Category: Snow

Not AGAIN!

Monday 23 January 2023

The Ideal, Which Sadly Exists Seldom:

A Church and

The Rock,

And Christ’s Light

Psalms 25:20

O guard my life, and deliver me; do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.

Matthew 7:25

The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.

Words of Grace For Today

It’s snowing again, and whether, due to weather, the house falls is not really an issue, since the flakes are teeny, but after a few storms and 3 feet of snow like we have now, though some has melted into ice, the weight of all that gathered on the tarps may just put the tarps on the ground and ‘the house will fall.’

So we cry again in the drabness of yet again more days of snow, deliver us!

We take refuge but the rains and snows continue to fall, the winds will blow hard, it will beat on the house we have built.

Then our only hope will be the house that God has built for us, built on the Rock, Peter, the Church of Jesus the Christ.

But it’s been corrupted as well, so we are left, in the teeny flaked snow falling on tarps that we have to clear by hand, waiting for the sun to shine to give solar power so we can write more gratitude-filled words, words of grace.

Stand by

for better weather and the light.

(But there’s still work to do today, so have at it, with all we’ve got, as we wait for the light.)

It’s a drag or

What is lame is healed?

Wednesday 4 January 2023

The ‘yard’ with the drag,

before the last 1.5 feet of snow.

First Kings 19:7

The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, ‘Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.’

Hebrews 12:12-13

Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

Words of Grace For Today

As the years accumulate and take their toll on my body, more and more joints complain, some very loudly and persistently.

Whether it’s arthritis or decayed bones or broken tendons, muscles, and blood vessels, the complaining is voracious when it comes to consuming my time and abilities.

Ah, such is life past it’s best by date.

It’s not that the journey is over. There’s lots of time travelling (forward one day at a time) left. And I hear more than just angels telling me to get up and eat to strengthen my body, mind, and spirit for the day’s travels.

The 1.3 km path through the woods into the meadow is already providing challenges. With the snow already at the beginning of January as deep as it was at the end of winter last year, the coming and going is tricky to say the least. So much of my time and resources are spent (despite complaining joints) to make the path smooth, or at least smooth enough that I can continue to drag the route in with a piece of roofing tin supported by an odd assortment of screwed together wood. That beats the snow into a hard packed mess that makes it a bit easier coming and going, a bit, but not enough.

Now I would love to have the joints healed, and the road bed (the dirt, grass, and rock surfaces) make level so that snow clearing were so much simpler and coming and going when it all melts and turns to soft mud would be predictably possible. I haven’t seen that yet.

So I love this passage’s promise, but I just don’t see it happening.

Rather time travel steals more and more usefulness from my joints, and that’s just life, or at least life past one’s best by date.

Another day of challenges, meeting them as best as possible, trusting that God walks with me always. Do God’s joints complain when God walks with me? Kind of think they must, or at least something similarly, so that God has compassion and mercy and at least heals my spirit, one day at a time.

What Awaits Us?

How Shall We Proceed?

Wednesday 28 December 2022

As Time Moves On, As Seasons Come to an End, As Canoeing Ended and the Snows Began, So On This Day What Comes to an End?

Psalms 42:12

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

2 Corinthians 3:12

Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness,

Words of Grace For Today

Looking,

Looking where?

Looking back, forward, in depth, inward, to the stars?

In the in between time we look where it counts:

to God

for hope,

and love,

and life,

and purpose,

and direction, also for this day.

Though hope is based on nothing tangible, and while living based on nothing tangible is foolhardy,

nevertheless we proceed with boldness in everything we do,

for our hope is based on what is not tangible, but what is infallible, and the source of the only security available to any human in life: God’s Word.

So let the day bring what it will, we will hope

to respond with the same Grace God shows us each day.

And

that is a good ending to any year, day, moment, and even life, if that is what awaits us.

Well, Whadaya Know?

Sunday 25 December 2022

Fresh Christmas Snow Covers the Ground

as Grey Covers the Skies,

Yet Bright is Christ’s Light This Day.

Joshua 24:23

He said, ‘Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.’

John 1:18

No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

Words of Grace For Today

Lots of ways to orient one’s life,

only one is a living God, born among us to poor parents, from a most unabashedly scandalous pregnancy, and heralded by the lowest of the lowest of society.

Thus it is we are thought to be fools, and yet we continue as servants to the poor, the sick, the needy, the imprisoned. We continue to humbly begin our ways in the world remembering not our own greatness, but God’s in dealing with our great sins. We continue to live in a peace from out of time and place while conflicts storm around us. We continue to effect change, not through power, might, and force, but through humility, compassion, love, and forgiveness.

We continue.

We continue to live life to it’s fullest, sharing that fullness with all we encounter.

The snow may be fresh, but our orientation in life is as old as the universe: it is God-given from the beginning

and the Word

was made

flesh

to

live among us.

