Category: Trees

Abandoned?

Abandoned

To Wonders of Wonders

Thursday, April 27, 2023

The Wonders of Wonders

Surround Us

Each New Day.

Isaiah 44:21

Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you, you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.

Romans 11:1

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

Words of Grace For Today

When Covid, on top of deceptions and lies, on top of deteriorating health, on top of life decaying into old age, leaves one feeling abandoned …

and who cannot identify with that reality when no one is there or here, or anywhere …

the only saving grace is to know and trust that God has not forgotten us, that God has not rejected us.

For the beauty of the world still surrounds us.

The celebration each morning still reflects the light of Christ in the Eucharist.

The provisions for survival are still possible.

And life is still possible, even peaceful, and we have learned to enjoy solitude immensely, knowing God walks with us, is for us, and protects us.

Is this not also the blessing God provides for us all?

Seeing

Seeing the Unseeable

Seeing the (Seeable) Saints

Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Can We See Beyond The Obvious,

The Roadblocks,

The Hopelessness?

Psalms 112:4

They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright; they are gracious, merciful, and righteous.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18

For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

Words of Grace For Today

It is one thing to know that others are fighting against one, working to take everything from one, even life itself.

It is a whole other thing to have those closest to you, turn and take advantage of ‘knowing you best’ in order to steal even life itself from you. For then, not only do the enemies possess the most private information about you, they have thus ripped one’s heart and foundation of life right out of you, robbing you of the ability to trust any other person. Then it becomes clear that this was their intention from the start. It was not to share the best of life with you, but to steal the goodness of life from you and to make you as miserable as they had been all along. Perhaps they hoped to enjoy the goodness of your life by stealing it from you, but such joy of goodness is never possible through such treacherous evil. So they continue to find their next victim, and the next, and the next ….

God planned for this, too.

God’s Spirit, by grace alone, created saints in every generation before us, people who despite all efforts to rob the goodness of life from them continue to trust God’s promises, and they lived as they chose (aided by the power of the Holy Spirit) to be gracious, merciful, and righteous.

God’s Spirit rescues us who can no longer trust anyone or anything, sends not only the Spirit to guide us, but saints of these generations, to show us how to trust by seeing what cannot be seen: God’s faithful love and presence with us

each

step

of

our

days.

…

Our enemies may have destroyed us by all worldly measures, but we live blessed in so many ways that we can only give God thanks and praise for,

for

we

too

are

made

saints

in

these

days.

…

And we see what cannot be seen.

We trust beyond experiences that have robbed us of all ability to trust.

We live abundantly.

Hiding

Hiding?

Thank God We Cannot!

Sunday, April 23, 2023

Hide!?

Think Again!

You Can Not Hide

Even in the Darkest Thicket,

Or Anywhere!

Jeremiah 23:24

Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? says the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord.

Hebrews 4:13

And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

Words of Grace For Today

While we may run from the blessedness of life in so many ways, our running from is futile.

Still we run ourselves far and deep into death in so many ways.

And most of all we try to hide from God, out of fear that being seen by God will expose the futility of our striving to live and live longer and better than others, or better and longer than we should have. Then God will also know of the inevitable destruction to others caused by our futile strugglings.

No matter how hard and far we try to run away, God remains faithful.

God sees all we do.

We may think the worst of it all is that God will hold us to account for what we have thought, said, and done to others, to ourselves, and to God’s good creation.

Yet, we cannot hide, and thankfully so.

God remains faithful, picking us up when we fall flat on our faces, failures at living even in the least of successful ways. Even as God holds us to account, God graciously, freely offers us forgiveness and renewed life.

So today, how will we live today?

Resting in God’s always seeing and knowing us (deep into our bones and history and thoughts)?

Or

Stupidly thinking we can outsmart God and hide from God in every way?

…

…

Breathe!

Rest easy: God does not abandon us to such foolishness!

Short

Of breath?

Saturday, April 22, 2023

All Things Die, Even Us. That Is Not The End?

Psalms 39:5

You have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight. Surely everyone stands as a mere breath. Selah

2 Corinthians 5:1

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Words of Grace For Today

The ‘fountain of youth’ is a the blatant example of how we strive to reach beyond our own limits. Life is short and we would like to live forever, or at least longer, much longer, with good health.

No one really wants to live on in an increasingly vegetable state for decades and centuries longer than one would otherwise have lived.

So we strive to maintain our health as long as possible, and wish that we could find ‘the key’ or ‘the keys’ to give us better health: a pill, a surgery, a diet, an exercise, a meditation ….

