Category: Stupidity

Lord, Teach Us

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Even in the Wilderness

God’s Spirit Moves

Moving Us to Love and Trust God

and

to Love God’s People,

Even the Idiots.

Psalm 86:5

For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.

Luke 11:1

Jesus was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’

Words of Grace For Today

Lord, teach us to pray.

Our enemies continue to deny their evil deeds, blaming us for the destruction they have wrought, using their corrupted power to assert lies as if they ever could be reality.

Covidiots continue to threaten so many lives as once again they crowd the various campsites with multiple vehicles and units. On site within ten feet of the water draws 1 camper, 7 tents and 9 vehicles, normally this site holds at most two campers. There is no visible sewage facilities, other than perhaps one shared toilet in the one camper. Young adults, most vulnerable now to dying of Covid, play a mere foot from each other around something.

Another site hosts 3 tents and 3 units, normally it hold 1 or 2 units. Another site hosts 3 large units, normally it holds 1 unit. Another has 6 units fit in where 2 units usually occupy the space. Yet another that usually holds 1 unit, has three tents and a biffy tent, the only one among all the sites.

At each site a small to large crowd gathers around a fire, a buffet is set out on a table for all to visit as often as they wish. There are no masks or observances that Covid will kill them with a bare day’s notice, and/or us, and/or many, many other people.

The seasons change, and this year’s normals are last year’s extremes, and we wonder if living in the woods will be survivable for the few years we have left!

So we ask again this morning, this noon, and this night, Lord, teach us to pray, again.

Teach us so that we know our real concerns may be left in your hands, so that evil doers with power, idiots of all kinds who threaten many lives, and the climate changes that will come our way may all be left in your hands as our twilight years approach and we wonder how many years or months or days we have left in this life of wonder.

Teach us to pray.

Lord, teach us.

‘Abba in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come! Your will be done! (soon please!) on earth as in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from all evil! For yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen’

Lord, teach us to pray so that we can live trusting your Grace and Love for us and for all people.

Wise Choices OR the Usual?

Friday, May 7, 2021

No Matter How Nice It Appears,

When We Choose to Walk Away from God,

We Walk on Thin Ice.

We Choose Thin Ice

Too Often

Psalm 25:5

Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.

1 John 5:15

If we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.

Words of Grace For Today

There are so many choices we must make each day or make by trying to not make the choices; they catch us no matter.

The wiser we get, hopefully before we get too old, the more we notice how little we know of everything we need to know. We see how desperately we need help.

So we learn to plead to God for help: lead us in your truth, and teach us.

Where else are we to ask for what we need?

Where else in this world of corruption from top to bottom are we to find truth, about us, about others, and about God?

We know when we ask God, God will provide what we need.

This is God’s promise, which we can trust.

There is no more we need from life than what God provides, for it give us everything worth waiting for; God’s truth that is irrefutable.

Trusting God’s truth gives us life in the face of so many lies about ourselves, about others, about what God is and is not.

Trusting God’s truth gives us life, life abundant.

Desires of Birds, Bees, Beasts, and Fish

Thursday, May 6, 2021

God’s Value

Is Everything.

…

God Values

Every Thing and Being

In Creation.

Psalm 145:15-16

The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing.

Luke 12:22-24

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!’

Words of Grace For Today

I am not sure about this:

You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing.

We humans have a way of ‘desiring’ so much more no matter how much we have.

Further the birds, bees, and beasts, and not to forget the fish, struggle under the effects of our ‘possessing the land’, ‘dominating it’, and destroying ecosystems that have taken millions of years to establish!

So?

The truth is God created the world quite capable of sustaining all the life created on it, satisfying the desire of every living thing. God promises to provide for the needs those desires are given to life of all kinds, in order that all life can continue on God’s good earth.

That includes our desires that God gave us so that we could continue to live among all the life on this planet.

How did we screw it up so badly!?!

Well, God loved us, wanted us to be able to love, which means we need to be able to choose to love or not, and …

Well so much of the time we humans have chosen, do choose, and forever will choose to do other than love! Youch, what a price!

