Category: Sacramental Mystic

Well, Whadaya Know?

Sunday 25 December 2022

Fresh Christmas Snow Covers the Ground

as Grey Covers the Skies,

Yet Bright is Christ’s Light This Day.

Joshua 24:23

He said, ‘Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.’

John 1:18

No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

Words of Grace For Today

Lots of ways to orient one’s life,

only one is a living God, born among us to poor parents, from a most unabashedly scandalous pregnancy, and heralded by the lowest of the lowest of society.

Thus it is we are thought to be fools, and yet we continue as servants to the poor, the sick, the needy, the imprisoned. We continue to humbly begin our ways in the world remembering not our own greatness, but God’s in dealing with our great sins. We continue to live in a peace from out of time and place while conflicts storm around us. We continue to effect change, not through power, might, and force, but through humility, compassion, love, and forgiveness.

We continue.

We continue to live life to it’s fullest, sharing that fullness with all we encounter.

The snow may be fresh, but our orientation in life is as old as the universe: it is God-given from the beginning

and the Word

was made

flesh

to

live among us.

Amid the Chaos …

Saturday 24 December 2022

Stepping Down,

Stepping Out,

Living In The Light!

Zechariah 9:10

He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the warhorse from Jerusalem; and the battle-bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Luke 2:14

Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!

Words of Grace For Today

As the nations wage war, as conflicts consume lives from billions to one single person by another, and as the Devil plays in God’s good creation:

God comes and commands that there be peace among all nations and for all people, for God favours us all.

The sun rises shining bright, lightening hearts and minds in these short days and lately these cloudy days.

The temperature rises to above -20⁰.

And small successes provide music worth listening to this season, blessed music that is not Xmas musak.

Christ is born this evening (we celebrate again the event of more than 2000 years ago.)

And there is cause to celebrate life in all it’s chaotic complications, time to pray for those close and far, and even for those who are bent on destroying me to cover their lies and injustice, and time to rest in God’s peace that permeates all.

What else would one do on Christmas Eve

.

.

.

if one is not caught in the manufactured celebrations and all the pain that go with them?

It’s too unbelievable to not be true?

Friday 23 December 2022

Even at -39⁰ the morning

starts

again

with

Eucharist

&

breakfast.

Psalms 21:13

Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength! We will sing and praise your power.

1 Timothy 3:16

Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great: He was revealed in flesh, vindicated in spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory.

Words of Grace For Today

There are stories that are just too unbelievable to be made up. My ex, a bunch of women, the cops, and the courts gave me such a story. If I had not been so lied about I would never believe what happened, being kicked out of apartments for no good reason except someone was trying to frame me, being arrested, tried, convicted and sent to prison for crimes that never happened (yet alone were committed by me!), and financially sent into debt so far I’ll never see my way clear in this lifetime.

That’s the evil done to me.

Then there is the rest of the story, of people quietly acknowledging what they saw happening as corrupt and unjust, of life criminals going out of their way to protect me from real harm in jail (while guards and other inmates certainly sought to kill me – without getting caught), of opportunities and circumstances that provided me enough to survive on, and the skills to better and better protect myself from the elements and the ever-present criminals, … and from the on-going lies others tell about me which are then used in court over and over again, even though anyone with half a mind knows what is said are lies, yet again.

And the mystery, not that I can survive in spite of it all, which is substantial enough, but that God has blessed me, walked with me in very visible, tangible and life-giving ways, and protected me from all harm that would do me in.

Jesus’ story is like that, too. Every story of God making things happen in spite of evil people working to ‘get ahead’ is like that, too.

There are countless stories like mine. People are dealt with unjustly by people intentionally doing evil. And God providing a better life for them in the midst of all that evil.

Makes one stop and contemplate, how Advent calls bring us to prepare, and Xmas culture lays great expectations on us, and yet God reaches into our lives and brings to us each Christmas (in spite of all the things we do to avoid noticing God at work) the wonder and awe of God being everything for us, even as a young infant child born in poverty.

