Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 17

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Rutted Ways Ahead

Lost in the Ice

Canoe Ready

or Set in the Comfortable and Familiar

The Challenge to be

Who we are is Constant

1 Kings 8:58

Incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances, which he commanded our ancestors.

Colossians 2:6-7

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Words of Grace For Today

There are so many things to do to discipline oneself to live well.

The challenges are never ending, sometimes overwhelming, other times simple. Life without challenges is not life. The questions constantly before us are:

A. Who are we?

B. Whose are we?

Every other question is subsumed into these, and the answers we give to every other question with our living (thinking, dreaming, planning, organizing, talking, writing, and doing – or not) are also the answer to these two questions.

Once we realize and confess that we are

A. wretched sinners saved by Grace alone (not by anything we do/not do/are/aren’t), transformed continually to be Saints, and

B. God’s people by baptism into Christ,

Then we have our work cut out for us to live out the promise God creates us to be for other people: That we will bear God’s Grace and the Good News of Jesus’ saving us all, also them.

So we continue to live our lives rooted and built up in Christ, as we are established in faith.

We incline our hearts to God walking in Christ’s Way, keeping his commandments to love our neighbour and ourselves and our enemies as he has loved us.

And, as the saints in light who have gone before us have taught us, we live with overflowing gratitude.

Covid 19 has put somethings in perspective, slowed us down, kept us home, given us time to see ourselves and our families up close for hours on end, or to submerse ourselves in solitude (for those of us who live alone.)

The challenges are still great, and they tax us in new ways, and they give us new opportunities to discover who we are, and whose we are.

For this we give thanks!

The Fog of Life

Makes the Light of Christ

Visible

We Reflect God’s Perfection Imperfectly

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – May 14

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Through the fog

See

the Sticks and Stones

of Reality.

Job 13:9

Will it be well with you when he searches you out? Or can you deceive him, as one person deceives another?

2 Corinthians 13:5

Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless, indeed, you fail to pass the test!

Words of Grace For Today

An exam, sample exams, test scores, failing marks, proving oneself.

All of these come into play for human examinations.

God works differently.

First, there is actually a kind of failing, of standing against the work of the Holy Spirit so doggedly and determinedly and persistently and … or something else (we simply do not know what it is that we can do to fail.) Certainly we know we all fail to be good enough; we are saved only by the Grace of God, through faith, by the work of the Holy Spirit.

That’s exactly the breaking point of our trying to determine when we fail God’s Grace so completely that we are outside God’s abundant love. We humans cannot judge it.

All we know is that God’s Grace is for us and for all others, even the most wretched sinners … as we all were before Jesus saves us …

and

still are!

There are serious deceptions that humans carry out in daily life to get the better of others for themselves. None of these work on God.

God sees right through us to the core and all the way to the core and back. God knows everything about us.

If we were planning … no (it is not IF, it is since … so) Since we all plan to try to deceive God about ourselves this is definitely something to worry about, to be fearful of, and to become existentially anxious about.

The freedom we seek is to realize our attempts at deceiving God and how futile the are, and to once again throw ourselves into God’s mercy.

We can test ourselves. If we are so out of touch with our place with God it is a good place to start some finite self-awareness. The real test has already been played out on the cross, and with the resurrection we have all passed … on Jesus’ coat-tails.

When we realize how dependent our existence is on God’s Grace, then we more often, perhaps more quickly, give up on our efforts to deceive God … and other humans … about ourselves. We learn to point to God’s Grace, and offer it to others.

The greatest freedom is ours when we no longer need to depend on our own performances at all the tests life puts in front of us. We can boldly, courageously, faithfully, and lovingly trust that Jesus is with us each step of the way … and use all our energies and focus to work to give God glory in all we attempt, give God thanks in all we accomplish, and be even more grateful that we survive all the times our attempts fail.

Covid 19 is more than a test of our health. It is a test of our ability to work with and for other humans. We will fail. We will succeed, only as God gives us the abilities and we work diligently with them.

Covid 19 may be in many ways a test of our faith.

Consider that every day we face tests of our faith.

Consider there is much we each can do, even in these times.

Testing our faith does not produce a grade or pass/fail. It is not a measure of our pasts. It is a preparation for the future. It gives us a measure compared to the saints in light, which helps us answer the question, “Is there more we can do! If so, show us!”

