Senator Stackhouse

Did You Ever Meet Him

Monday, June 9, 2025

Or a Grandparent Like Him

See Credit Below

Who Gave Everything to Help a Grandchild?

Psalm 34:19

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord rescues them from them all.

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Mark 13:11

When they bring you to trial and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Sometimes God sends the most unlikely person to rescue us from ourselves, from our enemies, from all that ails us, and all that ails society.

But what are we going to say when our trial starts?

Senator Stackhouse had lots to say. Not much had much to do with anything. It was a filibuster after all.

I wonder how many Minnesotans even have met their own Senator Stackhouse.

He didn’t have much influence, or power, or political smarts, but he kept being elected to the senate for decades. Who knew if at 78 he would be alive to be elected again.

He was kind of an old curmudgeon. Kind of dependable that way, at least.

Then came the much needed omnibus bill for children’s health care. It started at 2 billion, and kept getting added to, for who was going to vote against child health care? It grew to over 6 billion, if I remember correctly.

Lots of horsetrading went into getting enough votes to support it’s passage through both houses. It was closed by the committee, and sent to the senate for a vote.

Senator Stackhouse had asked for a meeting with the White House, to get his little bit added to the bill. Sneezing from a head cold he asked for just a few hundred million for autism support, research, and care around the country. Laudable. But a bit late. The bill had just been closed. It was Friday. A recess waited. Everyone waited

to head off to a needed break, or

a family gathering for a milestone birthday,

or a long awaited trip to be renewed by nature,

or ….

It was noon by the time the vote was ready to be called on the floor of the Senate.

That’s when he started.

Started a filibuster.

Old Minnesotan, curmudgeon Stackhouse started a filibuster.

He couldn’t last long could he?

No Way!

Recipes, manuals, rules for card games.

On he went, standing, not leaning, not yielding the floor, not drinking or eating, not being excused to use the washroom,

just talking.

The news cycle deadlines came and went. The press corps waiting. The senators, long since drifting back to their offices, waiting. The White House staff waiting.

News giving background on Stackhouse.

Everyone waiting.

Waiting.

An assistant to an assistant, noticed something in the background photos of Stackhouse standing with his grandchildren.

Staff wrote email,

email to explain why they would be late

then that they would not make their flights.

Then that the last flights had come and gone.

So had connections by train and car.

Everyone waiting.

Supper came and went.

Stackhouse had stood and talked for more than 7 hours, going on 8. That poor old curmudgeon with a head cold kept talking, not yielding the floor. Holding up the vote, the news, the win for the White House and for Congress, and for the people and for children.

Then that assistant put it together. Only six grandchildren stood in those photos. Stackhouse had seven grandchildren. And background information revealed that one grandchild had autism.

Suddenly the picture of Stackhouse changed. The White House, even the president, made calls to other grandparent senators and got them, by point of order, to ask to join the filibuster by way of asking questions.

And Stackhouse got sit and rest and then stand again to give information about autism. Not the fake stuff that raises fears, but the real science, such as it was in that day. For this was decades ago.

People understood there would be no way to stop old Stackhouse because he wasn’t fighting for himself or just an idea. He was fighting, word by word, minute by minute, hour by hour, head cold and all, for one of his grandchild, and all the other grandchildren like his, with autism.

The White House called the committee, opened up the bill, since the news deadlines were missed already. They added the few hundred million for autism support, research, and care around the country.

The bill presented again to the Senate, the filibuster ended. The vote was taken. It passed both houses.

People missed a piece of their lives, but in the end everyone won.

I wonder how many Minnesotans, or even US citizens, knew Senator Stackhouse, or even knew of him. Had they heard of his filibuster?

Wouldn’t it be something if that was how politicians did business, with heart. Except maybe without the waste of piling on so many useless things that had nothing to do with children’s health care to such a bill.

Wouldn’t it be something to see cross party support emerge when it really counts, for the people who are kept from speaking for themselves.

Like immigrants, foreign workers, like … well we know there’s more of ‘them’ than get to speak.

…

Of course, Senator Stackhouse is a fictional character, along with the rest of the story, created by Aaron Sorkin and others, for the 2nd Season of the West Wing, 2000.

