Memetic Desires

Or God’s Way?

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Dreary Woods, Wishing For Someone Else’ Life?

Living in God’s Country, a Paradise?

Psalm 116:12

What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me?

Luke 17:15-16

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

While so much of what goes on around us, towards us, and finally in us has to do with insecurity, and our fruitless efforts to escape its ugly claws on our hearts and minds, there is nothing so refreshing for our souls as to

a) take a vacation to a warm, sandy, sunny beach in the Caribbean?

b) win an all expenses paid ski vacation to a destination of our choosing and at a time of our choosing?

c) inherit $100,000,000?

d) move into one’s dream house with views to the mountains out the front windows and over a river valley where the sunrises each morning, with no mortgage, a gift from a secret admirer?

e) …

Oh, stop that crap produced by generations subjected to memetic desires through advertising and others ‘possessing’ what we come to want and then need, until we use innocent scapegoats to resolve our misunderstood desires.

What God offers is life, life at its best!

All we need to wish for is the continued ability to be thankful for all we have already, gifts from God’s good hand and gracious dealings with us undeserving, sinful people.

Filled with thanks, our days progress with less outrageously unfounded covetousness and conflict – outward with other people, and inward with our own hearts and minds.

Thank God for thankfulness,

and may we have a greater dose of it each day, if you please.

Maker

Maker Glue

Saturday 20 January 2024

Even the ‘glue’ that holds snow

to the branches

under the bright sun

in the c.c..co..cold.

Jeremiah 10:12

It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.

Colossians 1:17

He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

To the tiniest piece of physical reality (a quantum is it now?) to the greatest galaxies turning about themselves and in themselves,

and also here on earth as we twirl moving around the sun,

each held in place in relation to the rest by

gravity and …

well held in place by far more complex physical and sub- and meta-physical things than I can name

–

all this God created

and God holds it together.

So also God created each of us, our hearts, minds, and spirits,

holding us together as we breathe and live and move and hope and love and

…

and everything we do and are.

This day again we pray in thanks for all things that keep us alive, especially for the Grace of God that gives us life and hope

and everything.

Fire

Of Life

Thursday 11 January 2024

Fire,

The Destroyer, Saver, and Refiner!

Which is it today for you?

Isaiah 48:10

See, I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tested you in the furnace of adversity.

Colossians 4:2

Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving.

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

An easy life, without many challenges, just interesting events that turn out wonderful, with an ability to help others without taking too much trouble to do good …

is that what we wish for?

Baptized in water, by the fire of the Holy Spirit, with God’s Word (the same Word of such power that in the beginning this Word created all that is out of chaos), we might wish for an easy life.

This is certainly not that, for which God has saved, freed, and renewed us.

Instead it is the furnace of adversity that God sends us into, each day, that we may not only be saved, freed and renewed, but that we may also offer God’s Word to others

with our voices, feet, and hands.

It would be impossible to enter into the fray

and remain as God saved us to be, ambassadors of Hope, Love, and Grace,

if we do not also each day begin, continue, and end with prayers of thanksgiving for all God gives us

to share

with the most desperately needy, hungering, and thirsting people on earth.

A small task each day it is not,

and that with the fires of adversity lapping at our feet, hands, and breath.

Paying Light

Forward

Monday 8 January 2024

With Whom, Caught in Darkness,

Can We Share The Light of Christ?

Isaiah 9:2

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.

Hebrews 6:7

Ground that drinks up the rain falling on it repeatedly, and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.

…

Words of Grace For Today

In 1666 the Black Plague hit Herxheim, DE killing many inhabitants. The village was quarantined and food became scarce! The neighbouring villages delivered bread to the borders of the quarantined village, which saved many from starvation.

In thanks the villagers swore each year to return the gifts, delivering a wagon full of bread to the neighbouring villages. They have kept this tradition for more than 355 years.

Of course, the bounty of the land (blessed by God) provides food for most of the world (if only we would distribute it fairly and generously it would be more than enough for everyone.)

More important for life than food, is the love and care that we provide for one another. The Herxheimers knew they were loved by their neighbours, and each year the return that love in a small way with their wagon of bread tradition.

What can we do today to provide for those most in need the bread of life, food, and more importantly love?

To whom do we owe our survival because of the gifts of food and love they have given us?

How will we offer thanks, to God, and to people, and

Is it not most precious and needed if we ‘pay it forward’ to those most in need, sharing the Light of Christ with those caught in darkness, instead of returning gifts to those who have plenty (also more than plenty of resources to enjoy light)?

Chains or Freedom?

God says, “I Love You”

Sunday 7 January 2024

Freedom! To See The Light

Clearly, Brightly

Through All Obstacles!

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.

Acts of the Apostles 26:29

Paul replied, ‘Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that not only you but also all who are listening to me today might become such as I am—except for these chains.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

…

John Baptizes Jesus with water, God enters the event, forever to be remembered as Jesus “was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Such it is spectacular when God reveals to all whose Jesus is, and who that makes him: God’s Son, and Our Saviour come as a human to teach, heal, and sacrifice himself to save the world and demonstrate God’s love for the world.

So also God sends the Holy Spirit in our baptism to claim us, cleanse us, renew us, and equip us to be God’s workers on earth for all people.

In the fall of 2002 Minnesota’s respected senior senator, Paul Wellstone, died in a plane crash along with his wife, daughter, three campaign workers, and the two pilots. Out of that came an example of a wonder: Shortly after the crash, someone hung a banner of a well-known quote of one of the deceased aides, Mary McEvoy, over the entrance to the building where she had worked. Her words challenged, “What would you do if anything were possible and you knew you could not fail?”

McEvoy’s question evokes a freedom for living in the face of chaos, a freedom we receive in baptism, when God’s Voice claims us as beloved children.

