Winter – Page 20 – This Life

God Gathers In All Kinds

Wednesday 14 December 2022

At each fork in our day’s path,

which will we choose

as our future?

Zechariah 2:10-11

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

Revelation 7:9

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

Words of Grace For Today

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

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

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

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

What for?

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

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

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

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

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

Thirst, Testing, and Reaping: Or Grace?

Tuesday 13 December 2022

We Thirst

Most of All For

Cool, Clear,

Light.

Christ’s Light That Gives Life.

Deuteronomy 6:16

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

Galatians 6:7

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

Words of Grace For Today

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

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

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

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

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

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

And that is all reasonable, right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exodus 17.2-7

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

When There’s No Morning Light?

Monday 12 December 2022

Morning comes so late and

then in a snowstorm,

barely at all.

Still God’s Light is with us,

more than the oil processing plant’s light

breaks the northern horizon’s

quiet.

Psalms 31:17

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

Ephesians 5:8

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

Words of Grace For Today

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

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

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

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

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

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

well then God must deal with them.

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

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

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

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

let God speak to us again,

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

Let It BE So

Sunday 11 December 2022

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

God makes all our paths

(past, present, and future)

clear.

Proverbs 5:21

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

Luke 1:38

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

Words of Grace For Today

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

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

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

Even today.

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

to choose to follow our own way

and suffer all that comes

from rebellion

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

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

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

Welcome Home?

Saturday 10 December 2022

As many as the grains

of all the snows

are the people

God welcomes

home.

Isaiah 66:22

For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your descendants and your name remain.

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

As antisemitism spawns like unwanted weeds around every corner we ask:

Why do we not take note?

Why do we not stop it?

Why do we tolerate it as ho-hum?

Do we think it is so old it cannot really hurt anyone?

Do we think that Jews are power people so it does not hurt them (meaning we think racism is only possible when it’s against people of no power?)

Similarly do we think that abuse (including racism) cannot be part of what people with ‘less power’ do to people with ‘more power’?

Racism and all kinds of abuse are possible by all people against all people, and it’s wrong every time, all the time, in all circumstances!

That means that an indigenous person who abuses a middle aged, white male is still abusing another person.

That means that a woman who lies to the police and the courts to put a man in the sights of the police and in court puts the man in jail, still lies and abuses the man, the institutions of the police and the courts, and she abuses all women and men who work for justice (based on truth) for all people, no matter who they are (gender, race, religion, or any other category.)

People are people.

God welcomes our ancestors, including all the children of Abraham and Sarah, and all the children not of Abraham and Sarah!

God welcomes all of us, all people, or all a times and all places, into God’s home, made for us all.

That’s God’s broad merciful, gracious, forgiving, life-giving and generous attitude towards us all.

When are we going to adopt that as ours for other people?

Well some of us already have, namely the saints of all time, including today.

So, today, what are we going to do with this attitude of God that God gives to us?

Freewill Offering of Ourselves

Thursday 8 December 2022

Finding one’s way past all obstacles, or walking through in all with God at one’s side?

Exodus 35:29

All the Israelite men and women whose hearts made them willing to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done, brought it as a freewill-offering to the Lord.

1 Peter 2:5

… like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

It is one thing to offer up what one has, and then again another thing to offer up everything one has.

But is it a whole other kind of life to offer up oneself along with everything one has and is and can be.

That’s the offering we get to make in response to Jesus work for us.

So we are spiritual sacrifices, living sacrifices, all so that others may know that God is gracious with us and with them.

Not that it is exciting, necessarily, to be stones, even if living stones. For what the world measures as success is not something that stones can achieve. So we sacrifice everything the world would measure as success and trust alone in what God provides.

At-38⁰ one hopes that what God provides is sense enough to prepare well for the deep cold of winter, the hot heat of summer, the bugs, the coyotes, the squirrels and the thieves’ and liars’ intervention in an already difficult life, a life of solitude, off-the-grid peace, and wonder.

There’s wood. And a stove. And water. And food. And not quite enough insulation, but it’ll have to do. Things are freezing. The sun shines brightly.

And there is power to write, and warmth to rest by, and read of wonders wrought by God’s hands, here and in places distant, now and in times far removed.

So it is when God walks with us, never alone even in this wonder-filled hermitage.

And for the rest of y’all? What has God got to offer other than life abundant, free from things and dishonesty and strivings and ‘bettering the Jones’ and false pretenses.

If one but wishes a life, a difficult life, fully blessed, a life offered completely to God’s work of bringing grace and truth to all people.

So what’s on the agenda for today for you?

And How’s That Possible?

Tuesday 6 December 2022

Dark …………………………………………….. and …………………………………………….. Light

Both Permeate Our Views,

Just As Evil and Goodness

Permeate Our Lives.

Only Grace

Gives Us A Chance

of Living Well

Covered By Them Both.

Isaiah 60:18

Violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders; you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise.

