Breathe – This Life

The Cracks

That’s how the Light gets in.

Thursday, September 21, 2023

The Light Is Gold,

The Light Is Distant,

The View Mottled.

How Does the Light Reach Us?

Zephaniah 3:7

I said, ‘Surely the city will fear me, it will accept correction; it will not lose sight of all that I have brought upon it.’ But they were the more eager to make all their deeds corrupt.

Luke 19:45-46

Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, ‘It is written, “My house shall be a house of prayer”; but you have made it a den of robbers.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

In all our efforts to have a ‘good’ life, we most of all deny that we have screwed up life tremendously.

We try to pretend that it’s just a little problem, that we did something ‘not quite right.’ When in fact the result is a crack in the foundation of our lives that tears more than the curtain in the temple. It tears apart our own hearts, minds, and souls.

Whenever God gives us ‘temples’ and ‘houses of prayer’ we turn them into ‘dens of robbers’ in so many ways, so many same old, same old ways, that people have used since the beginning of time, all trying to make our own way in life and make it better than it was. The more God gives us the more eager we are to make all our deeds corrupt, trying to cover up our latest corrupt deeds.

What does God do with us, then?!

God uses exactly those cracks in the foundation of our lives to shine the Light of Christ into the foundations of our lives,

to revive us.

God never repairs the cracks, as if they never were. The wounds heal, though the cracks remain, so that the Light can continue to shine in on us

so that we can live and breathe in the Light

even as we turn yet to more corrupt deeds,

also this day.

By God’s Grace alone, though we can breathe.

Breathe,

and bask in the Light,

and give God thanks,

and trust the call to go out to share the Light with all people.

Winds,

Four Strong Winds

Blow us around and off course.

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Are We Blown Like the Waves Over the Rocks?

Psalm 62:9

Those of low estate are but a breath, those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath.

Luke 6:12

Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God.

…

Words of Grace For Today

The good times seem to have left us, and left us in the lurch, up a creek of shtako with no paddle or hands even.

We may think we are special, of great importance in the course of history even, or at least for a few people now.

Yet, of greatness or lacking any importance to anyone, we are all but like a breath that passes, of necessity for life to continue, to make room for the coming generations, for evolution to proceed bringing God’s blessings to us through the generations.

What are we to do?

Give up?

…

Go full bore ahead, damn the cost to others, making our way in life?

…

Bury our heads in the sand and pretend all is okay?

…

Lots of options, we people have come up with.

God offers the only one that does us any good:

to head to the ‘mountain’ and spend the ‘night’ in prayer.

The mountain is not so far, or merely a geographical location, just as the night is not merely the time between sunset and sunrise. The mountain is that place where we have encountered God, many times, sometimes even noticing. The night it that darkness that threatens to overwhelm us, against which darkness we can do absolutely nothing.

So we pray.

We pray, God save us!

God save us, sending four strong winds to blow us home again to you, home between the seas and foreign lands, home to rest in your breath, the fifth wind that gives us life, which is really the first wind,

the first wind of all life, and

the last wind.

Spirit.

Breathe,

Breathe In

And Take Share in Adam’s Atoms Yet Again.

Friday, September 8, 2023

We Walk Short Distances,

But the Atoms from Our Breath Circle the Globe,

in a year.

Isaiah 26:19

Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead.

Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,

…

Words of Grace For Today

When we breathe in we breathe in atoms that have been breathed in by all creatures who breathe up to about a year before we breathe. When we breathe out, in little more than a year, our expelled atoms will be breathed in by every living creature that breathes in air.

That’s a connection.

That’s a significant reliance.

That’s a dependency.

That’s … scary, considering what we are doing to the air around planet earth!

When we realize that the atoms we breathe in integrate into the bodies we are, which when we die decay back into the earth (one way or another), it is not difficult to acknowledge that when any new life is born or hatched or otherwise begun, it contains part of all who have gone before. So out of the dead rises new life, just not quite like themselves, usually.