We are destroying what provides us the ability to live on earth! It’ll take us maybe 100 or so, maybe only 25 or 5 years, to unmake the earth capable of sustaining life, something God created in 6 days, or millions of years measured in our time.

What power we have … to destroy!

And what power we have, as well, to love, when we so choose. Choosing to love is possible, for any one, for every one, of us … though only as God makes us able.

The beginning of God making us able is to promise that God values us greatly. Knowing that we can choose to act responsibly and responsively to that unconditional, life-giving and life-renewing love!

God willing and ‘the creek not rising’ (maybe it ought to be ‘the oceans not rising’) we may still live on planet earth in 1000 years and more!

God’s Word started this all. God’s Word sustains us all. Certainly God’s Word is able to bring us to that miracle of miracles.

So what are we going to do today, with God’s love?

Healing, Snow, Courage: All by Grace

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Hosea 11:3

It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them.

2 Peter 3:15

Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. … Our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him.

Words of Grace For Today

In time everything changes. This morning it’s a thing, quite  a thing, to go to bed with grass showing

grazed on by deer

and then

to wake at 3:00

to see the flakes flying in the flashlight

and to wake

before breakfast

to see the whole of everything and beyond covered

well by snow still falling.

But then that is life

and weather in Alberta by the lake.

Change is not always so survivable, especially not when it is evil, aimed at eroding or emptying our souls of unconditional love, forgiveness, grace, courage and hope.

Then we come to know that we need God every day, whether we see and know God or not, to heal us and to fill us with wisdom of living as those who have received salvation as a gift from God.

Only by grace are we able to live having received and sharing unconditional love, forgiveness, grace, courage and hope … with all people no matter what comes our way,

whether it is snow or Covid 19.

Swimming Circles in Emptiness of Opulence

Sunday, January 31, 2021

When we have so much and still cannot share generously and freely,

We drive in circles,

leaving tracks all over others,

bearing witness to our craziness, the emptiness of our lives,

and our inability to live abundantly.

1 Chronicles 29:9

Then the people rejoiced because these had given willingly, for with single mind they had offered freely to the Lord; King David also rejoiced greatly.

2 Corinthians 9:7

Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

Words of Grace For Today

Why do we give?

Why do you give?

We do not give in order to earn God’s favour. That is a futile way to earn God’s favour and a destructive way to live.

We give because 1) others are in need of what we can share, and 2) because giving cheerfully, not reluctantly or under compulsion, reflects and determines who we are and who we become.

We give because God has not left us poor!

The Sheldons were a large family in severe financial distress after a series of misfortunes. The help they received was not adequate, yet they managed their meagre income with ingenuity – and without complaint.

A new social worker in poverty-stricken Appalachia was assigned the Sheldon family and shared this story about her first visit with them.

One fall day I visited the Sheldons in their ramshackle rented house where they lived at the edge of the woods. Despite a painful physical handicap, Mr. Sheldon had shot and butchered a bear that strayed into their yard once too often. The meat had been processed into all the big canning jars they could find or swap for. There would be meat in their diet even during the worst of the winter when their fuel costs were high.

Mr Sheldon offered a jar of bear meat to me. I hesitated to accept it, but the giver met my unspoken resistance firmly. “Now you just have to take this. We want you to have it. We don’t have much, that’s a fact; but we ain’t poor!”

I couldn’t resist asking, “What’s the difference?”

His answer proved unforgettable. “When you can give something away, even when you don’t have much, then you ain’t poor.When you don’t feel easy giving something away even if you got more’n you need, then you’re poor, whether you know it or not.”

Florence Ferrier Gospel Notes 2001, Brian Stoffregen, reworked KAS and TL 2004 &2020

Just because one is wealthy, powerful or famous does not mean one does not need, for one’s own well being, to give and give generously. Even King David joined the people in giving and in rejoicing!

As for people that are so flush with luxury and comfort that they have forgotten that others are in need, and who are so poor the hoard their untold wealth, only God can deal with them. We cannot nor do we need to deal with them. That’s one more blessing for which we can be grateful to God!

Who Do We Follow? One who’s blind or God become human?

