Climate Change – This Life

It Will Get Better

Eventually …

Friday, August 25, 2023

Fires Spot the Ground,

Eating Everything in Their Paths.

Smoke

Takes Our Breath Away

Isaiah 49:4

But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God.’

James 5:7

Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.

…

Words of Grace For Today

With wildfires in the Northwest Territories, thousands of people have evacuated, mostly south, way south even to Calgary. Smoke swirls and flows across much of Alberta and Saskatchewan as the NWT fires’ smoke combines with those in BC to wreak havoc on breathing, which last I checked is still a basic function required for staying alive.

It’s not unlike all the other evils that come back to haunt us from our pasts, evils that we blithely contributed to, thinking the day of reckoning would not come, not really. It’s a shame. Almost all of the severe weather events we suffer now could have been avoided if we would have listened, believed and made changes back when changes would have made a difference. Oh, they still will make a difference, but we are in for a lot of suffering for the next few centuries. A lot of suffering.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/it-was-like-a-beast-evacuees-describe-fleeing-kelowna-wildfire-losing-their-homes-54

It’s Gotten Hot,

Not Just In Hell.

Then from CBC news (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/nwt-wildfire-update-august-23-2023-1.6945337) we get this:

Though forecasts of rising temperatures, no rain and shifting winds continue to be a worry, fire experts are taking several days to do infrared scans of several of the largest blazes, including the one outside the capital city, said Jessica Davey-Quantick, wildfire information officer for the Department of Environment and Climate Change.

The scans will provide information that will allow wildfire teams to plan next steps in the fight, she said.

If only we could have scanned into the future five decades, back in the 1980’s, eh?!

But we do now what we can:

“In coming days, we’ll have more information as these fires are assessed and our next steps are established. Right now it is not safe to return to these communities that have been evacuated,” she said.

Most of all we have to remain hopeful, and remember how we’ve survived in the past, and how we can help each other now:

“For now the best we can all do is just wait and see what’s coming. We’re going to get through this. It’s going to get better. Eventually,” she added with a smile, “it will snow.”

Thank God, literally, for knowing things like ‘it will snow’ which give us hope, hope for all the challenges we face in the midst of all the evil we have contributed to form our days,

even this day.

Thank God for ‘snow’.

Victory

What Is Victory When All Die?

Saturday, August 12, 2023

Is Victory Finding The Right Path?

Or God Blessing Our Path?

First Samuel 2:1

Hannah prayed and said, ‘My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory…’

Luke 10:20

Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

Words of Grace For Today

Elkanah has two wives. Peninnah had sons and daughters, but Hannah had none. Peninnah used that to taunt, belittle, and provoke Hannah, for they were rivals. Yet Elkanah favoured Hannah even so. Hannah’s heart was vexed, for in that time and place one was what other people said one was, and in that time and place a woman’s worth was measured by her ability to bear children, especially sons. (Such it was, as too often since and in many places still today.)

Eli finds Hannah, in the temple severely vexed, mouthing her words silently, and he thinks she is drunk. When she protests that she is not drunk but severely troubled, he dismisses her with a blessing, that God would grant her prayer.

She then bears a son, Samuel. And so Samuel’s life, blessed in service to God begins, for Hannah gives her son, after he is weaned, to Eli to be raised and work in service to God.

Hannah claims victory for her shame and worthlessness is overcome, and Peninnah can no longer taunt, belittle, and provoke her.

Yet, is this the victory of life, really? Hannah and Samuel, Peninnah and all her descendants, Elkanah, Eli and everyone else will still die, as we all do. 100% fatality rate for species human, catches us all in the end.

We all have small victories. Peninnah had a series of victories with each child that she claimed each time at Hannah’s expense. Such victories are most common, most ugly, most destructive (even to the world’s Peninnahs), and totally worthless in the end. Hannah’s victory is a victory, a small victory. It is a good victory, a blessing from God. But still a small victory.

Where’s the big victory?

Winning a World War? Only to have another war (or wars) engulf the world in two decades or so! Winning in court with lies? Only to face perjury charges, if not in court then before God! Gathering in all sorts of wealth, fame, luxuries, power, comforts? Only to have it all evaporate as one’s health deteriorates and one suffers long years of agony, begging to die. Or to finally realize that one’s wealth, fame, luxuries, power, comforts always cost many other people their lives.

