Injustice – Page 2

The Only One

The Only One Listening

Monday, December 11, 2023

A logging road in the Klanawa Valley on western Vancouver Island divides two landscapes: a cutblock on the right, and old-growth trees that are part of a wildlife protection area on the left. Tara Carman/CBC
*https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/the-forest-beside-the-clear-c*

No One Listens and Cutblocks Eat Away at Our Precious,

Climate Saving, Old Growth Forests

Psalm 38:9-11

O Lord, all my longing is known to you; my sighing is not hidden from you. My heart throbs, my strength fails me; as for the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me. My friends and companions stand aloof from my affliction, and my neighbours stand far off.

1 John 5:14

And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Job knew it, as many have since.

It is that experience that everyone and everything has turned against one, even life itself, and there is no one that hears. No one that listens. No one that understands. No one that cares.

Except

That God hears, listens, understands, cares and

and

God even responds, providing what we need to survive even those dark times.

And survive we do, until the sun shines brightly again in our lives and we have all the listening, hearing, understanding, and caring we require

in order to

Give God thanks with our every breath.

For the Most

For the Most Vulnerable

Monday, November 27, 2023

The Spirit Dances

Each Morning, Noon and Night.

Only By the Spirit Working In Us

Can We Dance Jesus’ Dance.

Zechariah 7:10

… do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.

Ephesians 4:20

That is not the way you learned Christ!

…

Words of Grace For Today

God calls us many times in many ways to do justice for the most vulnerable, in Zechariah named as the widow, the orphan, the alien and the poor.

How do we learn?

How do we learn to do justice?

How do we learn Christ?

Is learning to do justice the same as learning Christ?

…

No, they are not the same.

They do overlap.

To do justice is for the most part to follow Christ’ commandment to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and strength, and to love our neighbours (and enemies) as ourselves.

But not all of ‘doing justice’ is what Christ calls us to.

And just ‘doing justice’ hardly begins to encompass all Christ calls us to.

For Christ calls us to love. To love as God loves. To love even when it costs us. And that moves us into and then also far beyond just doing justice for others.

Yet how can we learn to do justice?

Study, practice, and make errors … and more study, more practice, and more errors and (it keeps repeating, since we never get it completely and what we did yesterday does not provide justice for the most vulnerable today.)

And how can we learn Jesus?

Some would say it is the same. We study, practice, make errors, and repeat.

Those who have listened to the saints will know that will never even get us close, for the key to Jesus is

that we cannot learn Jesus on our own at all.

We only come to know Jesus when the Holy Spirit moves us to.

So we pray each day, come Lord Jesus, walk with us, let the Holy Spirit guide our thoughts, hearts and spirits, our dreams, visions, and hopes, and most of all our actions. Let them be reflections of Jesus to one another, and especially the most vulnerable.

And then we study, contemplate, plan, dream, and act as if it were all up to us, humbly remembering the Holy Spirit will guide and empower us.

Sigh!

Sigh, Again

Thursday, November 9, 2023

Morning Arrives,

The Crescent Moon Accompanied by A Star,

a helper light,

which is actually the planet Venus.

Psalm 31:23

Love the Lord, all you his saints. The Lord preserves the faithful, but abundantly repays the one who acts haughtily.

Romans 8:26

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

…

Words of Grace For Today

The challenges of every day are more than enough to dampen our energy available to even cry for help to God. How does one pray when one’s loved one is gone, one’s world is ripped out from underneath one, and even in the morning the light does not help clarify where or what one really ought to do?

How does one pray when one’s home is destroyed and one survives only because one was away that day, working on a project that required it? Where does one go?

How does one pray when rumours, nasty and dirty rumours, are spread by deceitful, arrogant, fearful, cowardly bullies, and they grow so intense that people want to kill you?

How does one pray when everything seems to be okay also this day and yet your heart tells you that your life is doomed, maybe the whole world’s, maybe just those you love and all the honest and good people (if there are even any of those left!)?

