Bullies and Liars

Come in All Sizes

Saturday, June 10, 2023

God’s Grace Meets Us All!

Can You See It?

..

OR

Do We Need To

Zoom In Closer?

Jeremiah 31:25

I will satisfy the weary, and all who are faint I will replenish.

Matthew 5:3

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Words of Grace For Today

Driving to town at 80 kph two vehicles passed me and an RCMP patrol car pulled up behind me. A few minutes later it turned on its lights. I pulled over, with a bit of pre-PTSD rising in me that I stuffed down. As I waited, I pulled out my Driver’s License, Registration and insurance papers so the cop could not accuse me of reaching for what? Something to threaten with?

He arrived behind the driver’s window, which I had rolled down as I saw him approach. “How are you, today?” “I was doing fine.” “Do you know why I stopped you.” “Not a clue.”

M. Tobias went on to say that the speed limit was 100 and I was going 80. That lots of cars were piled up behind me. That I was impeding traffic.

I told him in no uncertain terms the reason I was going 80 was because I was broke. I didn’t bother filling in that I am broke in large part because the RCMP had harassed me and aided my ex in sending me to jail for a crime that never happened. I have filed a 50 page complaint with the RCMP detailing their harassment, warning them that their sins are bound and if they bother me again I will sue them for harassment.

He asked for and took my papers. When he returned he handed me a print out of a warning. He threatened that it would be entered on my record.

I told him that neither going 80 nor being broke are crimes. I warned him in no uncertain terms that he was harassing me and I would sue him if he continued.

Later I noted that he had not indicated how I had ‘impeded traffic’ nor that I was going 80 kph. No doubt because if he did it would make him look like the fool and bully that he is.

I guess I should be more poor in spirit, not able to know when I’m being bullied and harassed, know when a cop is full of it, and not be so able to state my case clearly … then I’d be in the poor of spirit that God blesses, because

this flagrant abuse by a cop is not the first nor the last time cops will be fools and bullies, harass innocent people, and abuse their power, and

being the focus of that abuse is no blessing.

Or is it?

I was not able to work the rest of the day. That’s the PTSD running loose on my edges wiping out all concentration needed to work.

But I did get some badly needed rest. And when I cleared my mind of the event, I indeed was able to see how replenished I was, how God had indeed restored me to a peaceful heart, mind, and soul. Which was needed to deal with my ex’s lawyers either blatant incompetence or malicious malfeasance (not following a judge’s order and improperly filling out and sending a form to me that attempted to undermine the effect of the order).

I guess bullies, fools, and evil hearts will always be a part of one’s life. The question is how one responds.

God help us all, for as God must need respond graciously to our foolishness and sins, so we need help to extend that same grace to others.

But will that help M. Tobias stop bullying people and actually do the work he should be doing, like dealing with the real crimes that are committed on a regular basis around where I live: all the drinking and driving and tossing the cans out, cooking drugs in the campground, or cutting down living trees to make the ‘roadways’ wider, or camping for months and that within 30 metres of the lake (illegal in all of Canada!)

We can only pray, and hope that God will tend to our hearts, minds, and bodies.

When the red and blue lights stopped me, I was on my way to the food bank. That cop stop cost me another $3 or so; every trip to town is another $25, $30 if I go over 80 or ‘gun it’ out of the stop signs/lights. So how many cop-stops does it take to make a trip to the food bank impossible because I don’t have the money to pay for the trip?

Thankfully God walks with me, and suffers everything that lawyers, cops, and everyone else does to me; so I am not alone, nor deserted. I am accompanied and given help and hope that does not fail.

How’s your day looking? Ready to be challenged by people doing evil things, grounded in God’s presence, and humble but not defeated by evil?

Have at it. God protects us.

Yearning

Deeply

Thursday, June 1, 2023

Looking Up,

and Seeing

the Star

Above the Setting Moon.

Isaiah 25:8

… he will swallow up death for ever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.

Philippians 3:10-11

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Words of Grace For Today

I want to know …

Such yearning.

Such yearning that changes the taste and scents of each day, each hour, each minute.

I want to know … but what do we want to know?

So much of life is filled with yearning for the comforts (or things towards comforts) and pleasures that this life offers only with such wiffs, and then they are taken from us, often destroying our ability to yearn with clarity for what will bring health and life.