Wouldn’t it be something even if there were more fictional characters written like Senator Stackhouse and President Bartlet, and Josh and Sam, and Leo and C.J., Toby and Charlie, and all the others who made The West Wing one of the greatest television shows of all time.

Wouldn’t it be something if a lot more people lived their lives more like these characters, and less like the current president?

Credit for the Photo: George Coe as Senator Stackhouse in The West Wing S2 ‘The Stackhouse Filibuster’, https://westwing.fandom.com/wiki/Howard_Stackhouse accessed 7 June 2025

The Kick

Of the Spirit

Sunday, June 8, 2025

The Kick for Life

Sometimes We Need A Little Extra Kick,

To See God’s Horizons

For Us.

Nehemiah 9:6

And Ezra said: “You are the Lord, you alone; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. To all of them you give life, and the host of heaven worships you.

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Acts of the Apostles 4:31

When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Each morning, to varying degrees, I’m not good for much until I get a good ‘wake up’ kick. As I get older, sometimes I need a few more good ‘kicks’ to get through the day.

You don’t really want to deal with me before I get a good cup of coffee, full caffeine, ‘not any of that low octane decaf’ I used to say. But then I cannot sleep through the night. So it’s a bit decaf, a bit full punch to kick me into gear.

Lately I’ve returned to my habit started in college. I ran a mile or two at 6 in the morning, showered, studied a bit, before breakfast at 7:30. Of course it’s not 6, it’s not running. It’s more like walking to the lake 200 m, up the hill 400m, back down to camp 300m, or mowing for an hour. And I don’t do any real thinking or writing until after breakfast.

Later in the day it’s either more exercise just keeping my body moving or a bit of chocolate or coffee ice cream to punch me into clear thinking or energy to keep moving. That caffeine means I get a real poor night’s sleep, so the next day is a wash. But it provides hours of ‘up time’ for me to get things done while it lasts.

That ‘up time’ is what the Holy Spirit gives us in the first place, the breathe that is life, life right away out of the womb. It is more. It is the fire-wind-energy that is life itself in us. Our drive to be, to have purpose and meaning, to give so others can live fully.

This is what the disciples receive anew, after Jesus is gone. The Holy Spirit inspires them to live as the Church, spreading the Word of Jesus. In this Word is a God-given Spirit of service, of love, of forgiveness, of hope for all people.

Everyday we need a kick from and of the Holy Spirit, to move us onward, knowing the Holy Spirit works in our lives: it’s the kick that gets us going, the kick that keeps us going, the gift that gets us to think clearly, the energy that drives us to see and hold the truth.

It is the gift that brings us to believe.

And breath,

and hope.

And share

serving others

with love.

What Do You Do

When It’s Got You?

Saturday, June 7, 2025

The Darkness Steals Everything Away?

No One Sees Much

In Our Dark

Small

Worlds.

Second Chronicles 20:5-6

Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, and said, “O Lord, God of our ancestors, are you not God in heaven? Do you not rule over all the kingdoms of the nations? In your hand are power and might, so that no one is able to withstand you.

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Luke 4:29-30

They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Jehoshaphat cries to God, knowing that no one can stand in the way of God doing what God wishes to do. So save me, he cries.

The people, enraged by Jesus’ claims to be somebody, drive him out of town to a cliff and …

Well Jesus is God so he simply walks through the middle of the angry mob, and goes on his way … to bring God’s Word to people who will receive him.

In an episode of West Wing, Josh has been shot in the chest. Only surgery that lasts all night saves his life. He relives the trauma, over and over again, triggered by … music of all things. He’s out of control, angry, yelling, hurting himself breaking a window … all while he is unaware of his real surroundings and the memories replay in his mind as if real … again.

A counsellor comes, talks him through his experiences. Gets him to admit what is happening to him. Session done. Josh is not healed, but able to start healing.

Leo waits outside the session for him. Tells him a story:

There was a guy walking down the street who fell into a hole with sides so steep he couldn’t get out. The guy cried for help. A doctor walked by and heard his cries. The doc wrote a prescription and through it down the hole. The guy kept crying for help. A priest walked by and heard his cries. He wrote a prayer and tossed it down the hole. The guy kept crying for help. A friend came by and the guy cried to his friend to help him. The friend jumped down in the hole. The guy said to his friend, ‘that was really stupid. Now we’re both stuck down here.’ The friend responded, ‘it’s ok, I’ve been down here before and I know a way out.’

