The Way of the World

Tuesday, January 11, 2022

The Sky Remembers

With the Colour of Honour

The Blood of All

The Men Abused

and Many Who Were Killed

Ecclesiastes 5:6

Do not let your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake; why should God be angry at your words, and destroy the work of your hands?

Colossians 2:18

Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking.

Words of Grace For Today

Sunday rest.

Monday work and remember the children.

Tuesday work and remember all the men who are abused by women.

Oh, you say, that is not how the world is. Men abuse women and kill them.

Yes, we’ve come a long way recognizing how some men, very few men, abuse women with violence that eventually and inevitably leads to the man violently killing the woman, or psychological demeaning until the woman feels so worthless that she kills herself. And we have recognized the signs, and coaxed and coached abuse women away from their abuser (which is very hard to do since the abuser’s abuse captures and makes the abused think she needs the abuser’s presence and approval), and provided safe places for abused women to recover their sense of self, their voice, and their assurance of their own worth … and a vision of life without the abuser.

And many women and men have gone beyond that to assume and punish all men for the abuse done by a few, which only turns the tables on the men. Now the women and men become ardent, unrelenting, unabashed misandrists, theirs is the destruction of innocent, good people (men), and the lies that are told about innocent men mushroom into a cloud over society from which no one can escape.

Meanwhile many men are caught in their abuser’s trap, just as women are also. They have lost their voice, their woman has robbed them of their sense of self, of all their friends, of all contact with reality as they are blamed for so many things each day, small at first, the huge things, that the man has had nothing to do with. And the end is the same as for women: some women abusers are violent and they eventually, inevitably kill the abused man who is so worthless she sees him as not even human. More women psychologically beat the voice, worth, and hope right out of the man until he withers into self-loathing and finds no way to go on, so he kills himself. Men with a even a small tendency for violence use a gun, those with none use other means like poison.

When the courts are involved, like the rest of society, there are precious few who even think it’s possible for a woman to abuse a man if the woman is not beating the living daylights out of the man, and even then they are more likely to charge and convict the man – even though it is the woman violently beating up the man, and the man only tries to save his life. When the abuse is psychologial the courts most likely convict the man of come kind of harassment or psychological abuse (even though it’s the woman who is the abuser, if they would only open their eyes to the possibility!)

The rest of society is not unlike the courts, blaming the man for being abused: ‘what kind of a man are you to let a woman treat you like that!’ ‘No real man could ever be abused by a woman. Look at her. She’s half a foot shorter, and 50 pounds lighter (though so much stronger physically, if they’d only look.)’ ‘You’re not a real human if you let her treat you like that. You must have it coming. You’ve done something terrible to her.’ ‘Hey, man, it’s your fault for staying with her. Anyone with sense would have left long ago.’ And so go the blaming of the man for the woman’s abuse.

In the end everyone loses, no one more than the children, who learn to lie to protect themselves, who learn that courts and cops and church people are all corrupt, who learn never to tell the real truth about who is doing what to whom, because they will be made to pay if they do.

So we remember Tuesdays all the men abused by women.

And we pray that we will not be led astray by our words or others’ words of deceit.

And we pray that we will not be caught up in the ‘human way of thinking’ so that we ignore men who are suffering, and whose suffering will always end in death … unless someone or some miracle intervenes.

So Crooked Are We

Monday, January 10, 2022

God Creates All That is Beautiful

and

That Includes All That is Crooked,

We Pray That God Will

Straighten Us and Our Enemies Out

Before It’s Too Late.

Psalm 19:13

Keep back your servant also from the insolent; do not let them have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.

1 Corinthians 4:5

Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.

Words of Grace For Today

There are so many ways to ruin one’s own life, and the life of those around one, so many ways.

We pray that God will save us from these many ways,

and that we will trust God’s forgiveness each of the many times we still mess up lives, and

that we will trust God’s forgiveness for each of the many times each other person messes up lives, even our life.

That is difficult to do, when those that mess up one’s life do it with great authority and clear intention and dark guile.