The gift God gives us is a life, in today’s terms in Canada, which can last at most just over a century, and for most of us about 8 decades. (79.49 years for men and 83.9 years for women (so https://www.cpp.ca/blog/what-is-the-life-expectancy-in-canada/).

As if the gift of life were not enough, we yearn for more, and some of us do more than yearn. Some of us go to great extremes to have more life and more from life for ourselves at cost to others, even as far as taking the goodness of life from others, even taking life itself from others (as in killing for organs to transplant) in order to lengthen our own lives.

Yet God gives life as we receive it: blessed.

Normal for us is to fear the loss of life, not only the end termination in death, but the loss of abilities while we live on and on and on. Perhaps the worst example is Alzheimer’s from which one fades in and out of remembering even one’s own identity, while, in one’s more lucid moments, fully knowing the loss of memory will return.

The healthy, God-given response to that very legitimate fear, is to accept death in all its forms and trust that God planned for that, too. God planned for that by promising us that we will live on even after death, and not in the imperfect-dying manner in which we live now, rather in the perfect way that God makes possible at our creation (well limited by our sinfulness – greatly limited): eternal, perfectly healthy, and gracious: living in peace, with joy, and loving one another as God loves us.

Life remains short for us all (though longer than almost all of our ancestors). Life is nonetheless blessed!

Certainly, specifically because it is short we have the opportunity of recognizing that life is blessed.

So how do we choose to live this day:

Will we continually complain that life is short and that we slowly lose our health with age, all the while striving to live longer and better?

Or

Will we live out the blessings that God pours so freely on us, and share them with others?

Strong

Competence

Wednesday, April 19, 2023

Running for One’s Life

Between the Wood Piles;

Life can be like that

way too often!

Zechariah 8:13

Just as you have been a cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you and you shall be a blessing. Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong.

2 Corinthians 3:5

Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God …

Words of Grace For Today

Like a rabbit running, twisting and turning between the trees, the firewood piles, and around the campers, to find freedom from the pursuing lynx, so Brett found himself dodging the taunts and slurs thrown at him, along with spit balls, as he exited from school for his walk home.

Lately this once enjoyable walk home had become a nightmare, a horror not knowing from where the next insult, slur, or physical challenge would come. Today he vowed to himself, would be different.

It was, just not anything like he had hoped.

Three bullies from Grade 9 showed up along with the usual five Grade 6 bullies. What started as a few taunts, slurs, and tossed spitballs, soon became physical rocks meeting the mark on Brett’s thin back and legs. Then came the punches to his head and back, even as he ran, felling him in a tangle to the hard pavement. The sack over his head nearly made him choke and puke. It stank and ran with dog feces.

One more punch to his head and Brett was relieved of consciousness.

The next thing he knew he woke, tied tight, unable to move more than an inch, the bag still in place. It was dark, and lonely, and painful everywhere on his body. The minutes crept by until he passed out again. For hours he wavered between unconsciousness and half-awake throbbing pain. It became light again and dark again, and light again …. Brett lost track of how many times before he stopped waking up.

When he woke again, the pain had not stopped, but the stink was gone, the sack was gone. He was not tied up, but lay in a clean soft bed. He’d been cleaned up and he lay in soft pajamas.

Celia came in. He could barely believe it. This was the girl he adored and had never had the courage to say or do anything to indicate his feelings. She carried a cup of hot milk and a bowl of oatmeal. She fed him and told him:

She had found him, called her father and together they had untangled him from the sack and ropes, cleaned him up, taken him to their home, showered him, and lay him in bed, waiting for a doctor to come.

Along the way, the bullies had shown up and challenged them, but she had told them in no uncertain terms that if they did not leave she would lay them flat on the ground. The biggest had challenged her, and she had done just that, knocking his legs out from under him. With that the other had run.

Her father had come then, and picked up the boy Celia had knocked down, and told him that he was fortunate because Brett was still alive, and Celia had done nothing more than knock him down. She had a black belt in taekwondo and found her strength not in her own small frame, but in her belief that God walked with her. She otherwise probably would have too easily killed him or left him permanently unable to walk.

Now he should drink and eat just a bit more and then the doctor would be there. He would be fine though. She’d made the bully promise that they would now protect Brett.

…

So God provides what we need to be safe, and if/when we die God welcomes us home, safe and sound for all time.

At Home

Looking To God’s Glory

Giving God ‘Omage

Monday, April 17, 2023

All Creation Turns Towards …

Jeremiah 51:50

You survivors of the sword, go, do not linger! Remember the Lord in a distant land, `and let Jerusalem come into your mind.

Ephesians 2:19

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,

Words of Grace For Today

There are more times in human history for more people than not, who have been robbed of their homes and sent out looking for … a life.