Leo, the recovering alcoholic, says to Josh, ‘As long as I have a job, you will have a job.’ Then he sends him off to the hospital to get his hand looked at. Josh cut it by breaking a window during one of his PTSD episodes.

Trouble is, there’s lots of people caught in dark holes.

They all could say:

I’ve been crying. I’m not even sure where this hole is. I’ve had prescriptions thrown down on me, and more than a few prayers. Many have yelled at me to stop crying. I’ve been called all sorts of things. I’ve had everything taken from me. I’m still in this hole. I don’t cry for help anymore. I try hard to pretend I’m not really in a deep dark hole alone. I work hard to stay alive. I try to help other people but I don’t trust many people at all. Mostly I cry quietly to myself. Sometimes I think that God is here with me in the darkness. It seems to make it less painful. I still cry. It’s still dark.

Who is going to jump down with all of them, in all of the deep, dark holes the world has?

Who is going to be Jesus, walking with them in the dark, showing them the way out of the darkness, the way to walk through the angry mobs to freedom, to the people who also want to walk in the light?

Who is going to even notice, when they are too tired to cry for help any more?

And who is going to help all those who walk by those holes, not noticing, not caring, not seeing beyond their own small darkened worlds of misery?

Lord, you know no one can stand against you, not even the Devil of darkness.

Save us all.

Send someone to lead us out,

Someone whose been here before.

Give us Light.

Being in the World

Trying to Breathe

Friday, June 6, 2025

Enveloped by the Spirit

Beautiful Sunsets, But!

Hoping the Smoke Will Go and Stay Away,

And Fires, too!

Psalm 125:2

As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, from this time on and forevermore.

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John 17:15

I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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In Camp there is always more work to do than time, energy, and opportunity. I burn wood for heat. The insulation is very poor, so I call the wood stove, the monster, since it consumes huge amounts of wood each day. All that wood needs to be located as standing dead trees, or at least in the air so they have not soaked up water. Then each log needs to be cut and hauled back to camp and stacked and covered. The camp is completely jerry-rigged, so much of it good for only a year at most. Every spring so much needs to be torn apart and rebuilt. But a few weeks after it’s warm enough to tear things apart, the bugs invade and make the work so much harder, and it often results with mosquitoes drawing blood while I sleep. The time-window to work hard and fast is short.

It’s getting harder as I get older to get enough done. I try to work harder than it feels I can, and work smarter than I ever have before.

With the wildfires and their smoke these past few years, the time that I can work outside is taken from me, unpredictably. It starts right in that time when the weather is warming up and before the bugs really take over.

It comes down to being able to work without getting eaten by mosquitoes and black flies, being able to breathe clean air, being able to work without suffering heat exhaustion.

How thankful I am when, though the smoke closes visibility down to less than 2 km, the solar power is enough to run the small air purifier inside. At least a small area inside provides breathable air. When it gets hot out that small camper can really heat up, too. It takes away my ability to work, to think, to plan how to be smart.

What great relief and joy it is, after days of heavy smoke and heat, when a cooling rain arrives, even when it’s a thunderstorm that delivers slushy ice followed by torrents of water. The cool clear air beckons, come bask in this wonder. It may not last long. Windows and vents are opened, inside is refreshed. I can think again.

…

Now that is being in the world, the world as it is today, weather extremes of last year becoming the norms of this year,

with all the challenges to life those new extremes dump on us.

Like wildfires galore, like never seen before, and smoke that’ll take your breath (and life) away.

We pray for the people in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, and other places, who have been evacuated, who have lost their homes and their communities, and all the people whose lives have been disrupted by smoke that simply takes away your breath. May God help us all help each other survive these, and all the wildfires and smoke to come.

While fire will do us in in minutes, smoke will do us in bit by bit over days, months and even years, planting seeds for cancer in us.

…

so in the clear air

we give God thanks.

Thanks for life in this world,

and blessings that life may continue, day after day.

Reducing Faith

To Obedience

Thursday, June 5, 2025

a chronic temptation,

Behaving Like Dandelions.

