Weather – Page 5 – This Life

No Hope?

Do Not Lose Heart?

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

As In Every Photo,

In All Views Of The World,

Black Plays Freely.

First Chronicles 29:15

For we are aliens and transients before you, as were all our ancestors; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope.

2 Corinthians 4:16

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Black.

Black absorbs all light.

Black blocks out all light so none passes through.

Black is the colour of

void

stillness

hopelessness

sightlessness

shadows

grief

death.

There is life like a shadow that is so fleeting one cannot but watch it pass, or like a shadow that grows and grows, coming toward one until all everything is no more as if consumed by a black hole.

And there goes hope, out the door to the far end of the universe beyond imagination.

Black.

Black holds all light.

Black shades the burning heat of all light so none passes through.

Black is the colour of

fullness

calm

hope amid the burning storm

relief to the eyes

shades

waiting for rebirth

promise of life.

…

While we live our bodies deteriorate. Some say after the age of 24 our bodies start to die. Some say the warranty is up at age 30. Some say …

… well all the someones say everything that is said.

And if our minds

do not succumb to the wear and tear of life, dropping our awareness to minimum levels and below, so that we do not even know our own families, which is a horrible thing to anticipate,

then we may experience the full impact of our lives continuing on despite the deterioration of our bodies and physical abilities,

and find delight.

…

Black.

Black is the colour of all that was before creation, of God in the universe alone, together three in one, lonely … it would appear … for company even with us imperfect, sinful humans.

Black is a colour given by God, to us, and in all times, black or not, God revitalizes our spirits, calling us to live out God’s grace (exercised for us) for others.

So even when it appears there is no hope, God

…

God recreates hope for us.

Who Are We?

Who The [Hell] Are We Anyway!

Monday, August 14, 2023

They ask about us:

are we palatable, like tasty berries?

Or are we more like poisonous berries,

bright and deadly?

Proverbs 16:7

When the ways of people please the Lord, he causes even their enemies to be at peace with them.

Matthew 5:44-45

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

…

Words of Grace For Today

In the tumult of today’s world,

when even mother nature seems to be angry with us, challenging our ability to adapt and survive even more extreme weather and destructive storms,

when wars erupt unjustly (as always) leaving people caught between death, destruction, and displacement,

when there are so few honest people who provide truth as a measure of who one is to them,

in the tumult of this world

how are we to know who we are?

how are we to find peace, with ourselves, our world, and with others who wish to do us harm?

Today we measure mostly who we are looking within our selves, an inside view, established by ourselves. This leads to a detachment from others and from community, and more and more people are ‘lost’ to themselves and others. This in turn allows people of power to use, abuse, and denigrate others. In the extreme assembling one’s identity mostly from within leads to narcissism.

In Jesus time people mostly measured who they were by looking outside themselves to what others thought of them. It allowed for distinctions made by powerful people to denigrate the masses as less than significant except to serve the powerful. In the extreme this leads to co-dependency, as we would call it, for those who assemble their identity nearly all from others.

Through history we humans have swung this way and that, between codependency and narcissism, finding our identity mostly with difficulty.

Always, no matter how we assemble our identity, there are ample paths to tear apart anything like peace for ourselves and those around us. Narcissists and codependents wreak havoc for themselves and people around them. Wars are begun by them, easily and often. Sometimes the wars are global, sometimes against a community, sometimes within a family, often within one person. Disruption and destruction reign.

Where is peace to be found?

How can it be that even our enemies will find peace in our presence?

This is only possible when we allow the Spirit to build our identity based on who God says we are: simultaneously pitiful sinners and, miraculously, saints.

God’s peace flows around this kind of people, known by their love for others, even for their enemies. Peace flows with their love like water from the rock in the wilderness as Moses led the people out of slavery into the wilderness, their offspring lead by Joshua into the Promised Land; our ancestors.

Today who will we say we are?

Who will our actions say we are?

How will people know us?

Will they encounter God’s Grace and Peace through us?

Pray the Spirit inspires us to be a bit of a miraculous saint even this day.

Peace

Even When Stumbling

Wednesday, August 9, 2023

Even In The Darkest Times, God Dwells Among Us Providing What We Need.

Psalm 119:165

Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.

Colossians 3:16

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

Words of Grace For Today

Living

Living fully

Living fully always with thanks

Living fully always with thanks for all God does among us,

Living among us, God chooses to carry us through all life’s challenges.

Living among us is God bringing us gifts beyond our imaginations

Living among us is God healing us of our every ill

Living among us is God sending us out to share

Living among us is God’s Light

Living among us is God

Living among us

Living

…

Loving.

Gifts

Gloriously Plenty

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Gloriously Plenty …

Dandelions?

Jeremiah 31:14

I will give the priests their fill of fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty, Says the Lord.

1 Peter 4:10

Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.

Words of Grace For Today

On the walk to the lake the path is covered with pine cones fallen from the trees, and husks of pine cones eaten by squirrels. One steps on the path, after so many days of pine cones coalescing into a soft carpet, with comfort even for arthritic feet and hips. This just as the view of the lake’s waters opens between the branches of the trees.