Friday, January 15, 2021

The Word

Is Everywhere

Even after the sun sets!

Genesis 3:6

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.

Luke 6:39

He also told them a parable: ‘Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?”

Words of Grace For Today

Who do we follow?

Can we follow others …

into the ways of the Devil?

on the way of Jesus?

So much is made, to great detriment, of ‘the woman’ seeing the forbidden tree was good for food, eating first, then offering her husband the same.

Truth is, as every honest person knows, men and women alike are as easily and as likely to see forbidden fruit as something they desire, must have, and for which they do great evil things to acquire.

Every day, each of us, needs a Word, whether from our memories or renewed, currently spoken to us, … a Word that creates faith in us such that we can resist temptation to pursue life for ourselves (to the great detriment of many others).

That Word does not come from anyone, anywhere, at any time, other than from God. And God’s Word must be spoken, written or communicated (through events, dance, music or something similar) by other humans. It is a paradox: only God’s Word can save us; only another human can provide that Word for us.

Thank God, God’s Kingdom is at hand, and God’s Word is given freely for anyone who is inspired by the Spirit to provide it to others.

In this time of pandemic, now in it’s tenth month of restrictions for us, we need this Word … to inspire us not to listen to the words of discouragement, of resignation, and especially of lies … as if ignoring the danger with reckless behaviour can save any of us.

Yet covidiots spring up everywhere, sometimes even in us.

The Word…

Only the Word that gives us breath and life, joy and meaning, love and hope can save us from the Devil’s temptations if not to participate in covidiot behaviours, then to ridicule and complain about those who do.

Thankfully we are not led by blind men or blind women. We are led by Jesus, who has vision to see God as we are unable.

We can approach each day with confidence that God feeds us all we require for abundant life … there is no need to go searching for fruit from the forbidden tree, or even the forbidden tree. Thankfully God provides those who can provide God’s Word to us, and even use us to provide God’s Word to others. Covid 19 has given us even greater opportunities to shared God’s Word.

Be of good courage. There’s much good to be done each day.

7th Day of …

Thursday, December 31, 2020

In the darkness of the woods,

the sun still shines.

In the darkness of our suffering at our enemies’ hands,

Christ’s Light still shines.

We get to be Christ’s Light

even for our enemies.

Psalm 6:10

All my enemies shall be ashamed and struck with terror; they shall turn back, and in a moment be put to shame.

John 16:24

Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

Words of Grace For Today

Enemies shamed, our joy complete.

It sounds like schadenfreude, our joy at others’ misery. Is this part of our Christmas tradition, too?!

It sounds like God’s justice is actually our revenge, or that God’s justice is like Karma: ‘what goes around comes around’.

It sounds like we can ask for anything and it will be done for us … and our joy is completed in having our wishes and whims fulfilled.

When it sounds like that, it is the devil messing around with the Good News, bringing us to suffer perdition even as we live our days on earth.

What a shame to suffer, to be so skewed as to think that the devil’s ways are God’s ways. That is the real shame, for that mix up is the root of all sin. Often instead of knowing they are the devil’s ways we think that they are the good ways we have chosen to pursue for our own good. Hah! How foolish we humans can be, and what a shame we suffer for being such fools.

The Good News is simple: God loves us, all of our fore-bearers descendants, and all of our descendants … and all our enemies! Of course we wish to be freed from suffering at our enemies’ hands. But, though our instincts are to pursue revenge, to cause our enemies suffering, God does not delight in their suffering, nor in their deaths. Instead God wishes that they be converted from our enemies to our friends, from followers of the devil to followers of Jesus.

In this is God’s joy complete.

In this double victory we are freed from suffering at our enemies hands, and we gain new friends and new siblings as children of God.

And in that our joy is complete, as we wish what God wishes: that our enemies be saved as we are saved by Jesus’ sacrifice of unconditional love.

We have waited to celebrate Christ’s birth, because in waiting we can see what otherwise we could not: the patience God has with us and with our enemies. This tradition of Advent waiting is not one many keep anymore. Yet it is a tradition that is more valuable than many others.