Psalm 50:16-17

But to the wicked God says: “What right have you to recite my statutes, or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you….”

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Matthew 7:21

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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It is the age old temptation: reducing God’s goodness to our ability to do the right thing.

Of course so much of life depends on us doing the right thing, so one can easily understand that we get in a rut, and apply our own limited way of being to God’s love for us.

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After a week of oppressive heat and smoke:

Odd thing, chilled to the bone,

I head out in the cool air to mow the weeds on the hill.

Last time through that hillsides greens just two days ago, lots of dandelions and crab grass did not submit to the mower blade, dull as it was, wet as the weeds were.

So dressed warm enough to protect my back from the chill, enjoying being outside after the smoke has subsided enough to breathe the air more or less easily, I set to the task.

Walking up and down and across and back, this way and that, mowing it more or less down, for a bit more than an hour, and I work up just a slight sweat.

Back inside, where the temperature has dropped a degree, it feels nice and warm, comfortable.

Exercise seems to be what we were made for, wonders of wonders.

Now if there just were an exercise that would solve the other challenges that keep me pinned down in poverty.

But God built us to work to survive, even when, maybe especially when, poverty has us tight in its grip.

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We could learn from nature.

Take the dandelion.

It puts down deep and fat roots, so that when there is little water, barely enough to survive on, it can still pull in water from deeper down. When that even that water dries up that fat root still has plenty of moisture stored in that fat root to survive a few more days and even weeks, until rain replenishes the ground, or even a heavy dew provides some moisture for the plant to survive.

Do we put down deep and fat roots? Into what do our roots round us? In the ways of the world? Or into God’s word.

You see that nearly indestructible dandelion does something else, something that fits with the ways of the world, even for us humans. It spreads it big leaves thick and wide around the root, sucking in all the sun for itself, while other plants nearby are starved of that life-giving light.

We can learn from the dandelion about deep and wide roots, but from it’s leaves stealing life from others, well that’s something we can learn NOT to do from the dandelion. Oh, those bright yellow blossoms are pretty, but after the blossom turn to seed, well those white fluffs are not that pretty nor nice, and those empty stems covering the lawn are plain ugly. The worst of it is that a lawn made of dandelions, and left to their own devices that’s what they do to any lawn, well, that lawn is miserable. Both to mow and to walk on, and to look at. No, the greedy dandelion is not what we need imitate.

We do not get ahead in life as God created us to live it, and we especially do not earn God’s blessings, or even please God when we try to get ahead, at the cost of others being able to live, and live fully.

God loves us, unconditionally.

Everything good we do is a response to that love permeating our lives. The Spirit in us!

We receive all the great gifts we have from the Spirit, starting with life and breath itself, only so that we can share them with others, so that others may live full lives. And so they will learn to share their gives with others.

For when we hang together in God’s great love, taking care of each other we live well. But when we don’t hang together, we hang separately from the noose of meaninglessness, futility, and wasted lives.

From On High –

God’s Own

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

and Chills

Dropping Ice On the Dandelions.

As easy as saving some souls

for God.

Psalm 89:27

I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.

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Matthew 6:11

Give us this day our daily bread.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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A cool

T-storm

Dumps

Ice-snow

on the grass and camp.

…

Then hard & short rain

Pounds down.

…

As

I,

Already chilled,

start a fire in the wood stove.

…

What a wonder after

Heat & Smoke

enough to put an end to all work and all goodness

this last week!

…

Temperature

drops from 17⁰ to 8⁰ in minutes.

…

When God drops from on high

down into our world, there’s no telling what wonders will meet us.

…

Jesus came into the world to save it

and us.

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Greatest wonder ever.

Wonder how God can save even the worst of us.

But then that’s like dropping the temperature in us from evil to good in a few minutes.

Piece of cake,

Or Daily Bread for us all.

Trust God’s work, relax, no worries, chill out.

God’s got this.

Fear

And Love God

Tuesday, June 3, 2025

For God Loves Us

All Creation Sings God’s Praise.

Sing and Dance Along!

Isaiah 6:3

And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

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Revelation 14:7

He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”

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Words of Grace for Today –

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How right it is that we should tremble with fear before God,

and out of fear obey all God’s commandments, worshipping him along with all of creation.

