Category: Winter

Dreams

And DREAMS

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Dreams Draw Us

Through the Fog of the Future

Into Many New and Wondrous Days

Psalm 138:2

I bow down towards your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness; for you have exalted your name and your word above everything.

1 Peter 1:23

You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

Words of Grace For Today

I have a dream

I have a dream: I have a dream that one day I will live in peace, away from the chaos of people, industry, and commerce.

I have a dream. I have a dream that I will own land as far as the eye can see, with lakes and mountains, where I can travel to camp among the wonders of creation, in solitude and in peace.

I have a dream. I have a dream that my home will have a zero carbon footprint, with solar, wind, and hydro power abundant, with insulation and design to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and be built to last for more than two hundred years.

I have a dream that fresh water in will be filtered and fed under pressure by gravity so that no pumps are needed to provide water, and that waste water will flow out by gravity power alone so that no pumps are needed.

I have a dream that I will have an airplane powered by electricity from my carbon-free power generation, with skis in the winter so I can visit remote places with a camera.

I have a dream that my friends will come to visit once a year, gathering in campers and guests cabins near my home. I have a dream that I will actually have friends, at least two or three. I have a dream that my family will come and visit once a year, gathering in campers and guests cabins near my home. I have a dream that at least a few of my family will actually be kind and honest, and that they will be the ones to visit and the others will come only every ten or twenty years to visit, if then.

I have a dream.

I have a dream, but I know God has other plans, at least God certainly has so far in my 60 plus years on this earth and there’s not much time to make any part of my dream come true, so what am I to do?

Knowing that I am born anew, not of perishable things but of the eternal Word of God I know God’s Word creates dreams for me.

So I have these other dreams. They grow from God’s faithfulness and steadfast love, from God’s Word of grace for me and for others, and they guide me to find the peace of God in the chaos of people, politics, conflicts, and storms. God’s Word guides me to value, more than my dream for myself, the peace that I can offer to others. God’s Word inspires me to take photos of where I live, to show people the beauty of creation that they often miss seeing: like a bright yellow flower in the meadow that belongs to a tenacious, invasive species of weed, like the play of light at 4 am as the sun rises above the smoke beyond the foothills seen from a mountain meadow (which is hardly a meadow since it’s a decommissioned oil well site,) like the trickle of water sliding down the rope holding the tarp in place over my ‘home’, a camper, a tarp that leaks so that the water drips everywhere, just not yet inside the camper, like the creek flowing in just one spot amidst the curves of snowbanks at -30⁰ just beyond the dry road to town that the grasshoppers own in the summer.

God’s Word guides me to write as I can, words that share the Good News of God’s steadfast, unconditional love for us all, words that inspire people to remember God’s dreams for us, for us all.

The End

To Everything Will Come

Sunday, June 25, 2023

Don’t Be Foolishly Fooled;

Even the Sun

and It’s Setting

Will Come to an End.

Habakkuk 2:3

For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.

1 Peter 4:7-8

The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.

Words of Grace For Today

Knowing that ‘this too will pass’, can often be a comforting bit of wisdom to remember.

This grief

– after the death of a loved one,

– after a loss of a relationship,

– after the loss of health and abilities,

– after the loss of dreams and hope itself,

(all kinds of grief) will also pass.

The excitement of celebrations, tainted

– by family and/or friends who are not at all kind,

– the reminder of loved ones not present,

– the burdens, past and future, such celebration puts on daily life and/or daily survival,

– one’s own inability to actually eat or dance or talk with others,

(all kinds of celebrations, tainted or not) will also pass.

This life, too often aptly described as hard, brutish, and short, will also pass.

Knowing that everything will pass, eventually, even breath itself, helps keep us focused on what really matters,

… well sometimes it does.

Sometimes we just focus on trying to ‘beat’ time and ‘cheat’ death and ‘get more out of life’.

When we realize that God walks with us through everything that will pass then it is easier (as the Holy Spirit guides and enables us) to see how precious it all is,

even that person who is not at all kind,

even the grief from a loss, that gives witness to how precious who/what was lost really was,

even the celebration that we cannot fully participate in, is precious, and worth participating in as we can.

Each day, each hour, each minute there are so many things that are precious, and

if / when we realize this,

we can take the good and the bad

as precious gifts from God

which gives our hearts, minds and strength the most precious things of all, faith, hope and love:

faith that God created us and walks with us,

hope that the future will be precious as well as each minute now is,

and love for God, God’s people, and all of God’s creatures and creation.

And that can make for some interesting, challenging and rewarding time,

like today.

Walking

The Wonderful Way

Saturday, June 24, 2023

Even When the Way Looks Obvious,

There are Dangers,

and Choices:

Coyote Ahead?

or Take the Other Path?