It is a tradition that Covid 19 cannot interrupt, rather it disrupts our jumping on the early Christmas bandwagon so easily. It helps us remember Advent is … significantly … for waiting.

In that tradition we may encounter the mystery of God, and be overwhelmed yet again by God’s grace and love for us all, even for our enemies! As the mysteries of God surround us, carry us, and astound us, with our humble praise we give God thanks in all things.

What a life!

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace December 7

Monday, December 7, 2020

Look Up

To See the Light,

Wait, Keep Alert!

For Christ Will Come Again To Shine Everywhere,

In Every Heart!

Daniel 12:3

Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.

2 Corinthians 5:20

So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Words of Grace For Today

The pied piper led many though they knew not why or whereto.

Lemmings like sheep follow a leader who is blind to the path taken, even when it’s over a cliff to their death.

If we are ambassadors for Christ and God makes God’s appeal through us to people to be reconciled to God, and the wise shine like the daytime brightness of the sky, and those who lead others to righteousness shine forever like the stars in the dark night, then to what are we to lead people.

We confess that we cannot do anything to make ourselves righteous before God. We confess that we cannot do anything to reconcile ourselves to God.

Can we then lead other people to make themselves righteous before God? Can we lead other people to reconcile themselves to God? No, not all all.

When we try, we are as stupid as dumb sheep and lemmings leading people over a cliff of self over-importance, self-righteousness, and arrogance before God that is an attempt to be godlets, when in fact we are no more than beggars for God’s mercy and grace.

Fortunately God supplies us with both mercy and grace, along with renewed life and the old, old story of Jesus and God’s love.

This is what we can bring to people. And through us the Holy Spirit may indeed reconcile many people to God, and God may bring us to be among the saints, the people who reflect Christ’s Light to all people.

Can we do nothing, then, in relation to being reconciled to God? Yes, though we can do plenty to resist and destroy and tear down and separate ourselves from God. We do have free choice, and we each of us exercises it plenty in trying to turn away from God, to try to take over what only God can do, to try to become godlets unto ourselves, as if we created the universe and could ever control it.

Since God reconciles us to God by Grace alone, and since God shines Christ’s Light through us to the world, and since God sends us and equips us to be God’s ambassadors to Christ’s Grace, then through us the Holy Spirit can and does make wondrous things happen, signs for all to see God’s glory in Grace and Love.

10:00 am as I write this. The sunshine finally finds the snow on the lake, though not a drop has found the snow on the meadow between the trees. We likewise find ourselves in the escalating numbers of the second wave of Covid 19, as it spreads like wildfire across Alberta, the government responding with ideological priorities, so as not to offend those who hold their individual rights and freedoms must not be infringed on. The light seems to be that a vaccine will be available in a month. The reality is it will be available to only a few at first. It will likely be a half year at the earliest that everyone who wants a vaccine will receive it. The number who will refuse is likely to be so high that there will be little ‘herd vaccine protection’ and the virus will take a few years to subside … perhaps just in time for the next mutation of a coronavirus to sweep across the too densely populated earth.

In this mess and chaotic, deadly non-response to the virus, we are sent as ambassadors of Christ’ Light and Grace. Reach out to all those in need, especially the ineffective leaders, and the masses of skewed-thinking people who think it’s all a hoax, or that their individual rights and freedoms cannot be limited so as to save everyone.

And pray, for this is just one chaotic mess made by humans that only God’s Grace can set right. Carry on each day, trusting the God’s Grace is sufficient for our days.

Facing Covid 19: Daily Words of Grace – November 26

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Sometimes it’s the imperfections

that make life worth giving thanks for,

for therein we notice God’s Grace

1 Chronicles 29:13

Now, our God, we give thanks to you and praise your glorious name.

Ephesians 5:18-20

Be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

Now.

Whenever now is, where ever now is, it is always the time to give God thanks for everything in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Amidst the second wave gone bezerk in Alberta with new cases doubling in a week, contact tracing broken down, parties continuing, hospitals overwhelmed with Covid 19 cases shutting out other health care needs, and Covidiots running loose everywhere in town …

It is time to give God thanks for everything:

For every thing one has, or has at one’s disposal.