That is even more difficult to do when the lives the others mess up are the children’s lives, especially when it is done with great authority and clear intention and dark guile.

Therefore we pray that God will help us not become insolent, or judgmental, or arrogant, or … well there are so many ways to be that will lead us to ignore God’s Grace.

So we pray, each day, that we will rely on God’s Grace to guide us, especially as we deal with those who would mess up our lives and the lives of the children … and

that children so messed with, will come to know and trust God’s generous Grace and steadfast love for them and for all people.

We have done our work, sacrificed all that we have, in order to protect the children, and those with great authority and clear intention and dark guile have brought our efforts and sacrifice to naught.

Now all that is left is to trust God’s Spirit to find a way to show the children a life that is filled with Grace, forgiveness, love, and hope; a life that is not fully dependent on money, power, or fame; a life that depends only on God’s will for us.

Today, there is work to do. God’s work to bring Grace, forgiveness, love and hope to bear on so many lives that are lived so foreign to all goodness from God.

Father and Mother, What is Special About This …

Sunday, January 9, 2022

Only A Moose Makes Tracks

Across the -30⁰ and Colder Lake,

While We Remember What We Have Heard

Of God’s Word.

What is special, is that we remember how God ….

Isaiah 31:1

Alas for those who go down to Egypt for help and who rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the Lord!

Hebrews 2:1

Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.

Words of Grace For Today

Rest.

Today instead of looking to ‘Egypt of might and horses many and chariots strong’, not even when these things of might, many and strength in our lives are carried by so many and various ways of working, of securing money, favour, and power, of being our own people, today

yes

today

we rest.

We rest in the Promises of God,

The Gifts of God,

The Saints of God,

The Forgiveness of God,

The Grace of God,

The Generosity of God,

The Love of God,

The Faith given to us by God,

and

The hope, that

that all things will be well, all things will be well, all manner of things will be well,

because,

All manner of things are already, today, by God’s Word that Creates, Sustains, and Renews,

by God’s Will, all things are already today well, quite well,

quite well indeed.

Faith, Hope … and Life Now!

Saturday, January 8, 2022

Tracks Lead Us To Places Unknown

Always We Walk Not Alone,

for God Walks with Us.

Job 16:19

Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven, and he that vouches for me is on high.

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Words of Grace For Today

It’s a quiet day ahead, for a cold winter Saturday, following many cold, cold days …

and not a little frustration with people who live by full disregard for truth, and who seek my death, sooner than later, but slowly so the suffering continues and they can be pleased with their sadistic efforts. It’s one thing to have one’s ex after you, it’s another to have the courts helping her. There is always more injustice than justice, more evil than good, and more death of good people (and not enough of evil people?)

How to remain hopeful that the future will be better?

Well, that is actually a futilely placed question,

for one cannot hope that the future will be better.

The only thing one can do is live well in the present, in the face of evil to be gracious and good. In the face of those who wish one dead, to live joyously.

The moments are not rare when the spectacular works of God can be seen here and now, they require only that one has ears to hear and eyes to see … and hearts to celebrate life with gratitude.

We have faith and hold to it as the future moves into the present and then the past. That faith is not something we conjure up or make or assemble … no in any way.

Faith is a gift … a gift freely given by God to us. Therefore it will never fail, nor succumb to evil of any kind or quantity.

Facing evil, God vouches for us saints, and there is no surer witness. More we do not need.

Therefore we see the future, not as something that need be better, but rather as more of the present gifts God gives us: that we are vouched for, and we can live gracious and gratefully and generously …

in this present moment

each moment

of each day, even today.

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?

Cleansing and Enough

Thursday, January 6, 2022

If it is enough,

Fly Baby Fly!

Jeremiah 33:8

I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me.

1 John 2:2

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

Words of Grace For Today

To have enough,

Not too much,

and

not to litle,

and

to know one has enough,

and though one could use more and dream of that perhaps, to still know

that for today, this is enough:

That is the gift God gives the saints.

