Category: Daylight

How do we commend ourselves?

Saturday, July 16, 2022

Some Guests Are Serene,

Soaking Up

the Peace of

This Consecrated Place

Psalm 138:7

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve me against the wrath of my enemies;
you stretch out your hand, and your right hand delivers me.

2 Corinthians 6:4

As servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities.

Words of Grace For Today

To commend is to to entrust for care or preservation.

So how can we entrust ourselves to others for care or preservation.

Paul faced the hatred of Jewish leaders and communities (because he clearly threatened their power and control of their faith – Christianity being a new alternative away from and out of Judaism), but more so the Roman authorities who responded to the complaints of the people under their jurisdiction.

So Paul, needed funding and protection from hostile elements and authorities, entrusted himself to the various congregations he helped start, the one in Corinth included.

In this verse Paul commends himself not by proper teaching, or life saving teaching, or bringing Jesus’ Word to the people. He commends himself through his endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities …. And at that point one realizes one needs the larger context of what Paul wrote, for this is not quite right for Paul. So:

As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says,

‘At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.’

See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honour and dishonour, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return—I speak as to children—open wide your hearts also.

So Paul uses his ‘track record’ of enduring great tribulations to seek the open hearts of the Corinthians. Not only his tribulations, though. The list is long on the work of the Spirit in Paul beginning with

purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God

and ending with

We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

Few have it as rough as Paul did, but many have had congregations like the Corinthians, or worse. Do everything and anything for them, caring for them, loving them, burying the dead and celebrating life with them, and they still come back at you to drive you to your grave … as if it is their God-given task to kill pastors (and lay leaders).

It is a great surprise that the RCMP, the lawyers, and the courts have tried their best to kill me as well, all without any cause that I can find … though the court records are full of reasons none of them are actually true, and it’s not difficult to know that.

Pests abound as well: mosquitoes, wasps, and the two legged kind who keep intruding past barriers and gates, stealing valuables and essentials for my survival, and with unnecessary noise pestering the peace, solitude, and holiness of this place.

To that I respond God help them, and for me I still live well, for

Though I walk in the midst of trouble, God preserves me against the wrath of my enemies;
God stretches out her-his hand, and her-his right hand delivers me.

With thanks I begin each day, as you can, too, for all God does to provide life abundant, and safety from one’s enemies, and peace from pests.

Getting Out There

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

It’s hotter at 9 am today than the hottest moment yesterday,

Climate change in a day (yesterday’s extreme is today’s normal),

So maybe it’ll help orient us if we get reminded

that winter is coming and it’ll be blessed cold.

Isaiah 66:19

I will set a sign among them. From them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Put, and Lud—which draw the bow—to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands far away that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations.

Mark 16:15

And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.

Words of Grace For Today

So many people want to stay in their own little bubble of the world, safe, comfortable and sure of what will come tomorrow – and if what comes tomorrow is something different then they have great ability to lie to themselves and others to day what happened is not different, but it is still what they know how to handle.

So the people are done with Covid before the third wave, and now we face the seventh wave. Covid is not done with us. So many people may refuse to behave responsibly, protecting others by wearing masks, keeping physical distance, and providing ventilation indoors. We all may want to be done with Covid. It’s just that might just kill us, and if it will not kill exactly the fools that indiscriminately get infected and share that everywhere they go, it’ll kill so many of us, even us who are wise about our exposure and protection.

To be other than wise about Covid requires that one live in a bubble of foolish denial of reality. And that’s where so many people live, about Covid, about their rights and others’ rights, about justice and truth, about climate change, about God’s blessings and their obligations to the strangers.

God knew this would be so, and in every generation has sent faithful, wise people out into the world to be remnants, giving witness to God’s good creation, truth, and the challenges we actually face, living on this planet.

So which are you going to be today: a comfort seeking, reality denying, self-protecting-other-endangering, bubble living parasite,

or

one of the remnant of witnesses who remember and preserve the truth of God’s good works in every generation, as well as the honest reality of life on planet earth?

Today, in small ways we each will choose, though God will do everything to guide us

to be one of those who are Getting Out There.

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 Doing it Right!

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Wisps of Light

Begin the Day

As the Spirit Starts

Our Hearts

Genesis 15:6

And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Galatians 3:7

so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham.

Words of Grace For Today

Righteousness is, by definition, the quality attributed to someone who does this right. Or as Wikipedia has it (like many other dictionaries – no surprise) it is the quality or state of being morally correct and justifiable.

Further as Wikipedia has it: William Tyndale (Bible translator into English in 1526) remodelled the word after an earlier word rihtwis, which would have yielded modern English *rightwise or *rightways. He used it to translate the Hebrew root צדק tzedek, which appears over five hundred times in the Hebrew Bible, and the Greek word δίκαιος (dikaios), which appears more than two hundred times in the New Testament.

It is tzedek here in Genesis that is translated as righteousness. It is connected with justice, and not merely the dispensing of decisions (that may or may not be just) as courts do, but about ensuring that decisions are just before they are made and that after ensuring that injustices are corrected.

It is all about doing, and doing it right, or doing what is necessary to make sure what is done wrong is corrected to be that which is done right.

