Hey Grandpa and Grandma, Mom and Dad, Thanks!

Monday, July 11, 2022

As Far As The Horizons Stretch and Beyond:

There’s Lots of History, Everywhere, for Everyone,

Can You Be Thankful For Yours?

Jeremiah 16:19

O Lord, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge on the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: Our ancestors have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit.

2 Corinthians 4:8

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;

Words of Grace For Today

As I started to contemplate that nations will come and say that their ancestors had left nothing but lies to inherit,

a big, old, fat fly started to disrupt my view. Caught my attention it did. Distracted me, until it was dispatched.

Flies are not good to have around food, eating spaces, sleeping spaces or any living space for that matter.

I suppose I ‘inherited’ plenty of flies and wasps from someone. I’m sure it was not my ancestors, though Grandpa Sam and Grandma Dorothy did have an outhouse above the lake cottage on Lake Wabedo, back when it was an isolated lake. After each used we’d scatter a cupful of ashes down the hole to deal with smell and flies. Still there were always a bit more of both than I cared for. I also remember once in my University days arriving and finding the parking spot I chose was free because everyone else arriving earlier knew there was a wasp nest on that corner of the garage. Flies and wasps: I’m sure that since Lake Wabedo is more than 12 hours by car away, and that was about 3 or 4 decades ago, those flies and wasps have no direct lineage or causation effect on the fact there are flies and wasps here.

My ancestors, that I know of, where respectable people. (Thank you Goldie, Dorothy, Sam, Dort, Dennis.) I have not discovered any lies, foundational or formational or simply for the lark of it that are part of the family heritage. I count my blessings. I have a hard time imagining how devastating it must be to grow up knowing or to discover later that one’s ancestors passed down a pack of lies and not much else. I have seen the parents and grandparents who are such people, but the children were unawares or unapologetic, as they began a life of lies themselves, without regret or awareness of their great loss in doing so.

I have noticed friends of our offspring being very appreciative of us parents, since by comparison I guess we measure up as pretty decent, or the only parents of their circle of friends who are kind, gracious, welcoming and generous. I feel for the adult children who have parents whom they would rather forget, for remembering is costly.

We certainly can say with Paul: We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair. It’s not like life has left us unscathed, unscarred or un-‘rewarded’ for the good we’ve done. Life has at times knocked the living daylights out of us, for sure.

We are afflicted, perplexed, not crushed, not driven to despair. And we remain grateful for all God’s blessings, even if I am homeless, living off the grid in the wilderness. People hear that and say they always wanted to do that- it must be fun. – No, it’s just hard, and then harder, and quite dangerous pretty much every day. Weather getting more severe is a greater portion of that danger, though the greatest danger still remains the two legged wild animals that are fuelled by unnatural things, like drugs and revenge (for nothing I’ve done) and jealousy (that I can survive in the wild.) The wonders I experience do not make it safer, but they do make it blessed.

In fact, by celebrating the Eucharist each morning, my time is blessed, and this space, this piece of wilderness, is consecrated and made holy. I get to live in a sacred place. Nothing beats that!

In the face of each life-threatening adversity and challenge that I face I am shown again and again that God is my refuge from trouble and my strength and stronghold in the face of every adversity and challenge.

Nothing beats that.

So another day starts, and though it will have it’s dangers in quantities most people would run from, I know that in this sacred place and wherever I go all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well … so onward with the work to meet the needs and best preparations for safety in the coming months.

How is your past and present measuring up?

Foolhardy or Courageous?

Friday, May 27, 2022

More Often Than Not,

The Challenges We Face Are Unseen,

Like the Mosquitoes on the Lake

and

the Wasps Nesting

in That Tree

1 Samuel 17:37

David said, ‘The Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.’ So Saul said to David, ‘Go, and may the Lord be with you!’

1 Peter 4:11

Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.

Words of Grace For Today

Going into battle with nothing more than trust in God is wholly foolhardy.

David has brought provisions from their father to his brothers who serve in Saul’s army, now facing the Philistines. He hears of Goliath’s challenge. He witnesses the Israelis cowering in fear. He speaks up that facing such an enemy and putting him to defeat would surely win the king’s favour.

That just gets his brothers angry with him for his seeming foolishness.