Just Plain Soaking Wet In …

Thursday 15 December 2022

Ah, we think we are so free,

so high on creation

…

until

we tumble

into the powder all wet

…

with God’s blessings.

Psalms 133:1-3

How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life for evermore.

Romans 12:4-5

For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.

Words of Grace For Today

Wherever and however we live, we live among other people, sometimes with other people, many times in spite of other people who would do us in given the smallest opportunity.

It is a witness to God’s grace given to us, which sustains us each day, when we work to live in harmony with all people, even those so misguided people who think our demise is their gain.

For this God created all of us, to live among and with all sorts of people with different abilities, characteristics, habits, viewpoints, faiths, colours, genders, and everything, including kinds of brains (from neurodiverse to super intelligent to average to simple) … even to mystics and on to profoundly spiritually blind.

It’s a challenge at best. Our demise at it’s worst.

And when we recognize we can only succeed by God’s Grace, it is the sweetest blessing in all the universe, a blessing that God pours out freely on us all.

Some of us just put on supposedly impenetrable ‘raincoats’ to shed God’s blessings so that we can go our own ways.

Even then God’s blessing bounce and splatter everywhere, soaking us all also from the bottom up, underneath all ‘protection’ we don.

So it is, we, God’s children, often in spite of ourselves, live in an uneven harmony, singing an odd tune to God’s melody, tripping all too often as we dance through life.

Where to today? To which melody?

Soaking in God’s blessings regardless!

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?

To Where !?

Thursday 1 December 2022

To Where Will God Call Us,

Again Where We Cannot See The Destination

Today?

Genesis 35:3

… then come, let us go up to Bethel, that I may make an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.

Ephesians 5:20

… giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

The verses for today are consequences of or endings to previous events.

The first is Jacob’s call to his people to go up to Bethel to build an altar to God, to give God thanks for answering him in his distress and for accompanying him wherever he has gone.

The second is the writer of Ephesians calling to the 2nd century Christians to be constantly giving God thanks in Jesus name for everything.

This past Monday CBC Ideas ran a segment by Neil Sandell about Ernest Gann’s memoir, Fate is the Hunter. Sandell highlighted the two threads in Gann’s book: the deadly risks of early aviation (that are still present in bush flying in the north and in many parts of the world), and the capriciousness of fate as some pilots survive inevitable accidents and seemingly certain death while others, even more skilled pilots, die in similar accidents.

An Adventure in Reality.

This Advent we have the A cycle of lessons, mostly from Matthew, and on the 2nd Sunday of Advent (this upcoming Sunday) we have Matthew’s version of John the Baptist calling people to a baptism of repentance in the Jordan. Wild John the Baptist got many people’s attention, and many came, even religious leaders, scoping out John, hedging their bets for God’s favour.

We are so used to Advent, well some of us are, and it’s calls to be alert, stay awake, cleanse our hearts, minds, and whole lives with repentance … each year pretty much the same. We usually blithely hear, celebrate the coming Christmas season with parties, gift buying and wrapping, and baking and cooking for huge meals.

Each Advent, and in fact each day, God works in so many ways to get our attention. I’m not sure that God goes to the length of the wife who seized the opportunity of the crew clearing away the elk found dead on her front lawn. She convinced them instead of hauling it away to deposit in her upstairs tub. Asked why, she said that her husband always asked her how her day was and then when she told him he was so bored he really never listened or cared. At least this would get his attention! God uses so many events and opportunities that are so much more crazy. Elk in the tub by comparison are not much.

John came wearing just camel hair and a leather belt, eating locusts and wild honey (try getting that from a busy bee-hive!), and calling people to repent, be baptized, and … then he points to Jesus.

In his book (full disclosure: I’m still waiting to get the one copy from the library system, so I’m working just from the Ideas program) Gann’s language captures one’s attention. It’s beautiful, with full descriptions of each person, even minor characters. And it’s brutally honest.

So much about aviation tells the story that people want to hear, stories modified so that the risks, real deaths, and survivors all in control of the outcomes. After all who wants to hear that a safe return from their next flight, or their loved one’s next flight, is wholly beyond the control of the pilots?

Gann tells it like it is. He survived near death events so many times. He tells them like they were, fully capturing our attention as he exposes that time period’s ‘adventure’ that flying was, a dangerous adventure at best!

He then recounts from the archives of the accident reports in which 400 pilots died from similar or even less dangerous circumstances. He names the pilots.

Throughout he asks, why did I survive when so many even better pilots did not? Not a practising Christian he did believe that ‘something bigger’ was out there ‘in the skies’ beyond where he flew. He could not deny it, yet he sees the outcomes as capricious fate.

When God grabs our attention, and who knows what that will take, then we know the outcome of our survival is not capricious. God saves us. The question we cannot answer is why God does not save us all?

But the consequence of being saved, of surviving again, is simple. We give God thanks, with everything left in our lives. What that entails is different for each of us, but it’s nothing less than jettisoning what we do not need, and taking the basic necessities with us through life. That life is always like John the Baptist’s: we live and work for God to get people’s attention, we call them to repentance and baptism, and we point to Jesus as the source of life.