One may think that has to do with things, food, property, profitable work, toys, power, reputation … or a host of other things.

Yet, none of that is all that important: one may consider air, water, food, clothing, shelter, meaningful labour, and love more important than the others.

What we need enough of is God’s love,

and forgiveness,

and promise of renewed life.

Enough is not that we have God’s gifts and promises, but enough is to know that God provides these essentials for life for all people.

That is enough.

That is enough for this day.

That is enough for any day for any person.

Thanks be to God for giving us enough.

Supper and Breakfast Together.

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

As Each Day Begins

It Begins as God’s Gift

In the Eucharist,

Christ’s Sacrifice For Us All.

Exodus 33:19-20

And [the Lord] said [to Moses], ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, “The Lord”;and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But’, he said, ‘you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.’

2 Corinthians 8:9

For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

Words of Grace For Today

God saves Moses by covering Moses’ face as the Lord, in all the Lord’s goodness, passes by Moses.

For all of us God’s great goodness becomes visible in Jesus, a living human being. The greatness and goodness of God is not as we might have expected, such greatness that it over powers all evil. Instead God’s goodness becomes visible for us all in that Jesus gives up all claim to greatness, is born into poverty, lives in poverty, dies in poverty … so that we might come to know God’s greatness lies in self-sacrificial love, everything given up so that we might live, forgiven and renewed, and filled with hope … hope that all will be well, for us and for all people.

In this gift of hope God shows us all mercy, mercy that we certainly do not deserve, but without which we could not live.

So we live … and love … and hope.

Spoils and Siblings

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

Whose Land Is It, Anyway?

It is God’s

Given to Us as Stewards

To Share with Our Siblings.

Deuteronomy 3:7-9

All the livestock and the plunder of the towns we kept as spoil for ourselves. So at that time we took from the two kings of the Amorites the land beyond the Jordan, from the Wadi Arnon to Mount Hermon (the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, while the Amorites call it Senir).

Mark 3:35

Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.

Words of Grace For Today

Ancient claims of land belonging to a particular people are seldom anything but a bit hypocritical.

The land claim of Jews in the Middle East is well known to be established on their claim that ‘their land’ was stolen from others and their right to it was that God promised the people land. To this day the displaced Palestinians have legitimate grievances and suffer terribly waiting for the world to provide a reasonable resolution to being displaced since 1947, and earlier.

Indigenous land claims in Canada are based on white people stealing the land, though the indigenous histories are not without similar events through their own histories.

As long as people have lived, the competition for land has been a repeated source of terrible struggles, losses, and long term grievances.

So we, in our history, record that we took land from the Amorites, and kept livestock and plunder from their towns.

We are no better than the worst of all humans.

We are only saved by God’s Grace.

Only if the Holy Spirit inspires goodness in us, inspires us to do God’s will, and inspires us to be saints, are we able to reflect God’s love for us to others.

The Holy Spirit’s work, God’s work (by God’s will) alone determines then who is Jesus’ brother, sister, and mother. God alone makes us children of God, makes us Jesus’ siblings, and brings us to recognize that we are all ‘in this together.’ We are all each others’ siblings.

Land claims are crucial to pay attention to and to honour.

More important is to honour the gifts God gives us, not to try to hoard them for ourselves, and to share them with all those in need.

Apostasies and Wisdom

Monday, January 3, 2022

The View to God’s Glorious Power

Is Clear

As a Brilliantly Cold Winter Day

on the Lake

Jeremiah 14:7-9

Although our iniquities testify against us, act, O Lord, for your name’s sake; our apostasies indeed are many and we have sinned against you.

O hope of Israel, its saviour in time of trouble, why should you be like a stranger in the land, like a traveller turning aside for the night? Why should you be like someone confused, like a mighty warrior who cannot give help?

Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; do not forsake us!

Ephesians 1:16-19

I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

Words of Grace For Today

Jeremiah knew, even if the people of his day refused to admit it, that they had all sinned terribly against God. Jeremiah prays that God will not be known as a stranger in God’s people’s land, or like a warrior with dementia who has forgotten how to fight to save his own people.