When our light has been snuffed out by the chaos and hatred of people lost in their own darkness, we are not abandoned.

The Holy Spirit, with sighs too deep for words, blows in again as a fresh morning breeze, reviving us, and giving us the words for our prayers,

the priority of meaningful tasks for this day,

and a direction for our lives, even as we walk yet in darkness.

Like a sliver of a moon, with a companion star, walking the sky as the morning sun pushes back the darkness in the east, God winds us through our days, sometimes with just enough light so that we do not stumble

too often

and we can find once again

the light by which to love

even those who want to be our enemies.

Begging

For a Future

of Peace

Saturday, November 4, 2023

*Palestinians cross to the Egyptian side of the border crossing with the Gaza Strip in Rafah Wednesday [Hatem Ali/AP Photo]*

Looking for a Future.

Isaiah 66:13

As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.

John 16:24

Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

…

Words of Grace For Today

We are baptized, all that we were to that point drowned out, dead.

So we learn that in the Kingdom of God what we thought was valuable is worthless. In there go all our dreams of greatness and grandeur. Instead what we thought was nearly bereft of worth or even notice without scorn is actually what God treasures and would have us treasure as well.

We learn to set aside our ambitions, hopes, and dreams in order to understand and embrace God’s ambitions, hopes and dreams for us. We learn not to ask for anything, but to beg to see and understand God’s will for us.

Not that our past dreams and expectations die out or that baptism actually kills off the great sinners that we were (and still are.) We live on dreaming, expecting, and hoping for our own ‘success’ in life. And God keeps bringing us back down to the reality of Jesus’ way of sacrifice for others, so that others will share God’s blessings (as we give to them what God has entrusted to us as stewards.)

Now Jesus reminds us, that we are not totally lost to our old sinful selves, lively as they may still be. In us the Spirit moves and we can and should ask for what we see is needed … by and for others,

…

and sometimes even by and for ourselves.

beg

this day

for peace

especially in the Middle East,

that we may be comforted in also Jerusalem, in the West Bank, and in Gaza,

for all people there are also God’s people,

with hopes, dreams, and expectations of a future

that is

better

than this today.

The Broken

Weary, Kingdom Workers

Thursday, November 2, 2023

A general view shows smoke as it rises following Israeli strikes in Gaza, October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/live-updates-whats-happening-in-the-israel-hamas-war-as-israeli-airstrikes-hit-gaza-refugee-camp-for-second-day

Out of Sinners,

God Makes Saints,

Is that us, today?

Isaiah 50:4

The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens— wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.

Matthew 25:39

And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?

…

Words of Grace For Today

As I write this it is All Saints’ Day. The Hamas – Israel war continues, and continues to kill civilians, and Hamas continues to use civilians, even hospitals as shields.

There are few prayers which are sufficient. One prays that God will remake the catastrophe into something life-sustaining. It seems only God can do that.

In the future a few years a young family of three will tour the ancient cathedral in Gaza with it’s wonderful stained glass windows. Bombed in 2023 the windows were cracked, some missing pieces. One stained glass artist works on the second to last window, repairing, but not removing the signs of the damage, filling in the gaps and repairing the cracks with silver, gold, and blue glass pieces and structural materials. As the family looks at each window, the parents will explain the scene and name the saints depicted. Afterwards, the young daughter will burst in on grandma and grandpa sitting at home and exclaim, “Grandma we saw the saints today!” Grandma asks, “Who are the saints that you saw?” Without pausing the daughter responds: “The saints are the broken people the light shines through.” (decades old story, reworked)

What God does as always, is call broken people to shine the light of Christ on all that is, and all that can be.

Let us so shine, even in our brokenness.

Even though those in need are so many and the needs so great and our help seems so little.

Work

God’s Work

Monday, October 23, 2023

The Cold and Hard of Winter Approaches.