I want to know … Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings.

Now that is something unlike other yearnings, for it is not for comforts or improvements or anything quickly withering into the evening fog. This yearning to know Christ, the power of his resurrection and (then comes the key to it all – the all that is life and death and existence itself) the sharing of Christ’s sufferings.

That is the key to life: to know Christ by sharing in his suffering. His sufferings were unearned, but offered in order that others might live, and live free and abundantly.

This yearning takes us outside ourselves and extends all that we are toward giving to others; giving everything we can to as many other people as we can so that more and more people will know the power of Christ’s resurrection in their own lives (the hope that moves us beyond living waiting for death).

This yearning is to see that God with a word, has wiped away our tears and disgrace, and the tears and disgrace of all people, and replaced it with the joy and thanksgiving of living fuelled by the power of Christ: self-sacrificial, unconditional love for all people.

May that be our days, and this day. Our hours, and this hour.

The Doer

And the Pretenders

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

Who Are We To Say We Make Anything Happen?

God Makes Even the Moonlight

to Have Colour.

Numbers 11:23

The Lord said to Moses, ‘Is the Lord’s power limited? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not.’

Matthew 18:19

Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.

Words of Grace For Today

There is great power that we humans exercise. We make decisions and plans. Then we go about executing them.

Huge holes are dug and parks established in them. Mountains and plains are excavated for minerals, coal and gravel. Skyscrapers are built that reach high into the sky, standing against wind, rain, storm and most everything (but not airplanes crashed into them.)

All that we do makes us feel powerful.

Yet what we do, even if two or three gather in Jesus’ name to agree on what to ask God for, we are not the ones who do it. God is.

We fool ourselves when we think we do anything good that God has not made possible for us to do.

God is the doer.

We are the pretenders and sometimes even stewards, acknowledging that God is in control, and we ‘work’ on God’s behalf.

Were that it were always so … and more so.

Why not today?

Taking Ownership

(Really!??)

Monday, May 29, 2023

Who Can Say

They Own

This Tree and the Snow On It?

Haggai 2:8

The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts.

Acts of the Apostles 4:32

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.

Words of Grace For Today

That God owns the precious metals, and they do not belong to any human is quite the thought. As is the report that the early Christians were of ‘one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.’

We may wish that things were so, but even among Christians, things are given value and claimed to be owned by individuals. Oh, sure, for periods of time ownership may be shared or given over to an entity representing the whole group (as in communes like the Hutterites) but us humans always strive to have it for ourselves. It is not easy for most of us to simply share all we have, and it is even harder for us to share everything with a large group all the time. It just does not happen.

The difficulty with making a claim that God owns all the precious metals (gold and silver are just two of many) is that it starts with the premise that some metals are more precious than others. That degree of preciousness is a human construct. We are the ones who say that silver and gold, platinum and rare-earth metals are more valuable than just plain dirt and rocks. And we are the ones who give an upgraded value to concrete, sand, oil, gas, (and on goes the list).

So when we say that all the gold and silver (and all the precious metals and elements) belong to God, we start by acknowledging and giving assent to the claim that some things are more valuable than others.

Everything belongs to God.

Even we belong to God.

The rest of what is on earth is all stewardship, not ownership. But we quickly ‘forget’ that we are mere ‘renters’ on this earth.

The proper perspective is that we are stewards, providing care for what is God’s. And God has always wanted us to share with everyone, so everyone has enough to live abundantly.

We only sort of imitate that with our ‘good deeds’ and charity. If we could actually share with everyone, holding everything in common with all other people, the world would look entirely different, and we would live differently.

We pray that this day we can do another bit of imitating Christ, giving to those in need.

Grace

Worth A Go?

Friday, May 26, 2023

We Leave A Mark,

How We Live Determines What Kind of Mark,

Fleeing and Best Forgotten

or

Blesses and Remembered.

Daniel 9:14

So the Lord kept watch over this calamity until he brought it upon us. Indeed, the Lord our God is right in all that he has done; for we have disobeyed his voice.

Romans 3:26

… it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus.