Prepare us. Guide us. Rescue us.

one day at a time.

Ain’t life wonderful!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – April 30

Thursday, April 30, 2020

Perspective Made Clear:

God blesses,

Humans mess’s

Grace alone saves us.

Psalms 73:1

Truly God is good to the upright, to those who are pure in heart.

1 John 3:21-22

Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

Words of Grace For Today

Covid 19 puts many things into perspective.

When our boys were young they came asking if they could have coffee. They were intelligent and persistent. Being occupied and having uttered a few no’s! already I said to them that if they drank coffee they would die. Sort of true and it bought me some peace.

Not for long. They came back a few days later insisting that they be given coffee, it smelled so good! I said no, and repeated the half truth from before. If you drink coffee you will die. … Well, OK back then, a recent study had said that coffee was real bad for you, and worse for children; or so I rationalized it. But the boys did not fall away from but rather into some intelligence beyond their parents’.

They responded, yes, if we drink coffee we will die, but if we don’t drink coffee we will die, also.

So we want coffee.

God is truly good to the upright and pure in heart. And God is even better to the worst sinners, for whom God sent God’s own son, Jesus, to teach, heal and forgive … and then give his own life to redeem.

If we have boldness before God and obey his commands and do what pleases God, God will give us whatever we ask. And God gives whatever they ask for to even those who displease God, sinners that all humans are!

Not really. God answers everyone who calls on God. Most often God gives us what we need, not what we ask for. Most often the answer is simply NO, or wait, or maybe. Rarely God answers with a resounding YES! giving exactly what we ask for.

The temptation is to think that IF we behave rightly (and/or fill in whatever correct description you choose) THEN God will bless us with good things (and/or fill in whatever correct description of benefit from God you choose). This is the Devil’s way of getting us to think that we are little gods unto ourselves, that our behaviour controls God’s response to us.

When we start down that path, the Devil has us for life! Again. Until Jesus saves us again!

God’s reality is that BECAUSE God chooses (fill in whatever God chooses) THEREFORE we are blessed (and can think, say, or do whatever, or receive or fill in whatever blessing you want to include.

God’s reality is only God can choose to bless us. And we can only choose to refuse it. As we embrace God’s blessings it is only because the Holy Spirit moves us to do so.

The kind of religion that says we have to earn our way to God is as meaningless as counting backwards from ten. The best result is we end up unconscious. Anything else is painful to watch or experience.

God’s Grace though changes the whole world, from church being a social club with great language, coffee and tax deductions, to church being a calling to be more than we ever thought we could be, bringing abundant life to others in need.

After God acts, and we respond, then life lets loose, and our tasks vary according to our gifts and jobs and time. For now that will be a photo to share, occasionally. I get to create, you get to enjoy the result (or not.) Regardless whether we survive Covid 19 or not, we will all eventually die … for now the challenge is to be better than the best we imagined we could be. Pure of heart and obedient are just starters.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Apr 10

Good Friday, April 10, 2020

Dark Days, Foggy Days and Minds: These are not the End!

Psalms 112:1

Praise the Lord! Happy are those who fear the Lord, who greatly delight in his commandments.

1 Peter 2:24-25

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

Words of Grace For Today

Happiness is elusive. It can be superficially faked or a product of will-ful ignorance. Set out to gain true happiness and it cannot be found, nor held onto. Even in the worst of times, true happiness can overwhelm us. Most often it sits on one side or the other of the border between reality and wish. It has taken me most of my many decades of life to realize that we can choose to embrace happiness as it sits on or so close to that border. We can at least be ready to invite it to accompany us through our days.

Jesus commands us to love one another. Doing so can only give us great delight and happiness, for we then fulfill the very purpose for which God created us.

Our sins darken our days, casting long shadows endlessly across our futures. Our sins cover our single steps forward in a soup of dense fog, so that we lose our way, and ourselves. We are lost like stupid sheep.

God does not abandon us even on our darkest days. On the torture instrument of a cross, Jesus hung, crucified in agony and died; so that the price for our sins would be paid, and we could see again, so the fog of our sins would be lifted, so that we could choose also this day to do what God created us to do!