But

We fail at that miserably, so to demand it of us is futile.

We can, with these attempts to earn God’s favour, only fail and live filled with guilt, regret, and sorrow, a walking death if ever there were one.

To love God, as well as to fear God, now that is a different thing.

For we can only love God, after we realize that God first loves us, unconditionally.

Out of love we can strive to follow God’s commandments, and worship God with all creation.

We will fail.

But we do not live filled with guilt, regret, and sorrow,

for we trust God always loves us, forgives us, and renews full life in us.

…

Fear and Love God.

For God loves, and forgives, and gives us new life.

And what a full life it is!

Is There A Balm In Gilead?

For it is desperately needed

Monday, June 2, 2025

here and now.

Like Grass, We Dry Up,

And Die,

except Jesus brings the Water of Life

Jeremiah 8:21-22

For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people
not been restored?

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Luke 19:9-10

Then Jesus said to Zacchaeus, “Today salvation has come to this house, because you too are a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

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Words of Grace for Today –

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Always we humans have had cause to cry:

is there no balm in Gilead,

pleading really, is there no balm here for us and all these people in our time.

…

So much illness.

So much injustice.

So much loss.

So much sorrow.

So much death.

So much grief.

…

To these cries, God answers with Jesus, living among us, a human, who will heal many, teach with great wisdom, and sacrifice his own life that all people may live.

We do not need so seek Jesus out.

For Jesus came to seek out and to save the lost,

which is all of us,

whether we know it or not.

There is a balm in Gilead,

and here and now,

for our every ill.

What a life Jesus offers us, to fully live, healed

and then sent to share the Good News

that God is for us,

for us all!

Thanks be to God.

A Child To the Barren

Brings Promises to Give the Child Up.

Sunday, June 1, 2025

Is that right?

Is that us?

Looking away,

for something better

than God’s Blessings?

First Samuel 1:11

She made this vow: “O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.”

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Luke 1:57-58

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbours and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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God’s Grace Flows to all people, though it seems to flow to some more than others.

So when women of old were childless, bearing children the utmost mark of being blessed (things have changed, eh?), it was often that women, thirsty for recognition by their families and communities, would promise all sorts of things to God if God would give them a son (and sons were the only children that seem to mark the mother as blessed, too – and that’s certainly changed, thankfully!)

The most extreme sacrifice would be to give up the child so that the child would serve God his life-long.

Something seems off here.

Did the woman want a son to raise and love?

Or did the woman making such a promise want first of all to appear to be blessed in other people’s eyes, in their husband’s eyes? The son then was really not important?

Or was it the ultimate sacrifice, offered in exchange for being blessed?

Does God work that way?

If I sacrifice what I want most will God give it to me so I can give it away?

Or

is it not that God already gives us blessings upon blessings and asks in return that we give them away to other people to enjoy the blessings, and thus learn to give God thanks?!

Was not John a great gift to Elizabeth, in her late years? And was John not dedicated to serving God, and did not John lose his life in that service? And did not John live a blessed life, if a difficult life?

Being blessed is certainly no guarantee of an easy life.

It would, according to biblical accounts, be exactly the opposite. Being blessed is a guarantee that challenges, trials, and suffering will come our way.

So do you want to be blessed this day?

Of course, since the other alternative is to be cursed, which may be an easy life, but a useless life.

Which is really not living at all.

So we pray:

Bless us God, each day.

Walk with us through the challenges ahead.

Breath

Smoke

Saturday, May 31, 2025

Justice

Smoke Obscures Everything Good,

From Here

to The Furthest Shore

Psalm 112:5

It is well with those who deal generously and lend, who conduct their affairs with justice.

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1 Timothy 6:18-19

They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

I woke to smoke that took my breath away, so thick and acrid did it dig into my soul.

I sought desperately for that breath that would take that smoke away.

And I could not find it

for hours.

So it is when others deal injustice to us,

filling courts and communities with lies about us.

Injustice is like smoke that takes our breath and life away, grinding us to desperately seek that truth that will take away the injustice and bring us freedom to live

and breathe

and work

and be at peace

with life.

So destructive is injustice.

So destructive are the lies.

So good are the truths that support good deeds, giving life

that is really life

to all.