Never free from sin, but always forgiven and renewed for life as God’s workers in creation, we can choose to life out of the freedom the Holy Spirit offers us each day,

or not?

What will it be today?

Crying

For Help

Weeping With Thanks

Thursday, December 28, 2023

What Wonders God Works, As the Sun Rises, Beginning a New Day!

Psalm 104:14

You cause the grass to grow for the cattle, and plants for people to use, to bring forth food from the earth,

Ephesians 5:20

… 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

People in desperate situations hope that someone will make a difference, help them, provide the basics of life and security.

Trapped on an island overrun by the enemy in a world wide war, the doctors and nurses and voluntold helpers (having found their way to the camp of the resistance fighters) have bound up patients for months or is it already years with old strips from old clothes. Everyone is malnourished if not starving. Everyone’s clothes are tattered and torn. Uniforms for soldiers cannot be required since no one has them. Spotty communications begging for supplies bring at most ‘Stand bye.’

Then, wrangling with all sorts of resistance from the infighting and egos of the top generals and admirals, a small group of 4 soldiers disembark from a submarine in rubber boats and paddle through the surf. Met by members of the resistance, more rubber boats are dispatched from the sub with supplies. Not enough, but something.

Visiting the ‘hospital’ the new soldiers still in black dyed fatigues cut open the new ‘plastic’ sealed packages of sulphanilamide, a new antibiotic and dressings. Weeping with joy and relief the doctor orders the nurses and helpers to take off all the bandages on the patients and to pour the sulphanilamide on and cover them with new dressings. Patients with fatal infections now have a chance at life.

(paraphrased from W.E.B. Higgins’ Behind Enemy Lines)

Ahh the immense tears-of-joy outpouring when assistance arrives for those subsisting as they irritate the enemy.

How many more people on earth this day could cry ‘Would that assistance were brought here!?!’

And we carry on, giving thanks for all that we have, all that keeps us alive, and all the blessings each day that come our way. It may not be supplies, clothes, and food, or shelter sufficient to stand the new normals of weather wind heat and cold, but it is all we need to know joy.

Short

Just Short

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Air,

Thanks

For The Air!

Ezekiel 37:14

I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.

2 Corinthians 3:17

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

…

Words of Grace For Today

This is the shortest day of the year!

Well not actually.

It does have 24 hours just like every other, but

but it is the day with the shortest daylight of any in the whole year.

In the short light and long dark

God’s Spirit shines brightly

in us

around us

among us

so that

we will live

and have our own land

soil that we can survive on.

Except few people in the world do, and also we do not.

Renters like many fortunate people.

Less fortunate are those who neither own nor rent

and have no place to call home.

In the light and dark

we remember

and pray

that

God will protect them all as God has protected us these many years, through many generations, through trials and tribulations, and joys and celebrations.

Darkness cannot overcome us.

So we share the light we have with all around, and spread joy for this day as for each day

still

breathe

air.

A Maze

Or

Amazing

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

The Maze of Bush Can Trap Us.

God Sees A Way Through For Us

…

Forgiveness.

Psalm 139:4

Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.

1 Corinthians 4:5

Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Too many people think they know everything.

‘If everyone would just listen to me, I could straighten them out!’

…

or so they all say.

And then go off doing all sorts of crazy things, based on lies and partial truths, and biased views of things that might have, or might not actually have, happened.

Thankfully God sees, knows, and will judge all according to truth. No partial truths, false confessions, or desperate defence strategies needed. God knows everything already.

Thankfully.

So there is that to look forward to becoming plainly evident to all those people who think they know everything,

and

actually have it all wrong.

So we can rest, peacefully, at the end of each day, and step confidently into the beginning of a new day,

assured that God not only knows everything,

but judges us with compassion and steadfast love.

Just another day in the bushes.

The Only One

The Only One Listening

Monday, December 11, 2023

A logging road in the Klanawa Valley on western Vancouver Island divides two landscapes: a cutblock on the right, and old-growth trees that are part of a wildlife protection area on the left. Tara Carman/CBC
*https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/the-forest-beside-the-clear-c*

No One Listens and Cutblocks Eat Away at Our Precious,

Climate Saving, Old Growth Forests

Psalm 38:9-11

O Lord, all my longing is known to you; my sighing is not hidden from you. My heart throbs, my strength fails me; as for the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me. My friends and companions stand aloof from my affliction, and my neighbours stand far off.

1 John 5:14

And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Job knew it, as many have since.

It is that experience that everyone and everything has turned against one, even life itself, and there is no one that hears. No one that listens. No one that understands. No one that cares.

Except

That God hears, listens, understands, cares and

and

God even responds, providing what we need to survive even those dark times.

And survive we do, until the sun shines brightly again in our lives and we have all the listening, hearing, understanding, and caring we require

in order to

Give God thanks with our every breath.

Adopted

Undeservedly so.

Tuesday, December 5, 2023

God Guides Us On Our Challenging Path to the Light of Christ,

and Calls Us to Share It and Everything

With Everyone.

Psalm 65:4

Happy are those whom you choose and bring near to live in your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, your holy temple.

Galatians 4:4-5

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Happy are those.

Happy are we, as some of those, as we are, who are adopted by God as children. God has chosen us and taken us in when we least deserve anything good. God has given us bounty beyond bounty of things good. Nothing can take that from us.

God calls us to share all this with everyone we encounter, the promise, the reality, the reception of gifts, the challenges, the call to share it all.

God help us, for the tasks are as impossible as the gifts are astounding.

How can we but dance and sing our thanks and praise for all God has given us, including the answer to the age-old question: what is the meaning of life?

Which is none other than to share all we have with those in need.

God help us if we don’t. God help us to do this, each day.