Micah 6:8

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Philippians 2:5

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

Words of Grace For Today

If it were so simple, then we would just have to be humble and walk with God, love giving kindness to all (especially those who certainly do not deserve it, and they are many), and do what is just and right.

Trouble is, even for good people, it is hard to do these things. The ways of the world are everything but these; the pressures to be successful in the ways of the world are intense and unrelenting; even in small daily exchanges humans fudge reality in order to get along with others and to seem to be just a bit (or maybe a lot) better in their own eyes and in others’ eyes than they really are; and, let’s face it, walking with God is not something that is even possible because God goes so many places that we cannot follow since we are just not omnipresent, all powerful, and capable of transcending time and space. Even a tele-transporter or time travelling space ship would not make it possible. It’d be hard to follow God for a stroll on a planet with no breathable air, or – imagine this simply – to the centre of the sun!

So often, we hear that we ought to be like Jesus, to live as Jesus did, to make decisions as Jesus did. Besides that we simply cannot (sin gets in the way all the time), if we did we’d all end up crucified by the age of 30 or so. Today’s passage is a bit more realistic: let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. Ah, that is passive. It is to let the Holy Spirit put that mind in us, and let us be as Jesus was, kind, just, and humble.

Now if we let the Holy Spirit work unimpeded in us and through us, then there is hope that we might indeed, do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God

One day at a time, one step at a time. God walks with us, so that we can walk humbly with God.

And that walk is a wonderful, and even the most wonderful, way to proceed through life!

Or did you have other plans for today, and the rest of your days, plans that you cannot or will not cancel?

Awe

An Awesome Thing

Friday, June 23, 2023

Like Sunshine Reflected

Precious, Golden

Off The Ice-glazed Snow,

So God’s Great Works

Reflect Off Our Hearts and Minds

To All Around Us.

Exodus 34:10

He said: I hereby make a covenant. Before all your people I will perform marvels, such as have not been performed in all the earth or in any nation; and all the people among whom you live shall see the work of the Lord; for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.

Matthew 4:23

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

Words of Grace For Today

There is much in life that can surprise us, but nothing blows us away like the works that God does among us.

Take …

Well take any old day, of any random person, such as yourself.

Look closely.

Perhaps it is filled with unpleasant or downright terrible things.

Look past all that.

Look at how, in spite of it all, you still breathe.

With breath in and out, you can smile.

And with a smile in the face of all the terribleness of any old day of any random person like one’s self,

one can know that God has worked yet another awesome thing.

Awe is the reality of seeing God at work,

Smiling with gentle steadfast love for us, for us all.

Distress

& Trouble All This Long Day?

Welcome to the Human Race.

Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Peace,

Even In The Longest Darkness,

Or The Longest Day!

Psalm 25:17

Relieve the troubles of my heart, and bring me out of my distress.

John 16:33

I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!’

Words of Grace For Today

I’m sure that to the many first century Christians who were persecuted and killed for their faith the statement that ‘Jesus had conquered the world’ rang pretty empty. As it has for so many persecuted Christians since,

Even to this day.

Truer to so many hearts are the Psalmist’s words, “Relieve the troubles of my heart, and bring me out of my distress.” and in the German the translation include, “The anxieties of my heart are great!”

Troubles are one thing that is common to most humans. And the most destructive response is fear run wild become panic.

In panic we are unable to do anything wise.

Thus Jesus’ words are most helpful, “I have said this to you so that you may have peace!”

Peace is the beginning of coping with any situation, even the most dire and even those that are sure to result in great suffering and even our deaths.

Peace.

May it permeate from God’s Spirit to our spirits and into our bones, muscles and minds,

Also this long summer equinox day, with all it’s inevitable troubles.

God’s Face

Shown and Not Hidden

Thursday, June 15, 2023

Even in the Deepest Darkness

and

in the Thickest Fog,

Like This Moon on a Wintry Morning,

God Does Not Hide From Us.

Ezekiel 39:29

… and I will never again hide my face from them, when I pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord God.

Romans 8:16

… it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ….

Words of Grace For Today

When God shows God’s face …

Ancient times knew that when one saw God’s face, that was the last thing one would see. One died, and quickly.

God visits Moses, calling him to lead God’s people from slavery to freedom. God hides in a burning bush that is not consumed. Moses is convinced it is God.

Moses climbs Mount Sinai and God shows God’s face to Moses giving him the ten commandments, twice since the people have put up a golden calf to worship. Moses has disappeared up the holy mountain. That’s where God is, and surely Moses has seen God and … of course died. So the people move on, insisting Aaron make a godlet for them from their most precious gold. Moses sees this and throws the stone tables of the ten commandments down, breaking them on the rocks. After the people’s sins are dealt with, Moses climbs the mountain again, and chisels a new set of the same ten commandments.