This is repeated in a few places where more pines grow than the weed-like trees, the poplars.

And the population of squirrels need not forage for food at all. So they multiply, and multiply. And steal more and more insulation from my camp.

God also provides plenty for us. If you have ever seen a combine off-load it’s grain into a waiting trailer, filling and sometime overflowing, the cavernous grain haulers, which in turn off-load their fill into even larger trains of semi trailers, which in turn off-load their fill into grain bins, wider and taller and more in number every good harvest year, which in turn are loaded into mile long trains of grain cars …

If you have ever seen this process of grain hauling, grain flowing, grain filling larger and larger containers then

well then you have seen an example of how God provides gifts to each one of us, and multiplies them as we gather to share what we have.

God does not give gifts for us to hoard them. God’s gifts of wisdom, intelligence, physical strength, determination, communication, charisma, leadership, handiwork, trades skills, compassion, inspiration, faith, and (most of all) love really only shine and provide us the goodness of life when we share them with others,

as the pines share their pine cones to form a cushioning carpet, and to feed those darn squirrels.

So, yes, sometimes what we share with others does not produce blessings.

God knew this, and prepared for it,

and walks with us to bring us through the evil that others ‘share’ with us,

(and to help others through the evil we ‘share’ with them),

and renews life with forgiveness, redemption, healing, and a bounty of more gifts,

and always overflowing, steadfast love

like a cool, refreshing breeze

that cannot be held,

only enjoyed.

Fickle Love.

Sure Love.

Thursday, August 3, 2023

Challenged, Human Love Fades

Like Sunlight In Smoke

Making Cowards

Out Of More And More Of Us.

Hosea 6:4

What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes away early.

1 Corinthians 13:1

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

Words of Grace For Today

Love.

Love?

Love??

Love is a

wondrous

complicated

often confused

most often abused

little understood and acknowledged

and

necessary for life,

or at least life abundant as God created us to live it.

Human love is like the morning dew that evaporates in the heat of the day.

God’s love is steadfast and sure,

the only thing that can be trusted in all the universe.

When people say they love us, that usually means they want to take something from us and,

when they have gotten all they can get, then they decide that they do not love us anymore.

We humans love God like that, too. Greedy and fickle, changing with the time of day and the tide of climate change and with opportunity.

God’s love is sure.

The only thing that is really sure.

Locked down, constant, unchanging, and reliable

if we dare see reality.

…

And that is it really, love requires courage.

We humans are mostly cowards, though we like to think otherwise. Which is part of our problem.

When the Holy Spirit makes us courageous, then watch out, for the miracles pour through us from God to others, wondrously.

Like feeding 5000 men and 20,000 women and children with 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread. Turning hearts from fear to trusting and generous.

…

Will God’s love miraculously turn our hearts today from fear to trusting and generous?

Watch and see,

if we dare!

Out of Our Distress

God Gives Us The Horizon

Wednesday, August 2, 2023

Breathe In The Broad Horizon

Of God’s Steadfast Love

Psalm 118:5

Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.

2 Corinthians 1:7

Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.

Words of Grace For Today

When we auger our way into deep holes of whatever kind, we are not able to see even our own dreamed of horizons, our goals, or our hopes. We want God or someone to come and pull us up so that we can see our horizon again, so that we can walk forward towards our goals, so that we can realize our hopes.

God comes all right.

God comes and pulls us out of the holes we get ourselves into.

God comes and places us in broad open places,

But NOT so that we can see our own horizon, goals or dreams realized.

God places us in the broad open places of God’s creation so that we can see, not only our own lives, but all of God’s universe from a bit of God’s perspective. We never see as God does: all things, from all times, all at once, fully knowing and understanding everything. God does share with us a glimpse or two of the broadness of God’s creation and our place in it.

God sends saints to guide us,

Then God sends us saints to guide others,

Always in God’s good creation according to God’s good will, grace, and steadfast love for us all.

Just another day. In the Hole. God plucking us up. Glimpsing the broad view. Sharing it with others.

Always God’s steadfast love surrounds us, so we dance a step or a jig of thanks.

Remember?

Remember Me?

Remember Us!

Monday, July 31, 2023

Memory Fails Us

Both by Forgetting

and

Remembering

Psalm 25:7

Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!

John 3:7

Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.”

Words of Grace For Today

One of the most difficult things in life is to accept that we will be forgotten, and worse, that we will forget other people and events, both good and bad.

Truth disappears when we cannot remember.

And only truth provides a guide through the weeds that lie ahead.

So we pray:

God, remember … Remember me. Remember us.

But then we realize that much of what we have been is not something we would have anyone remember, least of all God.

Yet, God alone remembers everything about everyone.

God remembers everything, including the things that make for nightmares as our subconscious lifts up issues and conflicts and problems and failures and shame into our dreams, dreams that haunt us, and dreams that supposedly will free us from our past we would forget.

So we pray: God, remember … Remember me. Remember us. Remember not our sins, sins of our youth and sins of our middle age, and sins of our present old age.

Instead God, please we beg of you, remember us according to your steadfast love and mercy.

And in God remembering us thus, we are born from above, in the record of all time for all time for all people and for God remembered as if we were without sin.

