s choice to put me here to see it as the place of beauty, wonder, and majesty that it is (all clear indications that God is here in each moment and through each change of season)

and thus

that the challenges and pains of each morning, in the context of God’s many blessings, are also signs of God’s peace, and Christ’s call; that Christ has sent me also here, circuitous and curious as the weaving way has been to arrive, and knowing this is only another (one of many) blessed waypoint on the path home.

May the Lord bless us and keep us; the Lord make God’s face to shine upon us, and be gracious to us; the Lord lift up God’s countenance upon us, and give us peace.

May the shine of the Son and the sun reach our hearts this day, that we may be saints through whom the light of Christ reaches many, many people, bringing God’s unconditional love, amazing grace and unparalleled peace.

Itchy Ears and God’s Truth

Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Help Us

To Not Be Lost

In The Woods

Confused by the Devil’s Wiles and Smoke

That Obscures Your Light.

Psalm 119:43

Do not take the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in your ordinances.

2 Timothy 4:3-4

For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

Words of Grace For Today

The time is coming, or it has arrived already, when society will fail, because “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”

Of course this was said by Socrates who lived from 470 to 399 BC, more than just a few generations ago … and it has been true in many generations (among the privileged of the world) ever since.

The time is coming ….

In every generation about many and various failings of humans it is repeatedly said (as if it were said for the first time) For the time is coming when people will [and then fill in the sinful thing of humans since the beginning of time.]

Some people of all generations have always refused to put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they have accumulated for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and have turned away from listening to the truth and wandered away to myths.

The truth has always been knowable if one would humbly listen to God’s Word, provided to us in many and various ways, and most clearly in the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

The danger in life is that one not only refuses to acknowledge that disaster has been part of human history since forever, but one builds up habits of denying reality (when reality is something one does not want to deal with.) The danger of this refusal is that one chooses to remain ignorant about what history can teach us, and ignorant one acts stupidly and often dangerously for oneself and those effected by one’s actions (which can be those distant in place and in time!) The danger of denying reality when one does not want to deal with it is that one ‘allows the lion’ to consume one’s family and oneself, and more significantly, one loses the ability to see God’s reality: that God created everything and everyone, oneself included. With that one loses the ability to know anything real of God, and anything real about oneself. One is truly lost in the clutches of the Devil’s hell on earth.

One is then not only a danger to oneself, but to everyone!

So we pray: Do not take the word of truth utterly out of our mouths, for our hope is in your Word. Save us from seeking comfort for our itchy ears in myths and falsehoods. According to your promises to us, guide us and use us as vessels of your truth and grace which brings life to all people.