It is a dark day, Good Friday is. Out of sheer darkness God makes the light of Christ bright to all of us; the darker our sins, the more obvious Jesus’ light, love and forgiveness that gives us life free of sin. In this darkness, see the shadow of the cross. Orient your life by precisely that with all the hope of happiness afforded you these days. Share then the slightest glimmer of happiness, the light of Christ that gives us life free of sin. People thirst for exactly this, especially now.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – Apr 7

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

See the big picture. See it in detail. See through the fog.

Zephaniah 3:15

The Lord has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.

Mark 4:40

He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’

Words of Grace For Today

Jesus paid heavily that we might be forgiven, and know we are forgiven, so that we can forgive others. Jesus frees us from our sins. We can turn our enemies away, by forgiving them so that they become God’s creatures, fellow sojourners on this planet earth. Given God’s truth for all occasions we need fear no disaster.

That does not mean disasters will not come our way.

Only that we need not fear them.

Fear cripples us. Anxiety cripples us. We revert to fight, flight, or freeze instinctual responses that cut off our reasoning. Great when we face a charging hyena or lion. But facing most everyday challenges and many extraordinary ones, like Covid-19, our instinctual, fear and anxiety based responses make their own disasters quicker than we realize.

Covid-19 responses need to be carefully planned, habitually and in great detail carried out, and reviewed and revised in light of the latest real, truthful information about the virus’ transmission and ways of surviving the illness when we or others in our care come down with symptoms.

Literally, fear and panic will definitely kill us, if not physically then in every other manner.

Why are we still afraid? This is not any kind of fear Jesus asks about, this is the fear that will kill us. Have we still no faith that Jesus will save us, even if we die? When we no longer fear death or illness or anything, then we can act with considered, wise actions, which not only protect us from Covid-19 but give us and those around us life, even as we self-isolate and keep physical distance from others.

Lent as Story

2020.02Feb25LentOurStory

Lent as (our new) Story

One of God’s gift to us humans is our ability to understand stories, to hear them and experience what is in them, and to write stories to convey more than just the words describe, or as in movies, more than what the images portray by themselves.

Imagination More Than We Could Know

Imagination More Than We Could Know

Stories have the key to communicate the most hidden, the most complex, the most poignant, the most critical, and the most beautiful aspects of life itself; and in that communication to the reader, listener, or viewer to teach something new, to connect at an un-imagined level, and to reveal something even beyond what the author, reader and creator conceived possible.

Our Words and Images Reach The Pinnacle and Depth of Beauty

Our Words and Images Reach The Pinnacle and Depth of Beauty

This Lent we embark on 40 days of fasting, reflection, prayer and meditation which themselves reflect a long tradition of the preparation to hear the story of Passion week and Easter Sunday, and which in themselves each year are a new story for each one of us.

What is your story, the one you are always part of?

What is your story, the one you are always part of?

What new will you learn, imagine, encounter on your 40 day journey this Lent?

Can you see something new?

Can you see something new?

Lent has it’s own stories, worthy of hearing again and again: Shrove Tuesday: the yeast and oil used in one last meal so the house has none in it during Lent. The ashes of our origins and ends as organisms on this earth. Marked in the sign of the cross, branding us as belonging to Christ. No meat. Fasting severe or limited. Giving up something. Engaging in something. Praying daily or even hourly, especially for one’s enemies.

Can we see through the fog?

Can we see through the fog?

All this to prepare our hearts, mind and souls to hear, imagine, and celebrate Jesus’ sacrifice and victory over death and all our sin.

Christ’s story is filled with Light!

Christ’s story is filled with Light!

All this to prepare our hearts, mind and souls to hear, imagine, and celebrate Jesus’ story lived out in our lives.

Finding our way through the frozen of life.

Finding our way through the frozen of life.

The Reality of Gaslighting

What reflects who you are?

For the last seven years I have been gaslit by so many people. First at home and then it spread through the church as the lay pastor started in, by people in the community recruited by the RCMP, the RCMP themselves, by lawyers, the prosecutors and even my own lawyers, and most recently by the judges and justices who created their own lies in order to convict me, and to deny my applications.

This may be difficult for many to believe.

It used to be unimaginable to me.

But no longer.

Now it is the truth that impacts my daily life, as my ‘ex’, the lawyers, and the courts have completely ruined me financially driving me into debt so far I cannot see the light or the tunnel. I have left to my name a huge debt, a bicycle, a tent, a sleeping bag and my clothes. I live alone in the woods. I survive on money borrowed from family and friends, using borrowed highly modified equipment to survive the elements on next to no money.