Words of Grace For Today

If one sees the fires, floods, droughts, earthquakes, rising oceans, melting polar caps, sinking foundation through the not-so-permafrost, violent storms and winds, tornadoes and hurricanes, as God’s answer for our collective sins, then certainly one cannot claim that we do not deserve them and even more.

These symptoms of climate change are consequences of sins, sins of excess and privilege far too many of us have enjoyed much too much as others struggle just to survive.

God though is not like us, tit for tat, revenge and Rache, an eye or more for an eye! God is loving, gracious, forgiving, and life-giving (if we want to live as God created us to live).

So it is each day, instead of seeing calamities great and small as God’s answer to our sins, we can confess our sins and make right (as right as we can) what our sins have cost others (and ourselves), and change – yes it’s nearly impossible but God made us able to change or we’d have been extinct long ago – and change not just our clothes but our hearts, minds, and souls.

What to change to?

See Jesus’ grace, healing, teaching, and love?

Try that as starters

and main meal.

No desserts, though until the next life, and then what a feast!

Worth a go, eh?

To Be

To Be Noticed

Even When One Is

Burdened, Weary, Outcast

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Will We Notice Those

Living Far Away

In Desolation?

Psalm 142:4

Look on my right hand and see— there is no one who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me; no one cares for me.

Matthew 11:28

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

Words of Grace For Today

After the gathered New-Ibler leaders, the complainers, and Julius had waited for what seemed too long a time, Julius continued, “These are our neighbours, even though they are not part of our community. We should provide for them exactly as God has provided for us through our neighbours. Who knows, the New-Iblers may not be able to return to their lands. They may join our community as many others have in the past.” He reminded them that one of them was not born into this community, and two others parents had joined the community.

“Remember, as well,” Julius continued, “that Raili here is the daughter of one of our members who left to marry her mother and live with the New-Iblers. Remember we need to marry outside our community to ensure our children and their children are born healthy.”

He asked them if they should or should not welcome their guests to join them? The intruders agreed, but they reminded Julius that they came representing many who sent them. So they called a community meeting, as difficult as it was to gather all in one spot.

Together they remembered how blessed they were to have each other, and that though it was a difficult time, they had always welcomed people willing to join them, if they agreed to abide by the decisions of the community and it’s recognized leaders.

Up until that point, everyone had expected Julius to act as their leader. Now they heard one person suggest that like Isaacer from years before, they recognize that Julius would lead them. That brought a round of clapping, raising hands, and general low humming of agreement.

Julius agreed on the one condition that at any time he could leave the duties to others, so that he could continue to be a healer to this community and to travel to provide healing to others, and most of all that he could continue to learn, learn, learn.

Julius then reminded them how they were welcomed as the tired and weary by their own community and by others, as so they would strive to welcome all the tired and weary, the healthy and the ill, the sorrowful and the joyful into their midst.

Welcomed

Even When One Is

A Burden?

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

The Refugees Can Come At Anytime,

By Land, Sea, or Air,

in Cold, Heat, or Storm.

Will We Welcome Them?

Deuteronomy 5:32

You must therefore be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left.

Matthew 22:37-39

He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” ’

Words of Grace For Today

The runners who alerted the neighbouring communities of the coming floods and fires trickled back to Julius’ community, bursting at the seams of their expanded hunting camp. All but the one who went to the furthest community. She did not return for months. They found out she had stayed to help that community prepare as best they could for the water and flames that could wipe out the community. Her advice and their efforts are a whole story in and of themselves.

The surprise, a bit unwelcomed, was that the closest community saw little hope of saving their homes and fields, so they followed the young man who had alerted them, all the way back to the hunting community. Already bursting at the seams in their camp, having spent days expanding it to accommodate all of them instead of just a small hunting party, they people starting to complain and cry in uproar that it was not fair to be take such advantage of by these people. The New-Iblers, as they called themselves, were a sixth the number of Julius’ community. As they waited patiently just outside the hunting camp Julius met with a pair of their leaders.

The request was that the New-Iblers be able to make a separate camp not far away and share protection, resources, and work with Julius’ community. Just as Julius was about to respond, welcoming them, a trio of his community members arrived, protesting to the New-Iblers that they would bring such trouble and burden to them. There simply was not room, nor resources, to accommodate the visitors. Even a new camp would make this hunting camp nearly useless in the future for hunting, marking the human presence so wide that wildlife would avoid the area.