Victory in life is always fleeting, except one.

To have God walk with one through it all, or in other words to be able to rejoice that our names are written in heaven. That is a victory that lasts beyond time into eternity. And it also makes all the other unjust victories taken from one’s life by others rather moot.

For, given God’s presence in every day, every minute, there is nothing that can separate one from the God’s love, and though there may be days when one finds no path to rejoice in this endless, unmatched blessing, there is always reason to rejoice, to exalt, to celebrate …

and to give God thanks.

And even to pray for the poor souls who live as if small victories like wealth, fame, luxuries, power, or comforts are what life is all about.

Dark

Dark Past

Darker Future?

Friday, August 11, 2023

Mendenhall Glacier on June 8, 2023, in Juneau, Alaska

Daniel 2:22

He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him.

John 1:5

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Words of Grace For Today

Scientists processed a ‘rediscovered in 2017’ ice and sediment core taken in 1996 below Camp Century in Greenland, in the dark under 4500 feet of ice. Studying that past they determined that 416,000 years ago plants thrived there. While scientists used to think that the ice pack over Greenland had been there for millions of years, meaning it was quite resilient to changes in temperature, this means that the ice pack is comparatively sensitive to increases in temperatures, and

Much more quickly than we thought, with climate change and rising temperatures, the whole ice pack will melt. All that ice gone means the temperatures there will rise as the sun’s heat is absorbed into the ground instead of reflected back by the white ice-snow. It also means that the oceans will quickly rise as much as 23 feet just from Greenland’s ice water being added to the oceans. Greenland will be warm and wet, and the entire earth may be ice-free.

Billions of people live near sea level: large cities like New York and Vancouver’s lower mainland, large areas like Florida, most of the Netherlands and sub-continent India and large areas of Africa.

So out of the darkness comes the light that shows that the future is very dark for billions of people, and by extension for us all.

Enjoy the light while we can, right?

Do something to prepare, except our possible preparations are small (and smaller yet are the preparations we will likely engage in) compared to what lies ahead.

It’s like building a bomb shelter in one’s back yard and stocking it for a few month’s habitation. That was not needed, fortunately. But such preparations would have been wholly inadequate!

Allow ourselves to both do all that is possible, assist others, and pray for sanity among all people. It’s going to get hard.

And when it gets hard some people turn to violence, as if nature’s onslaught will not be enough.

Then the peacemakers will be needed to keep at least a few people sane, able to make a future worth living

for generations to come.

Pray that we will not forget how to dance, laugh, and sing, amid the darknesses to come.

Pray that the Light of Christ will live in and among us.

Pray that the Holy Spirit will teach us now and always to live in that Light, amid the darknesses we know all too well.

Remember Us??

God Never Forgot!

Wednesday, July 19, 2023

Even on the Coldest, Toughest Winter Days,

God Remembers Us!

(See the Light.)

Do We God?

Psalm 74:2

Remember your congregation, which you acquired long ago, which you redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage. Remember Mount Zion, where you came to dwell.

Matthew 18:20

Jesus said, For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.

Words of Grace For Today

We often pray to God to do something for us, to remember us, when things are ‘going straight to hell in a hand basket’ and we find ourselves ‘up a creek without a paddle.’

Most often there are things we ought to be doing to help our own situation and the situation of the other 8 billion people on earth, or a good number of them that we can make a difference for.

Instead we do little to nothing and pray. Not that prayer is a bad thing; rather it is a quite good thing indeed! But prayer without action is just laziness of heart, mind, and hand.

Praying to God when we feel abandoned is exceptionally good. Praying that God remember us misses the point all together. God never forgets us. We forget God. I suppose it’s terrifying to realize that in the worst situations we get ourselves into (or put others in or others put us in) God certainly is remembering us, and letting all that is bad happen to us, to smarten us up, or to (and I think this is the best explanation) allow us freewill: free to choose to love God, Creation and all Creatures; AND free to not love God, Creation and all Creatures, especially those 2 legged humans that seem so hard to deal with … and then suffer the consequences of our choosing to not-love what God has given us.