Following Jesus we avoid hate and anger, and cultivate grief and joy, and always we celebrate with thanks all that God gives us.

No matter how long we have been at this, our journey is not completed, nor is God done trying to get our attention. There is always the ‘next flight’ to take. It’s more than an adventure, and more than a ‘dangerous adventure’. It is life serving God, following Jesus, trusting and exercising the gifts of the Holy Spirit given to us: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

At about 18:00 the evening of 29 Nov 2022, laying reading, the bed roll under me shook for about a minute, not wind, but ground movement! And last night an earthquake was reported near Peace River. Was this an aftershock? It’s the one good explanation I’ve got. So maybe?

Or was it God trying to get our attention, yet again!?

To what is God calling us today, this Advent, this coming year?

Discovering Light is Dark …

Wednesday 16 November 2022

What would it be like to discover,

everything we thought was light

is actually dark?

…

If the Holy Spirit guided us,

we might see instead of darkness everywhere

the wonders of creation.

Job 28:28

Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.

Luke 11:35

Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness.

Words of Grace For Today

To know what is evil and depart from it and to know that what one has considered light is actually darkness … well these are two very difficult things to imagine any human is ever capable of pulling off.

Yes, departing from a little sin here and there is something most people pull off once in a while, maybe a few times a month or so, but …

It’s an entirely different thing to leave all evil behind, to depart from it as clearly as a train departs the station or an airplane the runway, or perhaps more accurately, as a spaceship headed towards Mars on a one way mission lifts off from the launchpad never to return again …. That kind of departing from evil is seldom seen, and even more seldom actually chosen by the person departing from the ‘dark side.’

Yes, knowing what is light, and finding one’s way using it, and knowing what is darkness and not trying to navigate one’s life in it, are understandable things, but …

Discovering that what one thought of as light is actually dark, now that takes a monumental amount of self-awareness and situational awareness in God’s creation that would be completely contrary to everything one used up to that point to navigate one’s way in life. That is, well, for all humans, just impossible, unless it’s a fairy tale or fiction or a lie.

The most we can do is pray out of fear and love for God (for just fearing God helps not much) that God would help us discern Good from Evil, Light from Darkness, and God’s Will from our own flawed wills.

The light of day arrives and turns into the dark of night, the weeks turn to months and years, and joy turns to sorrow, as easily as the seasons turn and rain turns to snow and snow melts back to water,

but God’s promises are forever, as much as truth is always truth and lies always lies.

On God’s promises we place our trust and all reason we have to find joy and hope each day. So onward it is …

It’s time to head on in to another day, secured in goodness only by God’s good grace towards us.

Turning Away, Turning Towards …

Monday 14 November 2022

All the pointing in the world may not help,

when we think that

the abyss lies ahead.

Ezekiel 14:6

Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: Repent and turn away from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.

Romans 12:2

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God, namely what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Words of Grace For Today

Calls to repent and turn away from idols and abominations have been around as long as humans were able to fathom God exists.

The trouble is not in turning around and away from what we know is evil, it’s in what we turn towards that we think is the answer to life.

Sven and Ole found this out the hard way, as we always do.

They are Hittites, long since extinct, so no racism can be read into the story. Add to that my heritage as Swedish (the Sven’s are many), Norwegian (the Ole’s are plentiful, and German (I ought to keep better order and therefore know better, some would say) and I take free license to retell the story and alter it as I wish.

So Sven turns to Ole as they are pulling back to the truck the big moose they shot, “This is too hard. I need a break.”

After he’s caught his breath Ole walks up to the moose to feel the hide. He turns to Sven, “I know the answer. It’ll be easier if we pull it with the hair instead of against it!”

Sven, seeing the logic in it, sets about getting ready to heave the heavy carcass homeward.

After a two hours and a few breaks later, Sven yells, “Break.”

Ole pipes up after a bit, “Well, whaddaya think, Sven? It’s easier, eh?” (The two immigrated to Canada decades ago.)

Sven waits a long while before answering, “Yes, it is much easier. The problem is Ole, when we stopped for our first break after pulling it against the hair, we were only a half mile from the truck, now we are two miles away.”

Turning around, away from idols and abominations may be the easiest thing we can do. Turning towards God, now that takes more than a few smarts. That takes the Holy Spirit guiding us every step of the way. Thus we pray: God send your Holy Spirit to guide us so that we are not conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may discern what is your will, knowingwhat is good and acceptable and perfect.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit sends us simple instructions, other times good friends to guide us. Whatever we need we pray God will provide it also today.

Before Sven and Ole could even think of taking another break they came across a dirt road. There stood their friend Hans, “I knew you two would need help, so I put a tracker in Sven’s pocket. Let’s get that moose into my truck and you two back to your trucks. But tell me, why did you turn around when you were so close to your trucks?”