David’s words reach Saul’s ears, he is summon, and David offers to be the one to fight Goliath. Saul rebukes him. David is just a boy. Then the verse above is David’s response. He has faced down lions and bears. Certainly he can face down one man. Saul, with few other options, sends David as a last hope, or rather as a meaningless sacrifice to let Goliath demonstrate his battle powers.

Saul dresses David in Saul’s own armour, and David takes it off because he cannot move in it. Instead he takes staff and 5 smooth stones from the wadi.

The rest is history.

Goliath falls. David rises to become the celebrated king of Israel.

Most of us, fortunately, will not have to go into battle, nor serve as king. Instead our battles will be less fatal by all appearances. Our callings will be varied, and God sends us out to be as courageous (not to be confused with foolhardy) as David in what we do.

Most of all, just as David relies fully on the little skills he has and the great faith that he has in God, so we are to rely on our God-given skills and more so on the great faith God gives us.

It is our attitude of gratitude (for God saving us and giving us renewed life each day) more than anything else that will carry us through adversity.

God did not create us all so that we can seek our own glory. God created, redeems, and renews us so that all people will know how great God’s mercy is, how abundant God’s grace is, and how beautifully unconditional God’s love for us is.

That’s something to start the day with: knowing that we, whatever we are called to be and do, do it all as God’s people.

Truth and Grace, Or Terror

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

You can lie all you want.

You can blame everyone else for your sins.

You can say it’s winter

or that there is no wasp nest in the trees

But

That will come back to sting you soon enough!

God’s Grace and Truth Always Win Out In the End!

Psalm 69:14

Rescue me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters.

John 16:23

On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.

Words of Grace For Today

Arnold sat with his head in his hands, wondering how it had come to such an impossible state. Determined to make everything out of his life that he could, he had lied, cheated, manipulated people, used people and always kept people at a distance, so they could not see what he was really like.

He’d driven his first wife to kill herself, making sure that she made all the right decisions, and if she made a wrong decision, he stepped in to make sure she changed her mind, until she made the right decision at the right time (when two life insurance policies overlapped by two weeks) to kill herself. That made things difficult taking care of the children, and he scrambled to make things work at his wife’s store, at work, and getting someone to take care of things at home. The payoff was worth it though as the community chipped in with money, lots of money, and great sympathy and support, never suspecting that he’d gotten exactly what he wanted.

When the insurance companies paid out he was a millionaire. Within a year he was out of debt with mortgages paid off, business debts paid completely, and he was clearing $30k a month after all expenses. Life was great, except the volunteers for the children decided to stop helping out. He’d come home after the kids were in bed, a long hard process for the volunteers, and once too often while the volunteer was still there, woken the kids and let them run free in the house and outside.

Newly arrived in town and unaware of the previous volunteers’ work and troubles, Tina volunteered to help with the kids. He eagerly accepted her help, and started the process of winning her away from her husband. It worked and within a few months she was living with him, taking care of the children, and helping out in so many ways. Her help at home and soon at the store meant he could focus on making money at the store. When she changed her life insurance policy to name him as the beneficiary, he seized the opportunity he’d been preparing for; he drove her to kill herself. Except she did not die. It was nothing but trouble after that. A second suicide attempt was almost always successful, but no matter what he did he could not get her to try again.

So he’d set her up for criminal charges, lied to the community, the church and the police. He coerced his kids to lie as well, making Tina out to be a sexual predator, even though he was the one sleeping with the kids and having sex with them. He lied in court, the lawyers lied, even Tina’s lawyers helped set her up to be convicted. When that was not enough to be able to convict Tina, the judges lied about what was in the court record in order to convict her. She went to jail for months. She came out and was homeless. Still she just would not move away or die.

Now her sentence was completed and people were asking what really happened. If the truth came to light, Arnold could go to jail for years, lose the store, the home, and the kids. He would be homeless. All the sympathy the community and church had given him through the years would be replaced with anger at him for his lying to them. He’d be ostracized and ruined. There would be no recovery. His friends and sex partners would desert him. He would be alone.

How had it come to this?

Arnold kept blaming others, looking for someone else, someone new to blame, anyone to blame. Deep down he knew he’d been lying to himself all his life and now people were going to find out.