It’s easier to fool ourselves into thinking that God has abandoned us.

But God has not. God is here all the time, remembering us and all other people always.

God always offers us mercy, steadfast love, and hope.

So let’s hope we come up with some good ideas on how to FIX the MESS before the earth eliminates us as the fix.

A small start to another day, eh?

It’s BROKEN!

Got Any Ideas for the Fix?

Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Long Ago Our Fore-bearers’ Species

Crawled Out of the Soup of Water and Breathed

… Breathed the Air God Gave Them,

Gives Us,

Unless We Burn the World Down.

Psalm 150:2

Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his surpassing greatness!

Romans 1:20

Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse ….

Words of Grace For Today

We’ve taxed the whole earth to support us greedy 8 billion people, and in many and various ways the earth is fighting back to reduce us back to …

back to whatever it takes.

While climate change fills the air with smoke from wildfires, many times more fires and acres burned than ever before in a year, and while we find it hard to breathe,

Covid came and we wrestled it to the mat but it’s not pinned and gone yet and never will be, they tell us,

the economy went into turmoil, because we stayed home, money stopped changing hands as fast, government subsidies helped many, and then with the lockdowns ended, money changed hands at a rate to make up for the lockdown-slowdowns and inflation climbed like a rocket (but not like the 80’s of 20% and more, just 8%) so the central banks increased interest rates to slow things down.

Now the pain of increased interest rates bites hard and many face more than difficulties, even bankruptcies, and many ask what are we doing????!!!!

Other than the central banks increasing interest rates, which will put more people out of their homes, and rents have skyrocketed so renters are not immune, what have we done?

Some experts say there is much we could do.

The best line I’ve heard quotes the Simpson show: “We’ve done nothing and we are out of ideas.”

But, like the visible evidence of God’s works all around us, there is plenty of evidence there are things, bad things, done, and there are things, good things, to be done.

It starts remembering our place: we are sinful creatures of our Creator God. So confession and repentance start every day (and every thing). Then in thanks for all that is, and for all that we have and are, and for all that will be: we can give God thanks and praise.

I’m not sure if that gives a good start to what can be done to counter inflation with more intelligent efforts than leaving it all up to the central banks and interest rates increases, but

It is always a good start …

a good start to this day,

a good start to every day,

a good start to every thing.

…

It’s a good start also because whatever ideas we then come up with will be ideas to deal with reality: we are sinful creatures and God is our Creator, and Creator of all that is. And God don’t make no junk.

Poor

At Thinking? And Doing Right?

Tuesday, June 20, 2023

How Long Will It Be Before

No Eggs Will Hatch?

Psalm 102:17

God will regard the prayer of the destitute, and will not despise their prayer.

Philippians 4:6

Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Words of Grace For Today

The not unusual question came over the phone from a telephone support person, “Are there any other questions you have?”

I gave him a list:

What is the meaning of life?
How can we deal with world overpopulation?
How can we solve Climate Change this year?
How do we solve the pervasive problem of racism and injustice against the poor?
How can we solve the huge inequality problem throughout the world that is the root cause of so many other problems?
How will I ever get out of debt?
What is God doing while we systematically, methodically wipe out the environment that supports life on earth?
How can we finally get truth to be valued and upheld in all aspects of life, especially in our courts?
Are we going to poison ourselves to death like the Romans did with lead; though we are using the likes of PFAS and so many other toxins in daily life, like gasoline?

I ended with, “Those are just a few question I have.”

The reply was, “I’m not philosophical, so I don’t have the answers.”

I chuckled as the help person did as well.

But these questions are not laughing matters.

And the truth is, whether one is philosophical or not one needs to ask them and have at least a rough outline of possible answers. That’s a basic responsibility for anyone renting air on earth these days.

In the end, whether we solve any of these or none, we all need most of to

pray.

At Sunrise

And At Sunset …

Saturday, June 17, 2023

The Sun Sets,

Through the Smoke From Wildfires.

Psalm 50:1

A Psalm of Asaph. The mighty one, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.

Luke 17:20-21

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.’

Words of Grace For Today

The sun rises.

The sun sets.