Thank God for that, again.

And again this day, we stop to wonder in awe, and give God thanks for the simplest things that show us God walks with us.

Just Plain Soaking Wet In …

Thursday 15 December 2022

Ah, we think we are so free,

so high on creation

…

until

we tumble

into the powder all wet

…

with God’s blessings.

Psalms 133:1-3

How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life for evermore.

Romans 12:4-5

For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.

Words of Grace For Today

Wherever and however we live, we live among other people, sometimes with other people, many times in spite of other people who would do us in given the smallest opportunity.

It is a witness to God’s grace given to us, which sustains us each day, when we work to live in harmony with all people, even those so misguided people who think our demise is their gain.

For this God created all of us, to live among and with all sorts of people with different abilities, characteristics, habits, viewpoints, faiths, colours, genders, and everything, including kinds of brains (from neurodiverse to super intelligent to average to simple) … even to mystics and on to profoundly spiritually blind.

It’s a challenge at best. Our demise at it’s worst.

And when we recognize we can only succeed by God’s Grace, it is the sweetest blessing in all the universe, a blessing that God pours out freely on us all.

Some of us just put on supposedly impenetrable ‘raincoats’ to shed God’s blessings so that we can go our own ways.

Even then God’s blessing bounce and splatter everywhere, soaking us all also from the bottom up, underneath all ‘protection’ we don.

So it is, we, God’s children, often in spite of ourselves, live in an uneven harmony, singing an odd tune to God’s melody, tripping all too often as we dance through life.

Where to today? To which melody?

Soaking in God’s blessings regardless!

God Gathers In All Kinds

Wednesday 14 December 2022

At each fork in our day’s path,

which will we choose

as our future?

Zechariah 2:10-11

Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! For lo, I will come and dwell in your midst, says the Lord. Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord on that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell in your midst.

Revelation 7:9

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

Words of Grace For Today

We humans are generally more comfortable with what we know, with what we are familiar with, and that goes for other people as well. If we know and are familiar with others we are comfortable around them, or so we say.

There are the exceptions where we know and are all too familiar with people who abuse, lie, and take advantage of others (us included) by criminal acts and many not recognized as criminal acts. We stay very uncomfortable around them.

The internet has many ‘social media’ services that push content at us from like-minded people, so that we are comfortable with what is being done to us, as advertisements slowly scratch away at our very being, moulding us into consumers before anything else. Our interactions on ‘social media’ (those so regulated by such algorithms) are ‘heard’ only by those who already agree with us. And the ‘echo chamber’ effect takes our perspective away from us, until we can all too easily think that all good people must think as we do, even when what we think is totally disconnected from reality, fed by ‘fake news’, and wilful people seeking to increase their power and control over others. Via the internet that can be millions and even billions of people, all led like lemmings over the cliffs of reality into the seas of fear, racism, radicalism, and then on to destructive violence, small scale one on one, and large scale as these ‘enlightened lemmings’ seek to rid the world of ‘those’ people. All the while power hungry people (many just as ‘enlightened lemmings’ as their victims) manipulate economies, wars-conflicts, elections, and just about anything they can use to their ‘advantage’ to have more power, whatever the cost to other people.

God sure did create humans capable of great chaos, nearly enough to move the whole precious planet back into pre-creation chaos of non-existence, or at least void of life.

What for?

God has, even as all the ‘enlightened lemmings’ and power hungry corrupters of reality work to create chaos, also created God’s people in the middle of all this chaos. God’s people.

These are not just one stripe of a kind of people. Not one nation. Not one creed. Not one colour, race, gender, or any other category we use to delineate ourselves from ‘those others’ with whom we are uncomfortable.

God’s people come from every nation, every corner of this precious planet, every kind of person, every faith, and every category of people.