Tina, homeless, captive in poverty she’d never get out of, living alone, but blessed in so many ways prayed in Jesus name Rescue me from sinking in the mire; let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. Save me from the lies of my enemies, (for there were so many supposedly respectable people including the pastor and church leaders who had lied for and along with Arnold), let the beauty of life be visible and available to me everyday.

Tina trusted Jesus’ words: Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. It was clear God was providing an abundant life for Tina.

Arnold still thought he could make his own life, and in so believing he cut himself off from God’s blessings. No matter how much money he had, he would always suffer the terror jags that completely disabled him for minutes to hours. He would always dread being found out. The only thing that could set him free was the truth, but he had run from the truth his whole life. He was still running as hard as he could. The only thing that could turn him around was God’s grace, and Arnold insisted on making his own way, with his own money, and with his lies.

We pray: God help us know your truth and grace, that we too may pray in your name to be delivered from our enemies, that we not sink in the mire of deceit and greed, and that we can be your beloved people sharing your grace with all people.

By Grace Alone We Stand Firm

Monday, August 2, 2021

Even Against Wasps

And Other Enemies

That Would Kill Us

We Stand FIRM

Leaning on Christ

Exodus 14:13

But Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again.

Hebrews 10:23

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.

Words of Grace For Today

As we do repeatedly when threats arise against us, the people following Moses into Freedom, led by God no less, repeatedly complain that it would have been better if they had not up’d and left their ‘safe’ slavery in Egypt to follow Moses into the Wilderness, just to die.

This time Pharaoh’s army has caught up to them as the have crossed the Red Sea. They exit the path through the water to stand on the opposite shore, the ‘gateway’ into the wilderness. At the same time the horses and chariots and men of Pharaoh’s army, spears and swords ever ready, enter the same path through the waters.

Moses promises them that they should hold fast. They will never again see these soldiers, these Egyptians ever again. God has delivered them and it is not for nothing.

God is gracious and faithful. The people then watch as Moses takes his staff and the waters, which were pulled back to create their path to freedom, are let free to fall back in their course. The horses, chariots, and men are swamped and drowned in the returning waters. They will never be seen again by anyone.

God keeps God’s promises.

Later they people will run out of water. They will complain and say that it would have been better to live full lives in slavery rather than die of thirst. God remains always gracious and faithful. Moses will strike a rock with his staff and water will flow from it, the people will drink their fill, and they will move further into the wilderness.

Then they will run out of food. They will complain and say that it would have been better to live full lives in slavery rather than die of thirst. God remains always gracious and faithful. Quail rain from the sky at night for them to eat meat. In the morning the dew will leave a thin layer of bread, enough for one day (or two if the next day is the Sabbath.)

Then, while Moses is up Mount Sinai, they will run out of patience. They will turn to Aaron, give him all their gold and the will worship the calf made from it. God has provided for them in every way, and God will not leave the people to die in the wilderness that day. God remains gracious and faith even when the people are not. Moses smashes the tablets that the ten commandments are written into. The golden calf is melted away. Moses will go up the mountain to get a second copy of the ten commandments. (It will take a bit more than a good photocopier or printer-scanner to produce them, inscribed in stone as they are.) When Moses will come back down, the people now will return to worship God, who is gracious. As a consequence not one of the people alive that day at Mt. Sinai will cross the Jordan into the Promised Land. Their descendants will, but not them.

God is gracious and faithful and just.

So God is with us as we repeatedly complain and turn from worshipping God.

Freed from slavery to sin, we too often face challenges and think that we ought to return to be slaves of sin. God has other plans. Jesus continually forgives and renews us sinners so that we can also at the same time be God’s faithful people, the saints who share God’s grace with all people. We are the people who share the whole story of Jesus and his love, the old, old story. We are the people who do this only because God graciously makes us able, because God first loves us so that we can love all other people. Even our enemies who catch up to us just as we set foot in the freedom of the wilderness. It does not require much since we will never see them again;

God is faithful and gracious and just.

Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.

Proof: for Fear yes! For God no, sorry.

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

The Dark Master

Or the Conqueror of Fears?

Isaiah 44:24

Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who by myself spread out the earth.

1 Corinthians 8:6

For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

Words of Grace For Today

God is the creator of all things, and is the one for whom we exist.