Jeremiah knows that God is with the people, in their midst, as God has been through all the generations. Jeremiah also knows that God does not automatically ‘save’ the people as they wish to be saved.

God is not always a God of great displays of might while saving God’s people. In fact this time, God turns a deaf ear to Jeremiah’s cries for the people, and the people suffer greatly.

The truth about God is that God cannot be fully comprehended, predicted, or controlled by any human. The writer of Ephesians knows this well and prays that the people of Ephesus (and all the readers of the letter, including us today) will receive from God a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that with the eyes of our hearts enlightened in the mysteries of the saints, we may come to know the hope that God gives us, that guides us, that draws us forward each day as God’s own saints. With the wisdom we may then ‘see’ the great power of God, the power of weakness, humility, suffering, and self-sacrificial love. This is the power of God demonstrated in Jesus’ story, living, teaching, dying, and raising to new life … in order that we might finally believe the impossible … that God saves us even as we think we are losing everything we treasure, even our lives.

God’s power is the greatest power in and beyond the universe. It is the power that creates, sustains, and provides the universe as a place-time for us to live, and to live free to choose to love as God does, or to turn away from God, sinning and creating evil.

Even then God comes to save us again, and again, and again, and … always forever again, so that we might live in God’s love, and live that love for all people around us. This is the spirit of wisdom that God gives us, freely, and the hope that guides us, and the love that is life itself.

What a year to come! To live as God’s saints in this time and place, as real and messy as it is, as challenged as we all are by Covid and the limits it places on our lives, and as wondrous as life has ever been.

Listen to the ‘Jellyfish’

Sunday, January 2, 2022

no need to go batty

whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s

Deuteronomy 32:39

See now that I, even I, am he; there is no god besides me. I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and no one can deliver from my hand.

Romans 14:8

If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

Words of Grace For Today

When the jellyfish came up out of the lake, crawling on all 10 feet, it posed a question that deserves our attention:

What will you do about the rats’ snot that collects on the lower branches of the olive trees, making the collection of sap from the neighbouring maples impossible until fall and then it’s too late, for the time for the amendment of life will have passed us by in the wrong lane?

It’s not a simple question, not like ‘what are we to do with the nuclear wastes from our personal nuclear power pockets that we all carry on our backs to propel us through time and space as we are wont and as we will at the time – or place – that used to be when-where we were?’

That waste … well we can either feed that waste back into our personal reactor for another go at atomizing-chaos-reordering, or we can simply make a quick visit to the nearest sun, deposit our waste in that reaction and then get out so quick it does not consume us for all time in all of space the size of one Adam.

The snotty question of the jelly fish is really the same question that keeps coming up again and again, which we find so hard to state as it is, because .. well we find it so hard because the obvious answer is that we’ve warped the time-space continuum so completely out of whack from it’s original bends and turns that the extreme cases of mist-ordered events and consequences from last year keep getting dwarfed by new extreme event-consequences this year. After a century or two of these it’s pretty hard to catch where the mist is coming from and how the events are consequences or vice versa. It’s just that three orders of species, of the twenty that remain, rely on maple syrup for proper nurturing. And the projections of the best scientists-artists are that any fewer than twenty orders of species and the whole ecosystem of all the various iterations of earth will simply dissolve. It’s like the warnings that no one heeded about climate change and the ice melt of Greenland and Antarctica. But that was centuries ago, or yesterday, depending on where in time one lands or begins.

The only sure thing in this mess we seem to have made of the universe is that God did create it, and whether we live or die we are Christ’s own people, so totally flawed and living by Grace alone.

It’s that Grace that gives us a reference point, the only available reference point in the messed-warped time-place continuum. What is done is done. What is coming will still come. We have now, and only in our now can we make choices, and pray that, also dealing with rat snot, they will reflect God’s Will to give life and heal, and not harm and kill even if it seems it is all impossible to cure of evil.