That’s pure light made of all colours of the rainbow called together, living in harmony, in peace, serving one another, bringing justice based on truth to bear for all the poor, feeding the hungry, bringing living water to the thirsty, and sending us out to proclaim God’s welcoming grace to all people.

Today, we of God’s people, will choose at the forks in our paths, to serve God, or ourselves. Which will we choose: to participate in creation’s harmony or work of chaos? Small choices mostly: tremendous consequences.

Thirst, Testing, and Reaping: Or Grace?

Tuesday 13 December 2022

We Thirst

Most of All For

Cool, Clear,

Light.

Christ’s Light That Gives Life.

Deuteronomy 6:16

Do not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.

Galatians 6:7

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow.

Words of Grace For Today

The people in the wilderness are thirsty, for there is little to no water for them and it has been so for days. So why did God bring them out into the wilderness? It’s freedom. But freedom can mean being free from the necessities of life and that is not what they thought God would provide for them.

They are ready to rebel. Moses is to be their victim, and then? They would be worse off than before! Or?

And God offers Moses access to water, using the staff that parted the waters of the Red Sea for the escaping Hebrews and then un-parted to drown their pursuers. Water flows from a rock.

Well, God showed those people how water can be had, eh?

Not really. God showed the people that God would provide.

Not that it helps. When they are hungry, having had little to no food for days they demand of Moses and God that they have food, and then even meat!

And that is all reasonable, right?

In Galatians the people are warned that they will reap what they sow. Except that is expressly what Jesus saves us from. We reap what God sows for us.

Somewhere in there is God’s reality and not our confused interpretations used to hammer each other into submission and obedience to our wills (not God’s).

God provides all we need, and asks us to beg, cry, and demand from God what we need. So we pray for everything we need!

God also understands that we are never free from sin. God needs and promises to continually forgive us our sins, exactly so that we do not ‘reap what we sow’ so that we can live free of that burden, a necessity before we can live anything close to thankful, gracious, and generous with ourselves and others, and God’s good creation.

Living free, in God’s grace, does not mean that we will get it right all the time, or even a little bit. It does mean that at the end of the day, and at the beginning of each new day, we can thank God for everything and ask God for everything we need … and even everything we want, knowing God will pare down our what-we-want list to only those things that are good for us and others and all creation.

So likewise today, we give thanks and beg like mad for what we need and want. Often we cannot discern what is which, anyway. But we need not fear God’s response. God walks with us and suffers what we suffer, suffering at the hands of our enemies, and giving us

Assurance that when we thirst, there will always be a rock that flows freely with water for us.

Exodus 17.2-7

The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah* and Meribah,* because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’

When There’s No Morning Light?

Monday 12 December 2022

Morning comes so late and

then in a snowstorm,

barely at all.

Still God’s Light is with us,

more than the oil processing plant’s light

breaks the northern horizon’s

quiet.

Psalms 31:17

Do not let me be put to shame, O Lord, for I call on you; let the wicked be put to shame; let them go dumbfounded to Sheol.

Ephesians 5:8

For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light…

Words of Grace For Today

‘Let the wicked be put to shame and let them go to hell!’

Which is all fine and good, except that, when we are honest we have to recognize that on our own we are the wicked.

Ahhh, yes, what goes around comes around, so to speak!

We were once the darkness of the world, but now we are light. Once we were the wicked, but now we are the righteous, though we are only light and righteous because God so makes us by removing our own records from us and applying Jesus’ pure record to us in relationship to God and all creation.

So we get to live as the Light, as the Righteous, even though it is not us, but rather the Holy Spirit working in us.

And what are we to do with others who practice wicked ways still? Forgive them, so that they can repent and join the Light and the Righteous. And when they refuse to even recognize their wicked ways, and do horrendous damage to so many people, well …

well then God must deal with them.

We can work on forgiving them, or we can bind their sins, and let them know they are bound so that they know God will judge them according to truth.