Life on earth goes on (for some of us, but for many not!)

Climate change, and other troubling developments, lead us easily to say we are seeing the end of all time, the Apocalypse, the Parousia.

Yes, climate change is human created destruction of the environment that sustains life on earth, at a rate never seen or heard of before.

But this is not a sign of the end of time. It may well be the end of life on earth as we know it. Already the severe weather of last year has become the norm for this, and it scares any sensible person about what the future may bring, for it will get much, much worse!

Even in this time, with crises of wildfires and pervasive smoke across Canada, Jesus is already with us.

Jesus is already with us.

Jesus is here, with us, suffering with us, celebrating with us, and showing us how to care for each other, the earth, our environment,

and pointing us to the mercy and grace of God which will give us renewed life each day, in such bounty that we can share it just as bountifully with everyone.

The sun rises.

The sun sets.

And God makes it so, also mercifully giving us new life as the sun rises and as the sun sets.

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

always.

Onwards

With Thanks

Monday, June 5, 2023

More Sure

Than the North Star

and the Little Dipper,

God Walks With Us

Isaiah 38:19

The living, the living, they thank you, as I do this day; fathers make known to children your faithfulness.

Colossians 2:6-7

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Words of Grace For Today

And on life goes. Not easy. Not like in the past.

Not when we have climate change: wildfires and smoke, storms of vicious power, floods, droughts, and denials that it is anything more than natural evolution as in the distant past.

Life, in the present moment, always has enough challenges to make it seem that life was never this hard, not for us or anyone in the past.

Then we need only remember the difficulty of hauling water, jug by jug, on one’s head, as our ancestors had need to do, until horses, cattle, and donkeys were tamed enough to use as beasts of burden for us. So many other comforts that we take for granted make life so much easier for us than many alive even today. These comforts were beyond any imagination for most humans who ever lived.

So life may not be more difficult.

Yet the truth is comforts and difficulties are not the true measure of life’s difficulties.

Being alone, that is the constant through all of human history and even today which makes every challenge of life extreme, and sometimes impossible. Even hermits and recluses through the ages have found life possible by knowing that God walks with them. While most humans rely on other humans to be with them, to ease the burdens of life, many as they are; hermits who are mystics (and all who take their baptisms seriously) know that the only true companion is God.

Some will say that ‘the blues’, the bottle, or their dog is their only true friend. God though is not limited in anyway. When God walks with us, then come what may, we know how to give thanks. Thanks that overflows, even amidst the most difficult times.

Even today, come what may, we give thanks, and pass on this true assurance of life’s goodness to our children, so that in generations to come, they may face each day, knowing they are not alone.

Inherit

This Mess!?

**No *&^! Thanks?**

Saturday, June 3, 2023

The Beauty of Creation

Messed Up

By Climate Change=Wildfires=Smoke=Can’t See,

And Can’t Breathe!

Zechariah 9:9

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Matthew 5:5

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Words of Grace For Today

The world seems to be totally messed up.

Lies take the day.

Fake news creates convictions that there is no climate change, just normal evolution. (Really!?)

Politicians that believe their own lies and fake news.

And middle classes that think the fake news politicians are going to actually work for them, and not the special interests and big businesses that support them in exchange for decisions that favour their businesses, or hide the reality of their raping the planet and our future.

The meek shall inherit this!

As one of the meek I will say a resounding, “No Thanks! Keep your messes and give us the New Jerusalem without you or your messes!”

(Maybe that is too much for a meek response?)

…

and then even this sometimes meek and sometimes not so meek person gets to remember that what appears to be a total mess is not beyond God salvaging great good from, and us inheriting it just may be the best thing this world will ever see, other than that God came as a meek saviour, riding on the foal of a donkey. Not the ride for a great leader, eh?!

But exactly the ride for God. For God would show us that great rides, great pomp and ceremony, wild parties of excesses, and shows of great power, force, and privilege, and not even the joys of wondrous comforts in life … all this is not what God created us in creation to be able to experience.

God created us to be able to give. To give life to other people. To restore, protect, use sustainably, and enjoy all of creation.

I guess us meek people (and the not so meek among us) can celebrate today all that God gives us, as we share it with as many people as we can.