Category: Geography

A Soft Answer

Oh, that they would answer softly

Monday, June 16, 2025

And help the world avoid WW III!

Hard Metal, Soft Wood,

At Peace

…

for now.

Proverbs 15:1

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

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2 Timothy 1:13

Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

bombing

drone strikes

missiles

destruction

and

death

…

Is there no way to resolve these things without so much livid hatred and harsh words

…

followed by destruction?

…

of course there is!

But there is a cost

to answering softly.

…

Practice it in daily life and then maybe

we are in a position to critique, advise, and save those with the power

to

turn the world to war

yet again.

Kindness

Above all kindness

Sunday, June 15, 2025

restores life

For us all,

like new spring buds.

Zechariah 7:9

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another.

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2 Timothy 2:24-25

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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True judgments, kindness, and mercy.

It really isn’t much, but …

for most of human history

truth, kindness and mercy

have so many examples of being

…

the exception to the rule of how we deal with one another.

So

again and again

we read

and

hear

that we should be kind, merciful, and make true judgments

for one another,

to one another.

…

and Happy Father’s Day to all who are responsible fathers!

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.

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.

…

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.

…

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.

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.

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 –

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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.

Righteous

Suffering

Friday, May 30, 2025

Rejoicing

Hot Hot

or

Cold Cold

The Way is Always Challenging

Psalm 5:12

For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover them with favour as with a shield.

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Acts of the Apostles 5:41-42

As they left the council, they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonour for the sake of the name. And every day in the temple and at home they did not cease to teach and proclaim Jesus as the Messiah.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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The Way of following Jesus, of going where God sends us and how the Holy Spirit guides us, with righteousness, wonder, and grace for all people,

The Way of following Jesus is never without risks and challenges.

Only when we trust that God shields us from final death, giving us new life each day, and everlasting life after death itself, can we proceed confidently into and through each day, meeting all challenges as Jesus would have us,

with kindness and honesty,

with music and dance,

with joy,

even

when

it’s

tough

going

forward.

Words

Music

Thursday, May 29, 2025

and Dance

Where Will We Sing And Dance

Next?

Leviticus 26:6

And I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one shall make you afraid.

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Luke 11:20

Since it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you.

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Words of Grace for Today –

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The chaos of words that fill our worlds is astounding, overwhelming, debilitating. So many of the words are evil. They are neither true nor kind.

God’s Word is both true and kind.

We need to speak it often, and clearly, amid the chaos of noisy words.

Better is that we put the true and kind words, words pointing to God’s Word, to music and sing them clearly, enchantingly, wondrously.

Best is that we not only sing kind and true words plainly for all to hear, but we also dance through our lives to them. For our steps speak even more loudly than our mouths can ever.

When we sing and dance God’s Word, then peace surrounds us, a gift from God, and the Kingdom of God has come into our midst, with power to heal our every ill.