Holy

Squirrels,

Those Damned Squirrels

Friday, April 21, 2023

If the troubles squirrels make were the worst in this country ….

but no,

we have to endure lies from all quarters.

Exodus 20:16

You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

Ephesians 4:29

Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.

Words of Grace For Today

While I certainly know personally the cost paid by one against who numerous people worked to bear false witness against,

the prohibition to not bear false witness is (even though seemingly impossible for even Justices given authority and responsibility to hear, determine and only provide truth) more easily complied with than the admonishment not to allow any evil to come out of our mouths, but to allow only words that give life through grace to be heard from and spread by us.

The one is a negative: do not do this.

The other is a positive: do this.

And, to not do something evil is easier than to do good always.

That said, not doing evil ever is still impossible for us humans.

That’s where God’s Grace comes in, without which we would be lost, more-so than it seems we are already.

God’s Grace frees us from the evil of our past, so that each moment we have a new unencumbered possibility to choose to do good, and yet we still choose evil.

Knowing that is how it is with us, then we are able (freed by God’s Grace) to allow grace to be everything for others. As we allow grace to be everything for others, then we cannot help but speak and spread grace everywhere for all people.

So we pray: let grace, O God, pour freely from our mouths, also this day, that Your will may be done also among us.

Looking

Through Sun Rays and Time

Sunday, April 16, 2023

Looking Through Smoke and Mirrors,

to the Divine.

Psalm 99:5

Extol the Lord our God; worship at his footstool. Holy is he!

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.

Words of Grace For Today

It’s a marvellous contraption, prayer is. Not that many see it that way, yet in the beginning there was no prayer, and for many millennia humans had forgotten about this contraption. The rediscovery of it has changed lives and the way the world works. God knows we need it as we face a fourth world war.
Sotorus

That from Sotorus’ paper journal, discovered with 11 others in the year 4391.

But back to the beginning.

In the beginning was the Word.

God spoke and the universe was created.

Humans spoke. Sometimes they spoke to God and they called it prayer. A contraption that allowed mortal beings to speak directly to the immortal creator of the universe. But most often when humans spoke all sorts of chaos ensued, tainted as every good intention was with intentions to make their own lives better, the cost to others be damned. And the humans damned the whole universe with their words and by their actions until in the year 2302 the earth ceased to support the 12 plus billion humans on it. Viruses wiped out 7/8^ths of all people and half of what was left of other animals, birds and fish. In that same year earthquakes ripped every continent in pieces and violent ‘climate-changed-vicious’ storms wiped out what was left of every city within 50 miles of the new coastlines.

There wasn’t a city left with any building more than two stories high. No services existed anywhere.

Life became brutal for everyone …

Until groups of people gathered to live and work together. One group collected in an old warehouse area next to some of the only remaining arable land next to one of the new lakes fed by the new rivers the earthquakes created. They called themselves the Iblers.

This was not the only group who gathered. There were hundreds of them across the earth as it was the only way to survive against the wild storms and the few vicious animals left alive who survived by preying on the dead and the living, somehow not contracting any of the deadly viruses, or at least not suffering from them.

The Iblers had an old book in an old language that only one person could read. She taught others. In it they read of a thing called prayer, talking to God the creator of the universe. They practised it three times each day, twice alone at waking and sleeping, and once in the noon light gathered together. Slowly this practise changed the people, almost imperceptibly. Their transformation was slow and steady so that years later they were a content, hardworking, and thriving community, with children everywhere, with struggles galore, conflict still, but always great effort to sustain hope through love and grace. The book’s torn cover identified it as an IBLE.

Now in the year 5402 we give thanks for the Iblers and their rediscovery of the contraption called prayer, for with it we sustain hope, and love, and grace, and …

life itself

morning

noon

and

night.

Editor’s Note: Maybe I got the dates all wrong; the records are quite smudged and the air is smokey more often than not leaving a permanent haze in my eyesight, yet it is clear that contraption prayer is powerful and to be used daily, with thanks.