It appears that the lies told about me and those who have told them, and the judges who have ruled using them, have completely determined my life.

This is not so. They have determined some of the external circumstances of my life, and they seem to persist at determining more. But they cannot determine who I am and what I have done (or not done).

The truth reflects the beauty God created in the world, which lies do not change.

I am still the same kind, gracious, man of faith that I have always been, with a good set of skills and knowledge, and abilities, and above all the assurance that, because God loves me, I am able to love, forgive (or not as it is), breathe, and extend Grace as it is extended to me.

Those who have gaslit me, those who have repeatedly and intentionally lied about me, in order to try to create a reality about me that simply is not so; these people have not created a reality about me. They have created a huge set of lies.

Their lies do not determine who I am. They do not define me.

The fog of lies cannot conceal that lies are lies, as weeds are weeds.

Their lies determine who they are. Their lies define them.

My ex and the children I have long since forgiven. They were, at my ex’s invitation, my life, my love, and God’s gifts to me.

But all the others, those who are given authority and responsibility to investigate and rule based on the truth. those whose positions are to be respected, they are not only guilty; they make a habit of gaslighting others, and some have laughed at their maniacal fun at hurting innocent people.

As I am ordained to extend grace and forgiveness to all people whom I meet, I am also ordained to bind the sins of those who should not be forgiven. This is a rare thing. But these lies are all too common, oft repeated, and engaged in as sport, as the record of innocent men convicted by the courts belies.

The damage their lies do to the innocent men and the children is incomprehensible. They leave children in the care of people who create lies about men who healthily love their children. They leave children with sole parents who suffer psychotic breaks, who project their own faults on to others near them including the children and their spouses. They leave the children without a healthy parent, and with a most unhealthy parent, who does the unspeakable to the children, and then adds those terrible things to the list of lies about which they gaslight their spouses.

The damage is also to the spouse (and children) who lie to create a false and terrible story about their innocent men. Being believed when one lies, and encouraged even to lie more, disrupts any trust even the liar could possibly have in the just and fairness of the world. At any moment someone else could start lying about them and they would be ruined based on those lies.

The damage is to everyone, for at any moment anyone can start lying about anyone else, and the person lied about will be ruined, even though they are innocent. This is the destruction of trust, without which society disintegrates into a morass of nothing being true or trustworthy or healthy, for anyone.

This is who the people who gaslight others are: they are those who dismantle everyone’s ability to trust the rule of law, the word of people, the basic justness of our country. Many peoples, against whom prejudice and bias has run rampant, have known this for generations.

Now I known it, personally.

No matter what you expect or believe, that leaf is there. The truth is there.
No lie can change the truth.

Whether you believe me or not is immaterial, but it is vitally important. You could easily be next.

This is what those who gaslight others do to our country. This is who they are. This is how they try to determine others to be worse than themselves, but that is a futile effort. This is who they determine themselves to be: corrupters and perverters of all that is good.

Thus their sins are bound, and they are told, so that they are as aware as they can be made to be. They have time to amend their lives, through telling the complete truth about their lies, openly, publicly, and through making restitution as it can be made.

Then they can be reconciled with their victims.

Until the day of them telling the full truth or God judging them, this is not something they can leave behind. It is what they have to look forward to, to that day when the Light of Christ will shine. May it shine soon, now on this earth, during our lives. But if not, then soon enough.

When the Light of Christ shines on what they have done, and the truth I have always provided, no witnesses or rules of evidence will be needed. God knows everything. There is no statute of limitations or excuses of lack of resources to judge fairly according to the truth. God knows the truth, the absolute truth. God will judge their sins.

I am not determined by their gaslighting. I do struggle to survive the effects, but I am blessed each day. I live thankful and even joyful at times. I will survive until God brings me home to the New Jerusalem, the city of light, into the room prepared for me by Christ.

I know who I am. I am blessed to have lived a very self-aware life.

Lies do not determine or define the person whom they are told about; they determine and define the person who tells the lies.

The truth always leaves tracks. The truth will be known.
The Light of Christ will shine.
It is and will be beautiful!

The reality of Gaslighting is that it is destructive for everyone, but most of all for those who tell the lies.

A Riddle in Photos

An early morning stroll

Before Eucharist and Coffee with Breakfast

Brought me to the road towards the East and the rising sun.