Is That A Curse or a Wonderful Blessing?

Daniel 6:27

He delivers and rescues, he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth; for he has saved Daniel from the power of the lions.

Ephesians 1:22

And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church….

…

Words of Grace For Today

God certainly delivers.

And I would not take it away from Daniel, being rescued from being eaten by lions,

I’d just like to have been delivered from the ‘lions’ of today that consume other people with lies, deceptions, and greed.

Oh,

of course,

the paradise I live in now may well be God’s rescue,

and

that is

how it is for us:

we miss that God

is at work for us

because …

well all sorts of reasons.

Today, time again to notice God’s work for us.

Forces

Dark Forces

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

We Try To Catch Power From the Dark,

But Real Power Only Comes from the Light of Christ.

Psalm 16:1

Protect me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

Matthew 6:13

And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.

…

Words of Grace For Today

There are dark forces.

There are dark forces at play.

There are dark forces at play again this day.

There are dark forces at play again this day and we like to think they are in others, aimed at us.

If we can just avoid those others, we will be free of such dark and dreadful forces that eat us up, spit us out, and leave us to die, slowly, ever so slowly in pain.

Yet

There are dark forces.

There are dark forces at play.

There are dark forces at play again this day.

There are dark forces at play again this day aimed so deceptively into us by forces we cannot resist.

They play with all our hopes.

They play with all our yearnings.

They play with us as toys led to the battle and our slaughter by our own weapons of deception and greed.

We have no defence against such dark forces.

We become the ‘others’ who aim these dark forces at others.

We can only pray, God save us, in you we take refuge.

Save us from such trials. Save us from the Evil One.

…

Let the Light of Christ Shine on us, in us, and through us

to all

those

caught

in the Dark,

caught

by the Dark Forces.

Bridges II

Bridges to

The Light

Best read AFTER yesterday’s Devotion – below.

Monday, October 2, 2023

When We Think We Are Done In And Gone,

The Light Reveals Another Day

Another Way …

Isaiah 30:26

Moreover, the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days, on the day when the Lord binds up the injuries of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.

1 Peter 2:24

He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

…

Words of Grace For Today

As the Light of Christ shines brighter than the brightest sun, clearer than the clearest moon, then all our wounds he heals, all our wounds he makes strong. Where we thought we’d lost it all, where we thought we’d come to our end, exactly there the Spirit finds us, frees us from our past, transforms us into saints sent back into the darkness, into the darkness to share Christ’s Light and life, for all.

Where are all the bridges in my life,

I looked for them in this quiet hermitage and there were so few,

maybe one, maybe two?

I’d done nothing to set the fires,

Truth I’d spoken at all costs,

I’d been breathing their smoke for years.

Where were all the bridges in my life?

Was blessed solitude all … all I had left.

Where are all the bridges in my life,

I thought I’d moved beyond the need for bridges in this home sweet home,

maybe still, maybe not?

Yet here they are bridges of my life,

Truth stands firm beneath them all,

standing solid, reaching far shores.

Where are all the bridges in my life?

This blessed solitude thrives all in all.

Where are all the bridges in my life,

I look for them in this quiet hermitage and there are countless,

surely one, surely all?

Streaming across, seeking this here peace,

Truth attracts in all kinds and ways,

Many struggle to make their way.

I’ve been breathing their smoke for years.

Here lead all the bridges in their lives.

Here start all the bridges in my life.

This blessed solitude is sought’n shared by all.

Where are all the bridges in this life?

This blessed solitude covers us now.

All is peaceful, all is still,

From it rises melodies of God’s Truth.

From it rises harmonies of God’s love.

Alone and connected through blessed music, dance, prayer

Bridges bring us all home at last,

across all rivers, obstacles, and dark valleys,

Bridges bring us all home at last,

where blessed solitude is sought’n shared in all,

where blessed solitude is sought’n shared all in all.