There is no proof of this basic statement of faith. Any attempt to prove God exists or that God is the creator of all things or that we live solely for God’s good pleasure and God’s good pleasure is that we live abundantly and for each other … any attempt to prove most anything of God or that God exists at all requires that we first accept the result of the proof as the beginning of the proof.

Fear now … there is all sorts of proof that it exists, that we have it in abundant measure, and that it digs deep inside us and directs our ways and days.

Wasps decided, as wasps decide, to establish nests through out the insulated and not insulated tarps of my shelter, and in the spare tire for the camper I borrow.

Taking down the skirt around that small borrowed camper I took a hit, a hard hit right on the top of the wrist. It forced me to drop everything in my hands and run. I realized I was stung by a wasp, maybe a bee, but the force was like that of a wasp.

I watched as yellow jackets stormed around the spare tire I had moved past to pull away the insulated tarps that form the skirt there. When they quieted down I reached in for my things that I had dropped and was rewarded with a second hit just as hard as the first. It hurt worst than the first even though I knew what it was and there was not much surprise. After all I saw the wasp this time an instant before the pain-shock hit my brain.

For a good week my wrist hurt, then itched out of control, and then ached so bad it was hard to use that hand.

I went looking for wasp killing spray foam. None was to be found or even ordered on line for delivery sooner than three weeks down the road. Even after the ache subsided when I heard a wasp nearby an echo of the jolt of the sting hit me again. Each day I tried to work elsewhere until finally I was tucked inside the camper waiting for time to pass. I realized I was living in fear, having stopped all progress on the necessary repairs that could only be done in warmer weather.

Fear.

Fear requires no proof, though there is plenty of it, that fear exists and that fear will stop us in our tracks.

There are answers to fear. Fear that is not real requires we redirect our thinking until it no longer lands us in the clutches of fear. Real fear requires action. But before action it requires calm and calculated plans on how best to act, how to eliminate the source of the fear.

Degreaser detergent is supposed to kill wasps. I had a good size jug of it.

Vinegar is supposed to repel wasps. I got a good size jug of it.

Peppermint oil is suppose to kill wasps. It was too expensive to even consider.

Even though the sprayer would stop working after 5 pumps, I sprayed a full half jug of vinegar around, to no effect.

I dumped water detergent mix on the nest I could sort of get at, to no effect.

I went on line and tried to order more wasp control foam, but it would take even longer to arrive.

More and more wasps buzzed all around. If I did not act it would get worse and could get so bad that I could not get in and out of the camper or even come near to it.

So I got up early one morning, found a piece of fibreglass screen material left over from repairing ripped screens, got a rainjacket, jeans, another pair of nylon pants, rubber boots, thick leather gloves, and of course duct tape.

I filled the sprayer with detergent and water mixed thin enough so that the sprayer would spray.

After two hours of spraying, refilling, spraying, using a long pole to knock down and out a nest, and stomping it to a flat mess, I had killed a number of those hard-hitting wasps, destroyed three nests, and knew that this would not be the last of it. Too many wasps survived after the nests were gone. They would rebuild and regain numbers and become a problem again, maybe real soon.

Then I would use detergent and the protective gear again, until the foam killer spray arrived to kill enough that they would go away and not come back.

Fears can be dealt with, one way or another.

The only way to deal with the underlying fear of death and destruction by our enemies is to either destroy them first (which is a hell of a way to live – and is everything God tries to tell us is NOT how to live) or to trust God’s promises and grace and love for us.

Trusting God we can overcome all the fear the Evil one and other destruction-seeking people serving the Evil one can put into us. We can live free.

For we believe and therefore for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

More of the fear conqueror’s suit

Fears, fears of real dangers, help us prepare to avoid our destruction.

God gave his Son

We sin.

God loves us.

God gives her Son to die, to pay for our sins.

(About the pronoun for God, see the ending.)

We ought not suffer the consequences of our sins if Jesus pays the price for them, Right?

The consequence that we do not suffer is God does not honour the reality that our sins create: namely that we are separated from God.

The rest of the consequences, we and others still suffer. And we do it sometimes too often without any Grace.

Grace, it’s that wonderful attitude of God toward us,

that is so great and large that it may be hard to comprehend well.