And to be remembered so is a gift most precious

for it allows us to set aside our fear of being forgotten, or remembered as sinful as we are.

Instead we are freed

also this day

to live out God’s steadfast love and mercy for others,

as impossible as that is sometimes.

This Again!

AND Again!

Really! @#$#%#%$!!

Saturday, July 29, 2023

Blues Musician Mississippi Fred McDowell in 1960

Psalm 77:3

I think of God, and I moan; I meditate, and my spirit faints. Selah

Matthew 26:38-39

Then he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.’ And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.

Words of Grace For Today

Some days the weight of Shtako, of Evil playing so freely all around and in our lives, and even in our own hearts, leaves us wondering if God can ever reach us, helps us, save us.

It’s too damn often that we are left so damn alone!

Even the thought of God, our prayers, our meditations, our efforts to sleep leave us grieving and moaning at how cruel the world is and how cruel everything in our lives can be to us and those we love.

…

We may well sing along with Steve or the Proclaimers

“Just when every ray of hope was gone, I should’a known that you would come along. I can’t believe I ever doubted you, my old friend the blues.

“Another lonely night, a nameless town. If sleep don’t take me first, you’ll come around, ’cause I know I can always count on you, my old friend the blues.

“Lovers leave and friends’ll let you down, but you’re the only sure thing that I’ve found. No matter what I do I’ll never lose my old friend the blues….

“Just let me hide my weary heart in you, my old friend the blues”

My Old Friend The Blues by Steve Earle, covered by many!

Only faith

Only faith given to us

Only faith given to us and renewed in us by the Holy Spirit

can assure us that God is with us, along with our friend the blues.

This is the faith that the saints have shared with us, and we saints today share with all people, especially those so often left in the company of the blues.

Then when the dark, blue silences catch up with us and we sing along with Simon and Garfunkel:

“Hello darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again because a vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping and the vision that was planted in my brain still remains within the sound of silence …”

We know the song does not end with us, and these dark, silenced times.

God sings along with us …

until we see we stand in the light of Christ again, the choir of saints singing with us

and

we can give God thanks, once again, and again.

Even today Blue is also the colour of hope, after all.

Getting It Right

Or Esle!

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Think You Can Find The Right Path?

Fools Alone Think So!

Isaiah 43:11

I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no saviour.

John 17:3

And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent ….

Words of Grace For Today

I really like this kind of message, so common in scripture and from the lips of so many people:

Get it Right!

OR EXLE. opps

OR ESLE!

Opps again

OR ELSE!

So the demands come at us, as foolish as ever a human word can be.

So the the interpretation of God’s communications (revelations) to us are made by humans, and they miss the mark of all God’s Words.

To demand that we get it right is to demand something beyond our abilities.

Stuck in sin, Slaves to sin, unable to free ourselves, sinful by nature, human nature is flawed, Evil will have it’s ways, Boys will be Boys, Women will be manipulative and devious.

It all has many different names and endless permutations in humans history, permutations that each generation repeats many times over.

Knowing Jesus is to know God’s Grace, is to trust that God rescues us when we certainly do not deserve it (for the umpteenth Millionth Billionth Trillionth [infinite] time.)

Of course demanding of others (and maybe ourselves a little) that they get it right, is to play right out of God’s hands into the Devil’s.

Trying to be right.

Never works.

Start with humility: confessing who we are as sinners, trusting God’s mercy and grace to save us and renew life in us. Then accepting that Jesus sends us out to exercise that same mercy and grace for others.

That’s a good minute, a good start to any day, a wonderful way to be all day long, if only we could.

But God has the rest. God is our Saviour.

On That Day

But Not This Day?

Saturday, July 22, 2023

Amid the Smoke and Fog, Beyond the Weeds One Sees Two Loons,

and

By Faith

One Can Trust That Their Chick Is With Them,

Safe,

Growing,

Beautiful.

Isaiah 25:9

It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Words of Grace For Today

Waiting.

Waiting for.

Waiting for something important, or something scheduled, or something freeing.

Waiting is something we all do, if not by sitting still, breathing slowly, anticipating but not moving, then by moving to something else that will take us time, but in the back of our mind we wait for ….

What is it?

The next pay-cheque, so we can pay our bills, or buy something so that something that has broken can be fixed or replaced, or

The crops to grow, so they can be harvested, or

Other people to complete their work, so that we can start or resume ours, or

The neighbour’s music to stop, so that we can get back to sleep, or

The tyranny (by whomever of whatever kind among the so many different kinds that are worked against people) will end, or

The impossible: that real guilt will go away, or grief will turn to joy, or loss into gain, or that we will see again or hear again or move again, or that we will love again, or that we can forgive again, or that we can breathe again, or that we can remember again, or dream again, or sleep at all again, or

That the devil (attacking us in so many ways, also through our enemies who would do us in) will leave us and we will be free to live, laugh, and love, again.

And

That God will save us.

For that day we wait.

Wait.

Wait,

but not so patiently sometimes, many times.

Only faith interrupts our waiting; for by faith we know not only that God will save us, but that God has saved us already,

and we can breathe, and live, and laugh, and love

also this day.

Beautiful.