For every gift, skill, and talent one has.

For every minute of life one has.

For the air, water, food, clothing, shelter, meaningful labour, and love one has (maybe such as it is, or even some of the requirements of life may be missing).

For every challenge one faces, making the day’s efforts worthwhile.

For every thing of beauty one can see in creation, for this is God’s hand writ large for all to see.

And most of all, for forgiveness, adoption, redemption, and being transformed into saints even as we remain sinners, for this is life the way God created us to live it!

For every opportunity we have to extend God’s Grace to others with forgiveness and inspiration.

Now.

If not now, when?

For one cannot know how many more years, days, minutes one has of this life built on Grace.

Facing Covid 19 and inherent Evil: Daily Words of Grace – November 11 – Lest We Forget

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

The Light of the Sun Reflected

We get to reflect the Light of the Son

Why Pursue Anything Else?

Proverbs 15:16

Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it.

Mark 8:36

For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

Words of Grace For Today

Remember lest we forget those who sacrificed that we might live without overt fascism!

Covid 19 is in it’s second wave, and it runs rampant through Alberta (as many other places). Officially the word is that people are partying. This can be taken to be true … and stupid if understandable. There is likely more … also stupid and somehow some of it is less understandable.

Caution is thrown to the wind in so many ways in Alberta. Premier Kenny refuses to do more than make suggestions to people in order to stop the wave that is well on its way to overrunning the health care system. Cities and local governments have led the way mandating masks.

In Cold Lake nothing is mandated by the city. Stores with headquarters elsewhere have mandated masks and hand sanitizing upon entry. Guides are in place for physical distancing and in some stores for one way aisles. Nothing is done to mitigate aerosol transmission, which evidence shows is a likely path of transmission. That means unless huge volume air ventilation systems are in place an infected person can spread the virus in the air for 10 or more metres and leave the virus hanging in the air for hours.

The measures in place are of little use since there is no enforcement past the entrance doors. People remove their masks when they are away from the door, wear their masks so as to cover just their mouths or just their chins. People regularly touch their masks pulling them up or down and then touch products they do not buy. Everyone, store staff included, walk wherever they please, against the one way arrows, with no thought of physical distancing, regularly passing within inches of other people.

The majority of people speak volumes with their reckless behaviour, and their tolerance of other people’s reckless behaviour: they are ready to forfeit their life, or rather someone else’s life.

God created us to live as Jesus set the example: with grace forgiving, healing, and welcoming all people, sacrificing ourselves in order to bring other the abundance of life that God has provided for all people.

After SARS in Canada the recommendation for future pandemics was clear: the government should act quickly, decisively, and strictly, long before the evidence is in what the minimum is that is required. Immediate, maximum restrictions should have been in place long ago.

Now with the second wave, again slow minimal responses continue to be the norm, and the new case numbers are skyrocketing. Why the slow ineffective responses, last January and now this fall? Because the maximum restrictions cost the economy hugely, and it’s all about money for the rich, though the story now is that it robs ordinary people of their income. That it does. But a quick decisive response costs everyone less in the long term than slow minimal responses do!

Decisive maximum responses can cost politicians in the polls, but the record shows that lack of action, like Kenny’s, costs them more.

So why this slow, ineffective response?

Who is to profit from it? What kind of dictatorial interests are at play to trade people’s health and lives for their profit, power, and privilege?

Then one reads today: what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? or rather our lives. – Though we understand clearly to forfeit others lives is to forfeit everything about one’s own life that God created us to be: reflectors of Christ’s Light.

It is simply better to live with very little, fearing and loving God; than it is to live with a great deal of wealth, power, influence, status, and/or fame and have a great deal of trouble with it.

So what are we to do. Dr. Tam almost said it: We should do EVERY LITTLE THING we can think of to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and EVERYONE ELSE.

We are in this together, and the virus does not distinguish it’s victims according to wealth, power, influence, status, and/or fame. It just needs a live human, and healthy, young, minimally affected are the best for transmitting it to many others.

Every live human counts equally.

We are all in this together.

So let’s ALL start behaving like there are a lot of LITTLE THINGS we can do, and start doing them!