Yet, no matter how many times we lose our homes, and even our sense of home, though we may still have sticks and stones, plastics and metal, fibres and wires around us constituting some kind of shelter against the elements and the danger of intruders into our lives, God does not lose track of us.

God calls to us, not to lose track of God’s home for us, that provides shelter from the greatest dangers of all, the evils of fear, hate, and revenge. For God has not only promised and continually demonstrated that God keeps this promise (to be with us always), God also transformed us from the heart and soul to the outer cells of our skins. God has transformed us from sinners into sinner-saints, the ones who carry God’s Word of Grace to all the creation.

Now how are we going to do that today, anyway?

Same old, same old,

or

are we ready always to step out on the new path God sets before us?

The sun rises.

All creation turns it’s face to God’s glory.

And we sinner-saints are turned as well,

to bask in God’s Grace, in the homes God gives us (some with, some without a structure on this earth.)

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 7/8ths 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.

Did You Find

Your Way To A New Day?

Friday, April 14, 2023

Late to the Day’s Beginning,

As the Light is Already Bright and White,

But Still A Good Beginning.

Jeremiah 23:5

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

Hebrews 2:14-15

Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.

Words of Grace For Today

The dream of justice for the people, justice based on truth and righteousness, is as old as the hills.

And in these days it surely has not been accomplished, as tyrants and despots rule in many lands across the earth, and even in democracies, which give the appearance of some sort of justice, special interests (and international corporations with profits greater than many governments) corrupt the processes that are designed to be (or at least look to be) just.

Money gets its way, so to speak, and everyone suffers.

That hope for a just government is not what Jesus came to provide, as much as we hope that some day it yet will be accomplished.

Jesus came to free us from fear of death. That fear is what lies underneath almost all injustices, but to be free we have to allow God to work that freedom for us and in us. It is not something we simply choose, or can accomplish on our own. It is a gift. It is only a gift.

What we get to do with that gift is find the beginning of each day and the end of each day as God intends us to find them: free from fear of death, free from fear of guilt, and free from fear of God’s judgment (since God works with mercy for us.)

Did you find the beginning of this day?

Creation

Melting Away

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Spring Melt is A’coming.

Will we melt away,

or melt greed and violence away

with kindness?

Isaiah 45:12

I made the earth, and created humankind upon it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host.

James 1:17

Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Words of Grace For Today

While God made earth in six days and rested on the seventh (as the song goes), and God in that time created all life on earth including us humans, it’s taken us about 200 years to run the earth from sustainable into the ground so that the future looks bleak indeed, bleak indeed.

The only thing to do, since we cannot take on the ‘repair job’ needed by ourselves if in any way at all, is to be kind, even kinder, merciful and compassionate, so that others become that as well.

Life without kindness, mercy, and compassion is always a competition to get more, a greed race to the bottom of hell. While we can hardly engender enough kindness, mercy, and compassion to change how humanity as a whole engages in life now or in the next 200 years (if we have that much time left), we can create small pockets of kindness, mercy, and compassion with our families and friends, and if we are lucky to move about in society, we may also create a wake of kindness, mercy, and compassion wherever we go.

For that God created the earth and us humans on it.

These acts are not of our own doing. We can rise to the occasion day after day only when God works through us, spreading light into us and through us to the earth and life on it around us.

Shine … Shine this day … Shine this day with kindness, mercy, and compassion.

(Why not? It’s a whole lot more rewarding than greed’s death race!)

Walking

With

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Walking, Running, Crawling: God is Right There With Us.

Psalms 91:9-10

Because you have made the Lord your refuge, the Most High your dwelling-place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent.

2 Corinthians 1:5

For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

It is a very, very tempting take on the world: If we do the right things for God, like make God our refuge, then nothing bad will happen to us, like scourge in our tents and evil falling on our heads.

But God does not work that way, nor did God create to make it so. All that because – therefore agency-consequence is taken from the daily doings of providing for our survival. If you do not hunt, kill, and eat, well you will go hungry. Unless of course you’re a vegetarian at least for a while. Trouble is we take that because therefore thinking into our relationships and come up with If I do this, then you must do that! And we call that love. Which is nothing like love at all. It is coercion, plain and simple coercion that demotes the other from being a full person in order to elevate one’s self to something more. Which is pure bull and foolishness.

God protects us from evil by walking with us right into it … and back out again.

So we suffer, rarely as much as Jesus, but we suffer greatly, God with us, too. The strength we have is what God provides. And the consolation is as powerful as any love can be, for it is divine love for us poor creatures.

That’s the kind of love we can aspire to give to others on this good planet: walking with, suffering with, consoling with love so powerful it ‘moves mountains.’