So how is it that Abraham gets off being called righteous! He was a man of God, but he was also a cheat, thief, and con man. For those who do not want us to forget (rightfully so) our female ancestors, Sarah was right there with Abraham, helping him with his cheating, thieving, and conning! Abraham, less Sarah on this one, was ready to kill his own son, until God stopped him. So he could be considered, in his heart, to be a murderer. How can one such person be considered righteous.

Consider for a moment what then it means to be called a descendant of Abraham because of what we believe!

How can Abraham be consider to be righteous?

By faith.

He believed the right things?

Or as the New Testament witness clarifies again and again, we are saved by God’s grace (gift), not by what we do, think, or believe, but by what the Holy Spirit brings us to do, think, and believe.

So we do not really ‘do’ any of this on our own, certainly not by our own ‘free’ will.

And neither did Abraham.

God made it so. We might say God justly did it so.

And that is where all righteousness comes from, from God justly doing it … to us.

We get to be called righteous and we get to be eternally grateful, for left on our own righteousness is impossible, as plenty of history and current events give witness to!

Let us begin the day, then, trusting that the Holy Spirit will bring us to do righteously, and always giving thanks that it is so, also this day for us.

Renewing or Destroying?

Monday, July 4, 2022

This pine took about 15 years to grow to it’s six foot height. A quad (on private land beyond a barrier in the road to stop his all too frequent and intentionally extra noisy intrusions) took one roaring instant to run it over and kill it.

What was He thinking, when He created this quad-idiot?

Isaiah 66:2

All these things my hand has made, and so all these things are mine, says the Lord.
But this is the one to whom I will look, to the humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at my word.

John 17:17

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth

Words of Grace For Today

What a wonder God has created.

It is a privilege to be able to spend time of solitude and retreat among the trees, near and on and in (chillly!) the water, gather for stories around a campfire with it’s smoke scattering the mosquitoes when the wind is not strong enough blow them away and us free of them, and to sleep in the fresh air (as long as one ignores the pollution created by the oil processing plants not a half mile away.)

This long weekend after the rain storms let up, the campground was inundated with people seeking to be campers, bringing tents, campers, small yappy dogs, large constantly barking dogs and equipment, drinks and marijuana galore, kayaks, motorboats, and jetskis to ply the water with increasing fumes, oil on the water, and endless droning whines of engines, quads and motorbikes to rip up the ground and knock down trees, sound systems to pound out loud noise for miles … oh and a few fireworks. They sought out any open space to set up their campsites, making a veritable city in the woods.

So much for solitude, retreat, and time for quiet reflection in nature. Everything they do, other than being on the water, is more easily done at home in their own backyards, though bylaws restrict the extreme noise at the late hours.

Theirs is not a quest to enjoy nature. It is, apparently, to destroy nature, and their own bodies and minds.

God created all this: the wonders of nature, and the stupidity of humanity to destroy everything around them and themselves as well. What was God thinking?

God certainly created it all, and God looks not to those who destroy nature and themselves. Doch God looks to the humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at God’s word.

Were it so that those who came to this place of the wonders of creation would come to be humble and contrite, trembling at God’s word, respecting the land, the water, the trees, the wildlife, and the other guests.

Were it so that those who came to this place of wonders, consecrated holy and set apart as a retreat, would come to renew their spirits, instead of destroy their hearts, minds and souls with spirits and drugs.

Of course, not all who come, come to destroy. Some actually come to bask in the beauty, drink up the wonders and fresh air, and reconnect their bodies, minds, and souls with God’s good creation. It’s just they get drowned out by the destruction-seekers-doers.

Yet, here truth is rediscovered, rekindled, and nurtured, so that if one so chooses, one can find life abundant here, and say upon departing back to their everyday lives: God has sanctified us in the truth; God’s Word (evident in God’s creation) is truth.

So let it be also in this consecrated meadow, a holy hermitage, a place to live of last resort, and a resort of God’s many blessings, as with those who live elsewhere and only by reading experience a slice of the holy life lived here.

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.

Thunderstruck! & Well.

Friday, July 1, 2022

Storms May Pound At Us,

From Above and Within,

and From Others,

Thundering All Sorts of Threats.

God’s Word, Jesus,

Heals All That Ails Us,

and Calms All the Storms In Us.

Psalm 6:5

For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise?

Matthew 9:22

Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, ‘Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.’ And instantly the woman was made well.

Words of Grace For Today

Life is full of challenges, suffering, and grief.

Life is full of memories for which we can give thanks, and praise God for God’s abundant goodness … even for us undeserving sinners.

Life is full of illnesses that divert all our energies from living fully, to trying to cope with this painful moment or that overwhelming demand on us, a demand we must meet if we want to survive.

God knows this. God knew this before God began to create the universe, and us in it.

God sends Jesus, and Jesus’ followers, to heal us, not just in body, but also in our minds and spirits, so that our faith will make us well.

Jesus and Jesus’ followers save us from death and from the places where/when we have no memories of God’s great works for us and our ancestors.