This happens almost no matter what we do. Cremation or burial both lead to the same thing, just in different ways on different timelines. If we shipped our body off in a spaceship towards some distant galaxy, only then would our atoms not reenter the life stream on earth.

Laying aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, as the writer of Hebrews admonishes us to do, is on the opposite end of possible for us; it’s impossible on our own.

This we can only appear to do as the Holy Spirit accomplishes it for us. So we ‘run with perseverance the race’ before us, knowing that even putting one foot in front of the other is a gift from the Holy Spirit. Our place in the race is a rather humble one; God runs us for us.

For that we can be thankful this day, again.

Of course, we always have the choice to stop running. God does leave us freewill. Stopping God’s walking us is something to avoid each day.

But we don’t avoid it, not at all, not at all. So God needs to rescue us many times each day.

Thank God, God does rescue us; also this day, again, and again, and again.

Hurry!

Hurry Hard!!

Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Yell All You Want,

Or not.

God Sweeps Just Right,

To Free Us From Our Sins.

God Nails It!

Isaiah 44:22

I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you.

Colossians 2:14

… erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.

…

Words of Grace For Today

We pile up so much shtako, bad deeds, ugly thoughts, dark wishes, and even perverted prayers. They hold us down in the shtako, leaving us lost in the loneliness of life.

Until God comes to rescue us,

sweeping away the shtako

and lifting us into

the house

God

has made for us.

God nails all that crap to the cross, so that we can move freely through life, wondrously reflecting God’s works

that always show us the house

as God’s home for us.

God tosses the rocks out of the way,

down the sheet,

and knows exactly

how they should lay.

God nails it every time,

…

for us!

Truth

They say truth is relative.

That’s a lie.

Monday, September 4, 2023

Each Moment, Even at Sunrise, the Truth is There to Be Seen, Heard, Lived.

Exodus 23:1

You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with the wicked to act as a malicious witness.

Ephesians 4:25

So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another.

…

Words of Grace For Today

In today’s world, like in all generations past, it is all too easy for dishonest people to lie, destroying people all in order to get ahead.

And they do get ahead, in ways the world’s relative truths are twisted so that hell is ahead of life.

For a lie is always a lie, even if one gets away with it to start with. It will always come back to bite the life right out of you. It starts by taking something life-giving out of the people you live with, yourself and then those closest, and it spreads to include all of humanity. The bite back, though, comes back at the liar(s) like she/he/they have laser targets painted on them by none other than God.

Truth may be a bit aggravating, but it is life giving, after one learns to confess one’s own sins and accept forgiveness for them.

Truth is only relative in that all of us are related and anything taken from the truth with a lie costs all of those involves, and all of their relatives.

Truth may be hard to discover among so many lies, but it is there to be paid attention to. It is there in each moment, for those who wish to live in it.

That’s where God blesses us heartily, also this day.

God Abandons?

No, God Engages

Always, to save us from ourselves

Saturday, September 2, 2023

When it seems the world closes in on us, as if God has abandoned us, hope carries us back to trust God always walks with us.

Isaiah 63:15

Look down from heaven and see, from your holy and glorious habitation. Where are your zeal and your might? The yearning of your heart and your compassion? They are withheld from me.

Galatians 5:5

For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.

…

Words of Grace For Today

God provides all we need to live, fully, abundantly, graciously, and generously with others.

It is not that we choose to be good and live righteously. It is a gift given to us in our baptisms and renewed many times each day. So we live as saints.

We can and so often do (thus the repeated giving of the gift) deny the gift, turning away from God to follow our own path, which always leads us straight to perdition.

Thank God, God saves us from ourselves.

And so this day also we live as saints, despite having chosen perdition again and again.

Thank God.

Morning Dew

Monday, August 28, 2023

The Morning Drips Fresh From Imperfections, Too.

Second Samuel 23:3-4

The God of Israel has spoken, the Rock of Israel has said to me: One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy land.