…

Truth Be Told,

By Grace Alone,

All is well at Last. All is well at Last. All manner of things are well at Last.

Everywhere

Everywhere, God ….

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Obstacles or Beauty,

Always, All Things Are

In God’s Hands.

Psalm 95:4

In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also.

Revelation 14:7

He said in a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

Das DDR Museum feiert am 18. Juli ein besonderes Jubiläum: Vor 30 Jahren wurde am 1. Juni 1979 um 20:00 Uhr in der Samariterkirche in Berlin-Friedrichshain die erste von vielen Blues-Messen gefeiert.

On July 1, 1979 at 20:00 the Samariterkirche in Berlin- Friedrichshain celebrated the first of many Blues-Worship-Services. These services were packed in every available space with youth in East Germany (most not belonging to any church), struggling to find their way in the most surveilled country ever, with demands for adherence to policies and attitudes that everyone knew were impossibly false.

A young man, who was impressed with the diaconate work for the handicapped that the church did, spoke to the youth pastor at the Samariterkirche and offered to do something for the church. What can you do? I can make blues. So a blues worship service started up, led by the youth pastors. The idea spread to churches across East Berlin. Young people flocked to the churches.

The STASI (state security police) attended as well, with all the misery that could mean for pastors, youth and any supporters.

The church hierarchy questioned why all this for people who did not belong to the church.

The youth pastors replied that if they came, it was their job to provide worship for them. And they did addressing the questions of youth that were not allowed to be addressed anywhere else in society, not in school, not on the streets: What of this state controlled life being watched and reported on, and all of it recorded by the STASI, determining often what education and work one could get if one was not thrown in prison? What of forced military service for all youth, of no freedom to ask how life could be better, when all of life from indoctrination in school to lifelong the ‘party line’ had to be spoken even though it was obviously false? And what of the wall and border areas and policies that prohibited people from leaving to the West.

The gloriously coloured West with promise, like a first love, that in fact wears off quickly to reveal a reality that is so corrupt and rotten with excesses and poverty for most, with privilege for the few.

Even to all this – East Germans hardships, the West’s corruptions and poverty – even all this is in God’s hands.

And those blues services provided one piece (allowed by Honecker in conversation with Bishop Schönherr, both survivors of Nazi concentration camps) of a perfect storm that led to the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, and the signing of the Unification Treaty 3 October 1990.

…

Sometimes what we see as great obstacles, mountains blocking our way forward in life, are God’s declarations of magnificent beauty, calling us forward to something new.

No One

Not one

Came to my defence!

Monday, September 11, 2023

Martin Niemöller (1952)

Psalm 118:8

It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in mortals.

2 Timothy 4:16-17

Paul wrote: At my first defence no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them! But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.

…

Words of Grace For Today

As many before, as many since, as many will until the end of time, I was falsely convicted of a crime. For me it was a crime that never happened, for many others it is a crime perpetrated by others, for so many the definition of ‘crime’ is set to include whole swaths of innocent people simply for being born or living honestly, or seeking justice for all.

Fortunately for me, one did speak out for me, futile as it was, it was still a sign of God’s speaking for me, against all the lies brought to the Courts.

…

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

(Martin Niemöller)

…

There is no sure security that humans can offer each other. This only God can offer, and God gives it freely

through humans ready to fight with words and actions for all others’ rights to the basics of life.

The message Paul carried is the key to life lived well … okay we can’t live life well, and that was Paul’s message of Jesus’ Cross: We can only accept that God has paid the price for our messing up life so bad we are beyond hope or rescue (except by God’s intervention), forgiven us, renewed life in us, and sent us out to be that ‘rescue’ for others.

So we must speak out!

… well, no, it is not so that we ‘must’

for we cannot on our own and we are under no obligation.

It is that we get to speak out, and the Holy Spirit makes us able to do so.

This is also our task today:

To speak for those whose basic rights to the basics of life are denied them.

Small challenges fill our days, eh?