Like the woman, pushing through the crowd to get close to Jesus, to just ‘touch’ his garment, we often find ourselves pushing against the crowds of people that think they know all that is to be known about life and that they have the ‘keys to the cities’ or to the counties or countrysides (or as it is: municipal districts) in which we live. Then, when we finally reach through the mass of discontent and querdenkers and bullies, we feel the goodness and life-giving healing power of Jesus’ Word and Being.

We are instantly made well. Or sometimes over months or years we are made well. Or sometimes we get to go home to the dwelling Jesus has prepared for us, where no one forgets to give thanks and praise to God for all God’s goodness, grace, love, and mercy.

It’s a dance, to a lovely melody, with great harmonies in all the parts, with a great partner, with pauses when we get tired or stiff from arthritis, or simply tired of the foolishness of other people in this good creation.

So today, we dance on, to the beat of Jesus’ drum. (Some used to call it Thor’s hammer.)

What Was He Thinking?!

Thursday, June 30, 2022

The wedge is there on the side of the tree towards where it is markedly leaning, with a long back cut towards the other side. And there is a cut above it, made by poking the saw nose first through the tree! That’s an unusual, often dangerous cut to make, and completely unnecessary here. So what was he thinking?

Here you see clearly the angled cut made up into the top cut. What was that for? It guaranteed the saw would get clamped by 3000 lbs.

From the other side you see clearly the cut that was not made, which left the tree hanging and clamping his saw. When I arrived the idea they had tried was to ‘push’ the tree over. Really! Physics is pretty much unbiased: two people totally maybe 300 lbs are not going to break that much tree fibre by pushing with all their might. That’s what saws are for.

Exodus 15:2

Moses started off his recounting God’s great deliverance through the Red Sea: ‘The Lord is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.’

Luke 1:49

Mary said: ‘for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.’

Words of Grace For Today

Lordy, Lordy, what was he thinking?!!

Sometimes it is hard to figure out what motivates people or what they were thinking when the started down the road you find them on.

Take the man and the woman who found themselves cutting down a tree on private property (not their property at all) claiming they thought it was public land, as if that would make it better. His excuse was it was dead already.

(Now I was done for the day, tired and sore. There was just enough time before the late sunset at 22:00 ish to get a shower and be in bed to enjoy not being awake still for the almost as-late-as-it-gets-all-year sunset. Then I hear voices, excited, and a chainsaw revved up, working a cut, then another, then another, and then … hard to tell what that sound was, by then I’d found the three of them, and one was as it should be … the chainsaw, because even if it was stuck, it was doing exactly what it was designed to do, letting a fool get into trouble and saving his butt. My first question was, “What were you doing?” “Cutting down the tree.” “Yes, I see that, but what were you doing with those cuts? I’m curious and always willing to learn. I’ve been around a lot of tree felling and I’ve never seen any cuts like that?” To which he just got belligerent, swore and refused to talk, like a teenager caught in something stupid and inexplicable.)

Yes, the tree was dead, but what was he thinking going on private land to cut down even a dead tree.

He challenged the information I gave him that this was private land he was cutting down a dead tree on. He asked about all the other campers out here.

Well, that’s hard to figure since the neighbouring piece of land is public land, either crown land or municipal district land, that people have used and abused for generations as a camp and drink and drug and bush party place. Admittedly consumption of marijuana is legal and the current government has made it legal to drink in the provincial campgrounds, and then only at your own campsite. It’s still illegal to use other recreational drugs anywhere (well almost, since there are safe sites and cities where possession of small amounts is still illegal but they have permission from the government of Canada not to enforce those laws) and it’s still illegal to walk away from your own camp and drink, or to drink on public land without a campsite of your own. Which means that Uncle Bill cannot come visit you where you are camping and legally down a beer with you, or smoke a joint, or shoot up some ‘joy’.

That all said, the neighbouring piece of land is public land and it is illegal to cut down a standing tree (living or dead) on public land (unless you have bought and paid for a permit to do explicitly that.)

So what were these people thinking or planning?

More concerning is, if one takes a look at the cuts the guy made with the chainsaw, why did he intentionally get the chainsaw clamped in the tree?

There are lots of ways to bring down a tree, many of them very dangerous that you can get away with until that last time when you don’t and that’s the last thing you do in this life. These kind of cuts are like that: intended to get someone killed.

He was luck, extremely lucky. He went to fetch and axe to cut the last few inches that held the tree up. I went and brought back the chainsaw I borrow and waited. I offered to cut it carefully while he held his saw. No, bravado and stupidity won out and he proceeded to whack at it with his dull axe until the tree fell, all ~3000 lbs of it and his chainsaw hit the ground, luckily clear of the tree.

And there the dead, felled tree sits, 200 yards from the property line, in the middle of the woods, not even near a road. It’s pine so it’s not safe to burn in a stove unless one cleans the chimney very often, like every two weeks at least. Lots of fuel (with that sap that sticks around) to burn, but there’s no good use for it.

This guy is one of God’s creatures. What was God thinking when this guy was created?

As for me, like Mary, I can say for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And with Moses: The Lord is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

But what was God thinking? And what was that guy thinking: ‘gonna test God’s ability to save me?’

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.

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.