Just say that God is dancing with us through life, and when we sin, taking a misstep in the dance, God does not step on our toes, even when we put them right under God’s nose … or rather feet.

Grace is how God dances with us, serene, always there, smooth, never predictable, but never strained or clumsy, … just there

especially when we deserve everything but God’s presence.

Grace, that’s how God responds to our sins.

One tradition explains it all by saying that there is a price to pay for every sin. We can pay it, or, as in times of old, we can offer a sacrifice, an offering to atone, or make up for, the sin. It’s sort of like not really paying but paying something not so bad instead.

Which leads to all sorts of traditions around altars and killing and blood and …

Even Jesus death is seen this way, as a sacrifice, offered by God, taken by us all (no scapegoating – but that’s jumping ahead-).

The conundrum of this view is that Jesus pays the price for our sins, but we still suffer the consequences, except that God is not separated from us. God remains with us, which is something (well actually it’s everything) but we humans have always wanted to be free from the consequences of our sins, because we seem to understand how terrible they are.

If we were still in the business of sacrificing, killing, and offering blood to God to atone for our sins, then Jesus as the sacrificial lamb would make a lot of sense.

A side step first: Jesus living and dying did not change God; it changes what we know of God, and how we know it. Jesus life story makes us able to know many things about God that we may not have been so able to know, and to know just by knowing a story.

Jesus as the sacrificial lamb, stepping right out of the altar sacrifice, blood and making good for sins in the temple, is a powerful image, and not at all to be lost.

The story God gave us with his son is quantum levels more significant.

God gave his son to show us that God has made the last sacrifice on an altar, a blood offering, a life offering.

And that is supposed to show us, simple and easy, that that’s the end of that.

And not just the blood offering, taking of a life, but the kind of sacrificing someone else, making them pay for what we have done.

It’s about Grace making it possible for us to be fully accountable for our own sins. Enough (and then some) scapegoating.

It’s easy to know Jesus’ story as the end to blood offerings, because we don’t do that anyway.

It’s a full reality pill to swallow, one that will transform our lives if we pay attention to the story, if we understand that Jesus’ story is supposed to be the last time that anyone scapegoats anyone.

That’s harder to swallow because … well we all scapegoat people, sometimes even innocent bystanders to the mess we make of our lives.

So: God gives his son … to teach us, to give us a clear story of how God intended us to live, and scapegoating is not any part of what God intended.

If we know that God forgives us, stays right by our side when we suffer the consequences of our own or others’ sins, then it is possible to be accountable for our sins. We do not need to scapegoat someone else in order to think that God still accepts us, in spite of the terrible sins we commit.

God loves us, forgives us, stays with us: that’s the purpose of God giving Jesus … so that we can know God’s grace first hand, and then give it to others.

Even at sunset, God loves, forgives and stays with us … in the light.

Dance. For God is dancing, singing, laughing with us.

Dance. For God is carrying us, wailing in pain, and crying with us.

Dance. That’s what we do, if we choose not to scapegoat someone else for what we’ve done wrong.

God gave his Son, so that we might truly live and dance.

Even if we only dance in our dreams.

’cause if you’re not dancing … you ain’t nothing doing.

Now where did I put that music, the song of God’s creation, dancing with light and snow and cold and heat and rain and drought and … well all of us.

Breathe

There is a way through any dance, any circumstance, any challenge.
Even when the light is nearly gone, there is a way.

Breathe,

because in the next moment wen you recognize that God is leading, you just might not be able to catch your breath, the steps are so wondrously tantalizingly

grace – full.

Now about that pronoun for God:

There is so much that God has made clear for us to know, but what God has not made clear is if God is male, female or other, or how we ought to use pronouns referring to God. So they are all available, some disturbing in their historical and hysterical use, abuse and demand that others use the ‘right’ one.

The one thing we know clearly is: God is also full of Grace about all the pronoun use/abuse/demands; and we can be, too, if we so choose.

The only thing I’m pretty clear on, is demanding that others … fill in the blank … is almost always counter-productive, and doing so about the pronoun used for God is counter-grace-full.

That’s a dance, too. I wish only that it were more often a dance of grace instead of anger.

Pronouns are important, language is important, but only if they are part of a dance of grace.

Breathe.

God gave God’s son so that we could all breathe, and dance with Grace.