Easter

Resurrection

Celebration of Life,

Again.

Sunday, April 9, 2023

And There IS Life, and Light, And Hope … Again!

Psalms 3:6

I am not afraid of tens of thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.

Mark 16:9-10

And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterwards Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.
Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping.

Words of Grace For Today

Only when we understand the darkness that God suffered by dying on the cross, and the darkness that permeated all creation, pushing, shoving, and sucking everything toward uncreation,

can we then truly celebrate

that Jesus is Risen, indeed!

And we can live, and laugh, and pray thanks, and dance, and hope, and reach towards others

with the same grace God has extended to us, through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross,

offering them life, laughter, prayers of thanks, dancing, hoping and community so precious.

We can but overflow with prayers of joy and thanksgiving, for all of creation can live again.

Great Mystery

The Greatest Of All!

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

What Word Do We Have

That Will Bring Light

Into the Deepest Darkness?

Psalms 33:5

He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

2 Corinthians 8:9

For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

Words of Grace For Today

As a windfall is to unwieldy debts, how is an Easter sermon to our heartbreak, loss, helplessness, and struggles to live, sinners as we are?

We understand how debts can become oppressive, sucking the life and hope and joy right out of us. Yet we try to deny that we owe God and so many other people because of all our sins. We run up a debt load that is impossible to deal with. Our debts suck the life and hope and joy right out of us, even if we do not admit.

God planned for that, too.

God took all the riches of God’s own self in Jesus’ purity and sinlessness and God gave that all up. With our sins God ran Jesus into poverty so deep he would not escape it. He paid for our debts with his unjust death, and transferred the greatest riches of innocence, purity, and the best unconditional love to us.

God did this through Jesus’ death … and his resurrection. For God would not in any way stay poor. God spread the riches of all creation, all around … even to us who are such great sinners.

So we live, with hope, joy, and love enough to share with all who encounter us.

With what words could a preacher in an Easter sermon communicate such undeserved freedom to those who anticipate already that they have earned their place in God’s good graces?

What words communicate the largest windfall possible: blessed life that cannot be taken from us!? This is the same question for everyone who receives the gift of faith, not just the preacher on Easter Sunday.

Perhaps with great humility the preacher/believer must confess that there are no such words to be chosen. With “Christ is Risen!” “Christ is Risen, Indeed!” we can say great things that bespeak the wondrous mysteries of God’s love for us.

But to communicate that our sin-debts are paid once and for all time … well that is up to the Holy Spirit to give the people ears to hear, and hearts to learn, and faith to know.

…

Each day, after we have confessed our sins and begged again for forgiveness, let us pray that God will give us ears to hear, hearts to learn, and faith to know God’s Grace for our enemies (us among them, for most often we are our own worst enemies.)

Looking

For Jesus

Monday, April 3, 2023

We Build Houses,

Even For Fishing With Jesus For People.

God Has Other Plans

For Us.

Psalms 16:8

I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

Hebrews 12:2

looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Words of Grace For Today

For us all, all too often we see God as our right hand power that enables us to succeed in the world. Our enemies should lay down and worship, if not God, then us, for the power we wield.

Except life is not like that, and God’s Word for us is not either.

Instead God deals with the reality of life … which ends in death for us all.

God frees us from our sins, and our ultimate fears of death,so that we can live.

On Easter we will say: Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed! As enthusiastic as we may have learned to proclaim this wondrous news, the power of that news is clear only when we know deep in our bones and hearts what has come before: Jesus has died. Jesus has died a terrible, torturous, unjust death.

That’s what Holy Week is all about. It reminds us of the reality that Jesus addresses with his death and resurrection.