Julius listened. When the intruders were done complaining, he reminded one how the community had come together to help his family when their house caught on fire, building him a new home. Another Julius reminded how when her family’s garden had failed, everyone in the community had donated generously to them so that they had more than enough produce for the coming year until the next harvest. Someone had even investigated why the garden had failed while others had not. And then helped the family rescue their garden from the worms that had multiplied so fast there, so that it continued to produce even to this day. They others he reminded of how the community had helped each of them. They he reminded them how they had all helped others in the community.

Remember the ancient wisdom from the old texts: “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ ”

No one could tell what those bringing the complaints of the community were thinking. They waited. Sometimes it takes time to take in wisdom that is not easily welcomed.

Standing Up

Through Our Troubles

To Give Thanks

Monday, May 22, 2023

See The Elves Rising

Through the Snow

In The Morning Light,

Like Poverty Stricken People

Standing Up Through It All

To Give God Thanks

Ecclesiastes 8:15

So I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them in their toil through the days of life that God gives them under the sun.

Philippians 4:4

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

Words of Grace For Today

The cynical writer of Ecclesiastes commends enjoyment, eating, drinking and making merry, as people make their way through the toils of life. Nothing like a little backslap in the face about life being full of trouble and toils while speaking to enjoyment.

One surely can see that life is full of toil for some. But not for the privileged. Right? – Wrong. They have troubles, troubles with in consequential things, things of no import that they make into the greatest of troubles. Such it is with humans. If we don’t have trouble with and in life, we make it up. We are more comfortable that way.

God has other intentions for us and plans for us.

God would have us reorient our take on life, ours and others’.

Our lives certainly do have toils and troubles enough to fill a lifetime for each of us. Our lives also have most certainly enough joy, love, peace, and hope to fill a lifetime, and for those for whom that is not the case (which is always at least a great minority of people alive on earth if not most) God gives us this joy, love, peace and hope in great enough quantities to share with all those who need more of life in order to experience the goodness of joy, love, peace and hope.

Whoever we are, those with -or-those without, each day is filled with opportunities to give God thanks, for even in the activity of giving thanks we reorient ourselves from what we lack to the abundance that God pours over us – to be shared with others.

Each day … also means today.

Get hopping

skipping

singing

dancing

thanking

and

hoping.

Bones

Terror-Striken

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

When We Are Far From Anyone,

Alone With Dangers All Around,

And Fear Rattles Our Bones,

What ARE We to Do?

Psalm 6:2

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror.

1 Thessalonians 5:9-10

For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him.

Words of Grace For Today

Julius dreamed it at first, and then woke, being shook urgently by a young man crying to him, “Come quick! The earth had shook. The rocks are tumbling down. Isera was hit by one and she is not right in her speech. Besides that a runner arrived just now and says that the waters in the mountain lake that feeds our river have risen higher than anyone has seen them and suddenly they have burst loose. They will surely break through the next series of lakes and beaver dams. The runner is gone on to warn others downstream. Everyone’s bones are stricken and shaking with fear. Will we live even another week, or even another day?”

Julius rose, and dressed quickly, praying to himself as he did, that he might have the wisdom to know how to treat Isera, that he might find the words to unshake the bones of the many people who needed to make a plan, to decide how to protect the community and the people.

Julius thought while he walked to see Isera, head injuries always seemed to be dangerous. People who thought nothing bad had happened would be sick for months and years and some would never heal, their abilities to live normal lives gone and their personalities changed dramatically. He noticed that those that seemed somewhat worse at first often healed faster after they rested for days and weeks and sometimes even months, before they tried to return to normal living.

Isera seemed to understand what he said, though her words were all confused, meaning next to nothing. He asked her if she would rest now for days, maybe weeks. Her response was fast and furiously gibberish. So he placed a writing pad (sand in a box) and gave her the writing stick. He asked her only to write “Y” for yes and “N” for no. Would she rest? Her “Y” was a bit messy but it was there. Drink plenty of fluids, walk as little each day as possible. Eat no more than she needed. (Nobody really did, for food was not overabundant, but sometimes people who rested started to eat and eat and eat, so Julius included it in his instructions.)