As for this day, there is plenty to do to survive the cold of winter, and prepare our hearts, minds and lives for the Christ-child-come-celebration ahead.

Now is time of reflection, sombre introspection, and thanksgiving for all God does for us each day.

So we take time, time to rest and think and pray and sing and …

let God speak to us again,

and to recognize that God walks with us each day, no matter what comes our way.

Let It BE So

Sunday 11 December 2022

We need not be caught in the ‘fog’ of not knowing.

God makes all our paths

(past, present, and future)

clear.

Proverbs 5:21

For human ways are under the eyes of the Lord, and he examines all their paths.

Luke 1:38

Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.

Words of Grace For Today

How often will we get the opportunity to respond to God’s Word for us by saying, ‘Let it be so, as You will?’

God watches over us, knows everything we think, say, write, and do. God has since the beginning of time communicated well with us so that, if we care to listen, we can understand God’s will for us, each day.

We get that opportunity to submit to God’s will every day.

Even today.

Ears, eyes, and hearts open and we will understand God’s will for us … well enough to choose to follow God’s will or

to choose to follow our own way

and suffer all that comes

from rebellion

instead of all the gifts that come from submitting to God’s good will for us.

Oh, we pray, may it be that we will submit.

Oh, we pray, may it be so, today.

Looping Through at -32⁰ C

Sunday 4 December 2022

just a bit more to the left and down

…

opps, too far!

Ezekiel 34:12

As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.

John 10:11

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Words of Grace For Today

Right here. The flock is scattered, but this old ram is not lost. Rather God walks with me each day. This past Friday there was hardly any possibility of getting lost … at least not getting lost and living to tell about it. It dipped down into the dark cold of winter’s depths:

This morning I am out for my usual morning exercise walk down to the lake shore and up to the oil lease reclaimed field. 50 steps down, 75 up, then 22 up, then 48 up, then 48 back down, with lots of steps in between on the level or sort of so.

It’s -32⁰ for the first time this year. The drains have gone below freezing, the septic field is now at -2⁰ as it has been for days. Used water has to be carried out.

I’d forgotten this wonderful world of -30⁰C:

Stepping outside the air hits me in the face and it’s bracing, biting. The hood goes up right away even before locking up.

The snow is loud, squeaking and crunching and even screaming short cries as I step down the the hill into the wood, and then sliding, sliding, and not being able to stop until I reach the bottom.

The light fills the horizon with pastel hues of peach and orange and blue on top the greys and whites and delights of the playful tracks left yesterday in the snow.

Climbing in short steps in the footholds long ago stomped into the first snows, my breath is not as short as it was months ago, but by the time I reach the top I’m glad for a pause to catch with a camera the light painting the poplars with the skyclours bouncing from East to West and down around my lined pants on top of long johns covering already cooled legs. I move on, stopping to catch the light and colours, freezing my hand in the process, warming it inside the parka under my armpit. It takes more time than the walk takes to warm up my hand, mostly because I keep sacrificing it to the work of photo taking. I hope anyway, but since my glasses are fogged over a bit and I do not want to dump heat to take off my glasses, I am guessing from experience what I’m doing with the camera. The results will speak for themselves soon enough.

Just about to the top

Closer

Closer, yes, the sun made it.

Back I step into the heat, what is still inside the insulated tarps, and my glasses finish the fogging. But I’ve memorized the steps in, from this pallet to that, where I take off my boots and put them up on a shelf to be warmed, for the floor is near freezing while the ceiling is above 30⁰ and sometimes 50⁰ or 60⁰ or hotter, though then the danger of burning down increases greatly.

Off comes the cold parka, hung up on a nail, along with the fleece and wool hat, and the rush of warmth is so welcome.

Off come the boots, the lined pants, and I step up to the living area, up higher for better heating. It’s 30⁰ at the ceiling and 10⁰ at the floor.