Moses sees God, twice. And Moses’ face shows it: he has turned ashen white from the exposure.

So when God promises to never hide God’s face from the Israelites again, after God returns to them, is that a promise or a threat?

Will the people turn ashed white from the exposure, or die?

Or …

is something else afoot?

Will God show God’s face and bless the people?

When God’s Spirit gives witness, to our spirits (the German translation interprets the genitive ‘our spirits’ as ‘to our spirits’, instead of the English which interprets it ‘with our spirits’, the ‘to’ makes better sense), then we can know that we are God’s children and …

children need not fear seeing their parent, not if the parent is a good parent as God is.

So …

We can give God thanks and praise that God is with us, and does not hide God’s face from us, children of God that we are.

Gentleness,

Or Arthritis, Or …

Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Like Nighttime Snow

Freezing The Pine’s ‘Green’,

Arthritis Grips One’s Thumbs

(and other parts)

Without Warning

Psalm 34:3

O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.

Philippians 4:4-5

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.

Words of Grace For Today

A low pressure area (weather) approaches and the barometer drops like lead balloons or truth entering a courtroom.

Lifting a 22’ post to vertical to be packed tight in a hole yesterday leaves me cautious with my back.

But why are my thumbs complaining so loudly. Ah, yes. The lifts, only a few inches at a time, were many over hours … and I used a small but still heavy and very sturdy tree top with many side branches to lift the post and then to support the post between lifts. The best grip (well the only workable grip) put my left thumb in a vise below one of those side branches. So today, screaming out with pain, it wants heat and it’s cool in here since I’ve cooled it down to 13⁰ with the night air to prepare for the coming heat of the day (over 30⁰).

Lots of things, aggressive things, could be done, like turbo pain relievers. But how is one gentle with pain.

Well, one is gentle with arthritis if one has any good experiences with it. Aggressive hardly ever works and is more likely to make it worse. So the coffee press is filled from the hot water pan with a cup. That task done the cup automatically gets held just a few minutes longer in that hand and then is run around the outside of the thumb to warm it. Still the pain.

So after breakfast, the coffee press always has about 3/4 cup of coffee in the bottom with the grounds that does not pour out without extreme measures and then always with grounds in it anyway, so it’s hot after the last cup is poured and it gently, carefully (it’s almost too hot to touch) serves as a heat pad, and finally the the pain subsides enough so that I can write (well type.)

And the day is good.

When it’s not one’s own body that’s screaming in pain, but another person cursing in anger, the same kind of approach works best, if one knows what is good for oneself and others. Find what soothes the pain that is behind the anger, since all anger at it’s beginning and core is pain, is being hurt.

And that hurt allowed to grow into anger. And that anger left to fester by someone who does not know what hurts them grows to nearly fill or actually overfill, the person’s every hour. And that overfill of past pain become anger gets set off with a small spark of pain way too often. And the frequent fire of anger (without any obvious cause) grows until the person is in full out rage … every hour of every day, until ….

So when you encounter an angry person it’s almost impossible to deal to any good effect with the anger that grows out of the present situation, … because, well, that isn’t the pain the person is ‘venting’ with anger or rage.

And the only way to calm the current situation is …

you got it,

with gentleness

that soothes not only the current pain but all that pain built up under the surface.

Gentleness goes a long way, everyday,

with everyone.

Even me.

Even you.

How could God not advise us to let everyone know our gentleness?

How can we exercise gentleness even today?

Or is everything a nail since we are always hammers!? (Hurts my thumb just to think that!)

Bus u. Bet Tag

Begging Day

Monday, June 12, 2023

With the Heat Above 30⁰ Now For Days

Remembering -38⁰ Doesn’t Help.

Begging God for Deliverance Does.

(It motivates us to chill. A little heat is nothing compared to the heat, smoke, drought, floods, storms, and disasters of all kinds, which others suffer already, and we may well suffer soon enough.)

Psalm 25:18

Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins.

Luke 15:7

Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

Words of Grace For Today

Hah!

I’d like to meet even one of those 99 people who do not need repentance!

…

Of course I’d like more to see one of those 99 in the mirror each morning, noon, and night.

But it just ain’t so for me.

Nor for any other living human being, or for any now dead, when they were still alive (since after we die, it’s too late for repentance.)

What is wonderful is that there is great joy in heaven when we do repent.

So today, call it Buss und Bet Tag, (day of repentance and prayer)

In our prayers and repentance we can beg God for mercy, for Christ promises us God will be gracious with us

again

and again

and again

always.

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.