He asked her if she had pain. “Y”. Is it more than 5 out of 10? “Y” Is it more than 8 out of 10? “Y” Is it 10 out of 10? “N” He pulled some bark out of his healing-pouch. He showed how much to tear off to boil in three cups of water to make tea. “Boil it and then cool it so you can drink all three cups in ten minutes. You can repeat that every two hours, up to six times in a day. But no more six times and not more often than every two hours. Otherwise you will likely get stomach cramps and vomit.” “Y”

He said he would be back to check on her in the morning. He asked her friend to stay with her through the night and wake her every hour or so. No more than each hour and a half. For he had experienced one man who fell asleep and never woke up, and another man who fell asleep, but his wife kept waking him, and he rested and returned to work in the community gardens a few months later.

Then Julius walked outside and asked people to send one person from each household to meet with him in ten minutes. No one needed to be woken up, everyone was woken up by the earth shaking or by someone scared waking them. They gathered. Never had Julius seen so many people crying, screaming at each other, shaking their hands, heads, and some even their whole bodies as they tried to tell each other what dangers lay ahead for them.

Julius called them to order. It took a bit and when they were quiet he asked people who knew to tell in simple, clear terms, what dangers they faced.

It came out that the earthquake had done a little damage to a few houses. Aftershocks had come as well, some almost as strong as the first, also adding to the damage.

So Julius listed that for them: 1. Earthquake.

Then someone mentioned the water that would wipe out their community before the sun rose. Julius asked how this was known, and paused to write

2. Flood.

It turned out nobody knew how bad or dangerous the water coming at them would actually be. Everybody agreed with Julius that they needed more information. Then someone cried a bit and reminded them of Isera. The falling rocks could hurt any of them out working near the cliffs. Julius wrote

3. Falling Rocks.

Then someone blubbered that this was doing them no good, they needed to run away to safety. That brought cries and screams as fear ran through nearly everyone there. Even Julius could feel the panic racing around the crowd. That’s when Julius remembered what someone had said about fear being the only real enemy. Julius stopped and called for silence for a minute, asked everyone to breathe deeply for a short while. Then he wrote

4. Fear! Most of all Fear!

He asked if their list were complete, was anything missing? When there was no response from the people, now quieted, Julius asked for volunteers to be the runners to get information up river. Three were chosen and sent to gather supplies and be off. Julius said it would be days, maybe weeks before the runners would return and in the meantime they should start packing and move to their hunting camp up in the hills, off to the side of the plateau that protected their community. That would also keep anyone else from being hurt by falling stones coming down the cliffs to the plateau.

More often than anything else Julius kept repeating, “We can deal with any danger if we have time. We have time. There is no need to be afraid. There is every reason to decide clearly and act carefully and quickly. We will be alright! The only danger that will do us in is fear itself!”

We will be alright.

We will be alright.

That is the promise God gives us all.

We will be alright.

We will be alright, for Jesus walks with us.

Lost,

Lost in the Desert

Then

Brought to the Feast

Monday, May 15, 2023

It May Not Be Dry,

But It’s Bleak.

Bleak Winter Cold and Blah.

Or is it blessed peace?

Psalm 107:2-8

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, those he redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to an inhabited town; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress; he led them by a straight way, until they reached an inhabited town. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.

Matthew 8:11

I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven …

Words of Grace For Today

Getting lost is common enough and most often resolved easily, if one admits to being lost. Not all of us can be Daniel Boones who are never lost, just a might bit confused of one’s whereabouts.

But being lost, knowing it, and admitting it is the first step to getting help being found again, being set right, being led to the feast.

That’s why we start worship with confession of our sins, so that we know God leads us onward to the feast of life!

Those who would mock us for being lost, are most lost of all people. For they not only do not know they are lost, but they think that by mocking others they can make their own situation more secure. Such it is certainly not.

Each day is another day to be humble and ask God to save us from the dry deserts of our lives, from the smokey hours downwind from wildfires of evil, from the arrogance that would bring us to mock other’s being lost.

The feast after all is not for those who are never lost. The feast is a grand celebration of all those who were once lost, and now are found …

by great mercy

and love.