Make no mistake there have been plenty of deaths recently. Among them:

Five siblings, their spouses and children and friends gather to bury the siblings’ parents killed in an accident. An earthquake rocks the mountain overlooking the cemetery and buries them all. A tank runs over an orphan soldier crushing the breath out of him forever. An addict dies alone and helpless poisoned by xylazine cut into his drugs. An old man dies forgotten in his soiled bed. Two women are stoned to death by a crowd of self-righteous zealots.

And then this Friday we remember also that Jesus was falsely accused as many before and since, was strung up and left to die on a cross.

Anyone who is paying even a little bit of attention knows the searing sadness, and profound sorrow of death. That’s life on earth. We get used to such news.

God planned for that, too.

God lets us dive into the familiar of death, and then jars us out of our comfort zones with Jesus’ resurrection,

Turning our worlds all topsy-turvy, back upright,

Where only God is in control, and we live and breathe only as God gives us these gifts … to share.

Delivered

From Our Enemies (Mostly Us)

Friday, March 31, 2023

Our Paths Are Never Without The Shadows of

…

our own evils.

Judges 3:9

But when the Israelites cried out to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the Israelites, who delivered them, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother.

Luke 1:68

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favourably on his people and redeemed them.

Words of Grace For Today

God delivers us

mostly from ourselves

as the agents of evil that permeates all our lives

in surprising and oft denied ways so that we may too easily think all is coming up roses

when in reality the things we do stink more than the sewage pipe from the city dwellers before the first treatment plant.

Which is to say, collectively we make quite a stinking mess of the world.

Lately we see how the world comes back on us and all life, trying to stop us from destroying everything. Wild climate change storms and events that threaten all life on earth.

What are we thinking

other than only for ourselves, the future be damned.

Well it is. The future is quite damned by what we do and fail to do.

We need a saviour, not so simply as a warrior to defeat the enemy soldiers attacking us to rule over us and make us slaves.

No, this saviour needs to save us from ourselves. From our greed, avarice, and wilfulness that leaves us willing to destroy others (and ourselves and all our futures) just so that today (and a few of our tomorrows) may be ours to ‘enjoy’ in comfort.

Ahh! What was God thinking when God created us so capable of such destruction and evil …

if not

that God also created us capable of equally such great love, care, respect, and goodness.

Today, which will we choose to live out?

Listen

And Clearly Hear How Equal We All Are

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

We Are The Glorious Tops Among Creatures,

Favoured By God,

Just As All Other Peoples Are, Too!

So Not Really Specially Favoured,

Except We Certainly Do Not Deserve

Anything Good From God.

Psalms 117:1

Praise the Lord, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples!

Acts of the Apostles 2:11

[On Pentecost people of many nations Cretans and Arabs gathered to hear the disciples said:]in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.

Words of Grace For Today

While jealous, and greedy, and wilful peoples of all generations have claimed that God loved them and hated their neighbours (today we call it xenophobia which results is so many disastrous deeds done to others even xenocide) God has a different message, over and over delivered in many and various ways. God loves, works through, and claims all kinds of people,

especially sinners.

So, while many would like to say they just do not understand God calling them to embrace their neighbours and enemies with love, but rather that God favours them and them alone among the many peoples, God speaks clearly so that every person can hear the Good News proclaimed in their own language.

Of course that often takes lots of work on the part of translators and other dedicated people who wish to share the Good News with all peoples.

Today will we be those who exclude others, with all sorts of twists of logic that somehow we are better and better enough compared to others to have received God’s favour when others have not?

Will we be the ones to welcome with open arms all kinds of people, especially the sinners, whom we have to acknowledge we are definitely counted among.

Welcome

Brilliant Light?

Monday, March 27, 2023

Brilliant Light Is Only Welcomed

By Those Who Have Nothing

To Hide.

Psalms 48:11

Let Mount Zion be glad, let the towns of Judah rejoice because of your judgments.