Ahh, yes, -30⁰ has it’s delights and it’s challenges. Thankfully there is always a warm down duvet over the sleeping rolls, and I can warm up my feet and legs there if I need to.

All is well. All is well with my body and soul. The irregular melody of a hymn (from Gregor Linßen’s Und ein neuer Morgen part of der Messe “Lied vom Licht” that I worked on toward a better than Google translation yesterday) loops through my mind (see 18 February 2023 for my ‘final’ effort at translating it): for the melody, sung in German

1) Lord, you are our hope where life withers away,
in clay and on rocks grow full in us,
be germinating seed, be a secure place,
Bring forth fresh buds and bloom bright in us.
And as a new ’morrow breaks on this good planet
forth, in another new day, blossom in us.

.

Ref- Keep us safe, securely, firm in your wonderful hands and bless us all,
bless us all and this good planet.

.

2) Lord, you are goodness where love breaks apart,
in cold and dark times, breathe inside us.
be bless’d spirits sparking, be our warming light,
be hot flame, be burning in us.
And as a new ’morrow breaks on this good planet
forth, in another new day, burn bright in us.

.

Ref- Keep us safe, securely, firm in your wonderful hands and bless us all,
bless us all and this good planet.

.

3) Lord, you are our joy where laughter is lost,
in deep darkness, live on in us,
be joy filled dreams and thoughts, be comforting looks,
be voices and sing on in us.
And as a new ’morrow breaks on this good planet
forth, in another new day, sing on in us.

.

Ref- Keep us safe, securely, firm in your wonderful hands and bless us all,
bless us all and this good planet.

.

A rather wonderful way to start a day!

The good shepherd has kept this hermit well, safely cared for and provided for, in good company in the solitude that leaves plenty of welcome for God to walk along each step down, up, out and in, in warmth and in cold.

May the Good Shepherd also find you this day, and walk with you to keep you safe from all harm.

Reality Worth Living In

Saturday 26 November 2022

The Sun Rises through the scrub beneath the trees, beginning a new day.

God never ‘sets’,

but walks with us,

always.

Psalms 116:9

I walk before the Lord in the land of the living.

Luke 20:38

Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.

Words of Grace For Today

There are so many times in life when I have been surprised that others do not experience reality clearly.

The confirmation class where others seem to have not the slightest clue what the pastor was talking about most of the time, most often when I would engage him in a serious question.

The step-daughter who always accused me of doing things I had never done, so I wrote up an exchange we had where she had blown up at me. She agreed that what I had written was not wrong, but it was not right because it did not include what she felt. Her accusations were that I was responsible for what she was feeling, even though I had next to nothing to do with what her emotional state was. Her birth father had favoured her among the children and then killed himself, leaving her confused and angry. That anger got directed at me, her step-father. The result was the reality she lived was often quite disconnected from what actually took place.

People in so many different congregations and synods who played power games, participated in church, prayed for forgiveness and reconciliation with those people they saw as enemies (who certainly were not of the view that they,themselves, -those people – were ‘enemies’ of anyone,) and then they would return to their games of false accusations, scheming and disruption of congregational life.

The many people who come to the lake to drink and get high, seemingly unaware of the holy ground they tread upon.

The closest analogy I’ve found comes from being a professional photographer. I see photos all day long, especially at sunrise and sunset, or in storms, or any time the light is spectacularly specular. I’ve spoken with people who can point a camera (well a cell phone, so now everyone has a pretty good camera!) at the world to capture at best a snapshot of trees, lake, and blah, and not even notice that 2⁰ to the left there is a splendid photo waiting maybe only two minutes to be taken before it disappears.

Do people, likewise, go through their days, not seeing God among the living, thinking that God is only for us after we die, and God walks among the dead of all time?

Luke puts it straight:

God is not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.

Let us walk this day, knowing that God walks with us.

Or is that something that others cannot experience? Scripture gives plenty of witness that many people have lived, knowing God walked with them.

So this is reality, and reality worth living for.