Matthew 11:29

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Rulers dominate to make their wishes realities, with people falling into line to make it happen.

Leaders inspire and listen to the people they lead, bringing the best tomorrows into today, for all peoples.

God rules.

But not by dominating.

Rather with gentleness and humility (if we can imagine the all powerful God being humble!), guiding us to life unequalled in blessings.

So each new morning, with sunshine on the grass moist from the night rains or clouds dark over parched lands or cold gripping even one’s breath in a stranglehold [and all things of mornings], we

can smile

breathe

and

hope again

that this day will

bring love and wonders

to play and dance through our hours

until the night falls fully over the grass, trees and dirt

that is our home.

Eh you say again?

And God answers with a fresh smiling breeze of sunshine warm on our hearts.

Breathe And

Take Stock

Sunday, August 27, 2023

It May Look Bleak, Until We Remember How God Has Walked Every Step With Us To This Blessed Time.

Deuteronomy 2:7

Surely the Lord your God has blessed you in all your undertakings; he knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.

John 1:16

From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

…

Words of Grace For Today

When the frenetic struggles overload our senses and memories, limiting our ability to make choices fully informed, it’s good and difficult to

stop

and

take

stock

the

whole

picture

of what God

has done and still does for us each day:

giving us breath and bread, longings and love, health and hope,

among so many other gifts

we certainly do not deserve.

While we may wish for more, God has and will always provide us enough to find our way home

to Jesus and all the saints.

Another day on the journey there.

Amazed at how much God has done for us.

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.

Jail Time

Di-Lithium Time

Monday, August 7, 2023

Jail-Time Allows Only Dreams

of Moonlit Nights,

and Much More

Genesis 39:20-21

And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined; he remained there in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love; he gave him favour in the sight of the chief jailer.

Acts of the Apostles 16:25

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

Words of Grace For Today

After a long, hard time in the roiling heat of the di-lithium chamber of climate change there’s nothing quite like waking up to a cool breeze blowing in off the lake. The fresh clean air, after days of smoke. The slight chill against one’s face. The comfort in the long sleeve shirt and durable jeans, a head and neck covering hat, and rubber boots, all so that one can make the morning hike to the lake shore and up the hill (for aerobic exercise) to the reclaimed oil lease, and back to …

back to what is left

after losing

everything

to lies,

jail-time and

a criminal record for crimes that never happened.

After a long, hard time in the roiling heat of the di-lithium chambers of jail there’s nothing quite like waking up to a free, cool breeze blowing in off the lake.

Seeing the results of one’s own labours to survive one day at a time, and then one season at a time, and then one year at a time, and after 5 years to be able to prepare for the next year’s hard winter, and the next year’s hellishly hot summer. Setting one’s sleep schedule to fit one’s own life instead of a jailer’s schedule. Resting in a bed one has made. Working at a desk that one has made. Knowing that one’s small abode will not get tossed without notice, and without recourse. Eating food that one prepares oneself, food that one’s body tolerates and is nourishing for it. Taking medications that one keeps oneself, at the hour one needs to take them, and always properly in relation to food intake, keeping throat cancer at bay, and not risking the medication ripping a hole in one’s gut. Being able to live a (hopefully safe) distance from actual criminals and unpredictable, violent addicts. Exercising when one chooses, canoeing on the lake when one is able, working and resting as one chooses, reading what and when one chooses, writing and learning as one chooses, exploring the universe (via the Internet).

After a long, hard time in the roiling heat of the di-lithium chambers of hell there’s nothing quite like waking up to the blessed, free, cool breeze blowing in off the lake.

For having learned the hard way (for there is no easy way to learn this) that God is gracious and walks with one,

into and out of every kind of di-lithium chamber the universe can capture one in,

one knows and trusts that every breath, no matter in or out of a di-lithium chamber of any kind, is the most precious gift, a reminder that God gives blessed life

and nothing is more precious,

nor is anything more required

than breath,

and sharing breath with others,

for life to be blessed,

abundant,

and complete.