Matthew 10:7

As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Words of Grace For Today

God’s judgments are good news for those whom God does not condemn. Since God turns right-side-up the world’s upside-down way of living to gain for one’s self at others’ expense, those who have ‘succeeded’ and found a life of privilege, power, and comfort for themselves will be condemned. They will lose all their privilege, power, and comfort – indeed all their life – for eternity when God judges them. Those who the ‘succeeders’ have put down, cast out, and sucked the life out of, those people will gain a place in God’s Kingdom for eternity. They will live forever as God’s own children.

If Zion and the towns of Judah are to rejoice because of God’s judgments, then it must be that they have suffered while others have sucked life out of them.

God’s judgments are good news. But they are not good news for everyone!

Proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is near, may indeed be good news, but those who do not recognize their own terrible sins will be caught, and for them it’s not good news.

The thing that is terrible is that many people who suck life out of others know full well what God’s judgment against them will be. They also know full well that anyone proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is come near is not proclaiming any good news for them.

Watch out proclaimers of ‘good news’ for the privileged, powerful, and comfortable will do everything possible to stop the proclamation. Taking life is a regular venture for them.

Who could have guessed that proclaiming good news to all people would put one’s life at such risk?

Anyone who reads the Gospel,

and gives God thanks for the saints who have gone before us.

Today: more proclaiming the good news is our task, ready of not!

Rock

Sunday, March 19, 2023

Rocky Shores,

Rocky Lives,

Rock of Salvation

First Samuel 2:2

There is no Holy One like the Lord, no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God.

1 Peter 1:15

Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct;

Words of Grace For Today

It was just a four day outing into the Boundary Water Canoe Area. The first day the sun shone bright and warm, the winds were light and mostly at their backs. Camp that first night was everything they’d dreamed of for their honeymoon. What neither could know was that it would all dramatically change soon enough.

Brent and Nellie had this planned since they were seniors in High School. During University they’d continued to date, except for those few months when they’d fought and broken up and tried to imagine life without each other.

It was the last thing each had wanted, but in their chemistry class the professor had assigned them to work together on a lab and demonstration to teach the complex events of nuclear fission compared to nuclear fusion. It had nearly cost them their sanity as they tried to work on the project without being anywhere near each other. It was that fusion part that had, ironically, brought them together to film their presentation to a class of High School students and their parents.

After they got over their awkwardness and moved into the presentation everything started to flow, like it had for them before. Then the slide presentation simply quit. The computer died. So without missing a beat they started to really click and work together, one talking while the other drew on the presentation paper they had for ready to record questions on, then switching roles as each led with their strengths. That paper and their voices were their only presentation medium. Like a dance couple they had pulled it off with grace, and in fact their impromptu final demonstration of fusion, a completely unplanned kiss, drew applause … and their chem prof used the video of their presentation as a demonstration for their class and for years afterwards of what an A+ presentation looked like!

That kiss rocked their worlds, providing balm for so many hurts.

Within days they both knew from their own experience so much more about God, their Rock and Salvation, than ever before … most of it was about mercy and forgiveness.

That’s God’s holiness in motion, even for us today.

So what will we do with it, again this day?

My Life

For a Light!

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Just a little light can make a big difference.

And God’s Light

Makes ALL the Difference

in the World.

Isaiah 66:18E

For I know their works and their thoughts, and I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and shall see my glory,

2 Corinthians 4:6

For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

There are three ways (maybe among many others) that we take to deal with darkness in and around us:

1) we shine a light into it to change it.

2) we wallow in the darkness as if it were all we have or could have.

3) we deny the darkness and bruise our shines over and over again until we die, having bled out from our open shine wounds we cannot see in the darkness and refuse to acknowledge, for fear we will have to admit we are in the darkness, or worse: that we are the darkness.

What do we do, though, when we do not have a light, and we know the darkness too well to either deny it or be willing to wallow in it?

We trust that God will bring the light that we cannot find, shine it in the darkness and in our darkness, and as painful and disgusting as it may be to see what up until then festered in the dark, God also brings forgiveness, renewal, and a mission for us: to share the light with everyone caught in darkness.

Light work for this day as well, ready or not.