2 Peter 3:13

But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

Words of Grace For Today

You have heard it said that the only sure things in life are death and taxes. Well I’ll tell you that is that while true they are hardly significant, compared to the two things that are actually for sure in life: Evil and God’s Grace (which makes everything good possible.)

The words of Isaiah are a promise or a call to make something good happen. And I have to say, just because you don’t hear about it does not mean that it is not there, and just because you name something nice does not make it good.

Churches give themselves names that speak the exact opposite of their true nature: a break away congregation after heated conflict that destroys so many people calls itself Peace Lutheran. A church steeped in demanding of each other obedience, pietistic practices, and righteousness (and the covering up of anything that is different) calls itself Grace Lutheran.

The American dollar is printed with ‘In God We Trust’ while those dollars are used to do anything but display a trust in God!

Fanatics call themselves all sorts of things, including faithful, and they are anything but. They become just terrorists.

Presidents like Trump and Premiers like Smith get democratically elected (well sort of), pledge to uphold a constitution and then do everything to set themselves up as sovereigns, dictators without any accountability to anyone but themselves (and their moneyed supporters.)

But God calls us children, and sends us out to be disciples of Jesus the Christ. We need to live acknowledging the full power of Evil, around us and in us, and we need to live embodying the humble and powerful Grace that God provides as a triumphant reply to Evil.

That’s a dance that we cannot find the steps to on our own. Only the Holy Spirit can guide us in that dance, and that guidance comes to us not because we earn it, but because God so chooses to give us broken, sinful humans opportunity after opportunity to hear God’s melody and dance God’s dance of Grace.

May it be, also today, so for us.

Learning, Life-long Learning

Monday 5 December 2022

Coyote Chases Crows Away From A Carcass;

Do animals survive only as they continue

to learn all their lives long?

Is that what did the beaver (carcass) in?

Psalms 143:10

Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on a level path.

Galatians 5:22-23

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

Words of Grace For Today

Climbing hills, descending to valleys, climbing again … all this is good exercise and good exercise builds strong muscles and a healthy circulating system. Why would we want God’s Spirit to lead us on level paths?

Well, that is something that one learns again and again through life, if one is attentive to learning, learning, and learning.

The hills and valleys the Spirit helps us avoid are the hills and valleys that the Devil puts in our way to impede our progress towards completing God’s work assigned to us. These hills and valleys will kill us, if not physically, the nspiritually, which is worse than a physical death. All which one would learn through life … if one were attentive to learning.

While we cannot earn God’s saving grace and favour (that’s all gift) we certainly can descend from receiving God’s grace and favour back into the ways the Devil would have us pursue, straight to hell in a hand basket for us and for those around us, if the Devil has it’s way. (‘It’s’ because the Devil is often referred to as him, but I’ve met a few women who serve the Devil so well, I’ve learned to respect that the Devil is both male and female, incarnate in too many people who the only thing they learn life long is how to destroy more and more people in order to ‘get ahead.’)

Thus we can discern and choose to behave in certain ways other than in ways that serve the Devil. Paul describes some of these as “ love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

Life-long learning will teach us again and again that we can strive for these, but only the Spirit can help us achieve them, if temporarily, until we face the next challenging decision.

If one stops learning, then one is as good as dead, or worse, a very good agent of the Devil.

May today provide us with more opportunities to learn …

again …

of God’s grace that sustains us.

Looping Through at -32⁰ C

Sunday 4 December 2022

just a bit more to the left and down

…

opps, too far!

Ezekiel 34:12

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

John 10:11

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

Words of Grace For Today

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just about to the top

Closer

Closer, yes, the sun made it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A rather wonderful way to start a day!

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

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

Quench & Despise not; Test & Hold Fast!

Friday 2 December 2022

Life,

as in taking to the horizon,

requires of us:

Action

and Letting Go

(Trusting God’s Promises!)

Numbers 11:29

But Moses said to him, ‘Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!’

1 Thessalonians 5:19-21

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good …

Words of Grace For Today

In baptism the Holy Spirit pours great gifts on and into us:

the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

So, then what.

Life is still as complicated and simple, demanding and peaceful, evil and blessedly wonderful as it was before. What difference do these gifts really make.

None, if we work everyday to quench and stifle the Spirit working in us.

None, if we despise the prophets words and Jesus’ Word.

None, if we do not test all the words that come to us, testing to discern if they are truly the Word of God, the prophets and of the saints, or if they are fake words, set there to create chaos, under the cover of which the Devil works so freely to rob us of life.

None, if we do not actively hold fast to the gifts given to us by the Spirit. Just remember, we cannot earn or actually hold on to God’s Spirit. It is that we hold fast to the promise that God will continue to hold us, no matter what, and we do not need to try so hard to make it all happen, to make it all good. God redeems and creates anew each day, in us, and in all creation around us and to the ends of the universe.

So we work hard, and rest completely in God’s good hands. This is how we continue to live as the saints have who have gone before us.

Today is another full day, of not quenching, not despising, but testing and hold fast …

and resting fully in God’s hands that hold us …

on the wild, awesome, wondrous ride that is the life of the saints.