Golden light and a sound alerted me to a photo about to be.

Can you see the sound?

Can you tell what is different in each photo? (ignore that the position of the camera moves slightly so that the view shifts, the edges are different.)

What is a wonderful Saturday morning, -2⁰ with clear sky and waning gibbous moon, a touch of frost and a good warm fire keeping ‘home’ warm, and the water for coffee boiling,

if not a perfect opportunity to play and make a small riddle-puzzle, seek-and-find photo series?

First View

.

Second view

.

Third View. See it yet?

.

Fourth View. Have your glasses on?

.

Fifth view. Get out the magnifying glass?

.

.

How long did it take you?

What is your time compared to God’s time?

73804 Mitkommen!

73804 mitkommen!

As the cool days of fall darken earlier and earlier, and the dark of night stays with us longer and longer …

Dark comes early, closer to South

Dark comes early, closer to South

Leaves fall all

Leaves fall all

The wood pile is just high enough,

The food sufficient for the coming days,

The water enough and replenish-able,

And the air is fresh,

My clothing rather well prepared for the coming months,

The shelter from the weather to come is mostly prepared,

My labour is directed, consumedly so, towards writing what must be written.

My love grows and wanes, I am loved well and always.

And God holds me safe.

What more can one ask for from life, from God, from all that might be?

All that might be.

All that might be.

How many humans have had so much less, so much less, so much less.

So much less.

So much less.

The beauty of the world is at my fingertips, literally, as a cell phone camera captures what can be seen and hoped for?

Cell camera photos: harvest moon, over three harvesters

Cell camera photos: harvest moon, over three harvesters

Wahrheit

Was sonst?

God’s blessings

For what more would anyone wish from life?

More than the time each morning to celebrate that Christ is with us, in body and blood?

More than the ability to see beauty and share it with others?

Sharing beauty

Sharing beauty

More than the ability to know truth, without doubt, or hesitation?

More than to live well?

Live Well

Live Well

Legend:

73804 mitkommen! – from the movie Remembrance, Tomasc calls out to Hannah to come with him, he dressed as a German soldier initiating their escape, as he carries a canister of photos of the Nazi concentration camp.

Wahrheit, was sonst? – Truth, what else?

Und weshalb nicht?

Und weshalb nicht?

West with Accents

West with Accents

Truth, How About You?

The Cost

“Everything has a cost, even the truth.

The Cost for Truth has been everything for me, except a sleeping bag, a tent, my clothes and a bicycle.

The Cost for Truth has been everything for me, except a sleeping bag, a tent, my clothes and a bicycle.

The Reward

But the reward for truth is a clear eye and a clear conscience.”

Clear eyes enable one to see the beauty of life.

Clear eyes enable one to see the beauty of life.

The True Work of Justice

“It is as important to exonerate an innocent person as to convict a guilty person.”

Clearly Fog Challenges Clarity

Clearly Fog Challenges Clarity

I have a clear eye and clear conscience.

So many who’ve had the chance have not paid any price for truth. It is a party where they imbibe the intoxicating evil of false power based on the Devil’s seductions, drunk so deeply in order to ignore the truth.

I do not see good people working for justice to exonerate the innocent, myself included. Like hundreds of thousands others, I see good people become evil, working to convict the innocent like me, a kind, generous, man of great integrity, an excellent stay at home father.

The long view allows one to see the the rocks and sticks, and the wonderful light.

The long view allows one to see the the rocks and sticks, and the wonderful light.

It’s colour that plays with the light.

It’s colour that plays with the light.

Rest in the solitude and calm is possible as God blesses those persecuted without just cause.

Rest in the solitude and calm is possible as God blesses those persecuted without just cause.

But woe to those who unjustly persecute the innocent. For God judges without rules of evidence or games of cover-ups possible. God judges the reality of one’s life and actions. There is no hiding possible for evil. There is no negotiating for something other than actual reality, for that is what God sees and judges. Entrance to blessing never comes with Spin or Cover-up, or declaring something to be other than it is.

In this life, our challenge is to not become like the persecutors, not to become vengeful and vindictive … but to remain, trusting God’s promises and quiet blessings each day, … to remain fully alive with grace.

As for me and my non-existent household, unjustly taken from me thrice, I and the Holy Spirit, we choose to live only by Grace.

How about you?

Today?

Will this be the day of our double victory?