Hope – This Life

Walk!

Walk it off?

Not a chance.

Saturday, September 16, 2023

https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/covid-19-and-fungi-a-nightmare-in-the-making

John Hopkins: Fungi Nightmare in the Making

Lamentations 3:58

You have taken up my cause, O Lord, you have redeemed my life.

1 Peter 2:21-23

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.

…

Words of Grace For Today

CBC health newsletter reported how a man came home for a long weekend, walking up his drive he vomited blood on his driveway, ended up needed a new liver (cause of cirrhosis unknown), four years later went in for a liver transplant, and spent more than a month on IVs with multiple superbug infections (infections resistant to antibiotics).

And this is more and more common. Surgery is getting to be dangerous, because of the killer infections that come with it. Covid should have woken us up to the huge risk we are at, across the world, to unstoppable infections. Instead people want Covid to be over so they say it is over and behave as if it’s over, but it’s not. We will suffer greater death and losses of health because of it. People don’t want that to happen, so they live as if it is not already happening. Wanting it to be, does not make is so.

A walk up one’s drive, after a long, hard work week is supposed to be the beginning of a kind of rest and recuperation. The walk is the beginning of ‘walking it all off’, so that one is ready to be with one’s family, and then ready to return to a productive work-week.

Sin is worse. We cannot just ‘walk it off.’ We can pretend it does not exist, which only deepens the sin’s ravaging in our lives, like superbugs denied and thus let loose to run havoc more freely in our midst.

Only God’s forgiveness can save us from sin.

Also from the sin of denying Covid, and the dangers of super bugs: bacteria, viruses, fungi.

Without God’s forgiveness, redemption, and renewal of us, we cannot engage to help one another survive come what may.

So we celebrate each morning, noon, and night (and also this day) with the writer of Lamentations: ‘You have taken up my cause, O Lord, you have redeemed my life.’ And we pray that we may be delivered from diseases that cannot be cured, again today.

Confident

Humility

Tuesday, September 12, 2023

A newly discovered cache of internal documents reveals that the sugar industry downplayed the risks of sugar in the 1960s. https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/09/13/sugar_wide-c334d683622a1f40a8f97f8acc8199a44f233e68-s1200.jp

Mounds of Sugar,

Taste Great?

Deadly?

Exodus 19:4

You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.

Hebrews 10:35

Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Confidence.

Confidence brings rewards.

Yes, confidence brings rewards, but

are those

good rewards

or the rewards

of the foolhardy.

As far as having seen what God did to the Egyptians and how God bore us up on eagles’ wings,

that is a piece of history now, one we have not seen ourselves, and the record shows that the people were not so easily convinced that being brought out into the wilderness with no water or food was such a great thing.

In fact they were abundantly confident that Moses had made a huge mistake, bringing them out in to the wilderness to die of thirst or starvation, and then of boredom with no meat to eat and then always the same old same old to eat, morning, noon, and night. God did not provide them with Kellogg’s, General Mills, Malt-O-Meal, Nestlé, Quaker Oats and Post Foods to produce a great variety of breakfast cereals that will eventually kill anyone from sugar poisoning. But at least the sugar addicts do not complain as they eat themselves to death!

So how are we to be confident,

yet not too confident,

and confident in the correct things that make for life,

instead of in things, like sugar, that provide for our slow deaths after miserable lives?

I think best is to be quiet humble, not so confident at all, but fully dependent on God’s good grace.

Or one can fall in love, which seems to ‘fix’ life quite well.

And then one wants more and more of that sweetness, which may or may not ‘fix’ life at all. The potential is there for great blessings and great curses, just like all else that is sweet as sugar.

Ephraim

Fruit in the land of misfortunes

Sunday, September 10, 2023

Ephraim By Francesco Hayez (1843)

Genesis 41:52

The second he named Ephraim, ‘For God has made me fruitful in the land of my misfortunes.’

Romans 5:3-4

And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,

…

Words of Grace For Today

Just because suffering can be identified as bringing good effect (eventually) in our lives, there is no justification for foisting suffering on others, or seeking it out ourselves.

Suffering is, as Joseph knew quite well, not the choice one made for oneself, nor the thing to be celebrated. Rather one celebrates that one survives suffering and moves on. The end of suffering that is replaced by much more than the lack of suffering is what is celebrated.

Thus Joseph names his second son Ephraim. Ephraim, of two word-roots: depleted and fruitful, lingers not on depletion nor jumps merely on fruitful, but in the combination of fruitfulness from depletion.

Death brings an end to suffering. This we do not celebrate. The dead do not celebrate, right?

What we look for is life that has delights in each day, comforts to our ills, and reasons to see our children’s children and their children live well.

The challenge to a comfortable life is that until we know we may lose those comforts and indeed life itself, and not just a theoretical exercise but knowing it from our own experience, we really do not know how to live well with comforts. We take them for granted and surrender even our own thinking minds to have comforts — and then some fascist ruler takes not only our minds but our lives and that of our children’s children and their children.

So we pray, may our suffering (which is inevitable for all humans) be of a kind and duration that we may survive and therein learn the value of truth, compassion, and shear joy in the simple things of life — and most of all that we will learn from our suffering the true value in life is less our comforts but in our helping others survive their suffering to be able to enjoy life with us. Thus we set off a cascade of events that will bring many in the coming generations to know the true value of life, and how to find delight in the small things, and compassion for others.

We can but hope

for that for us

and for our children

and their children

and many generations to come.

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.

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’.

The Message:

The Lord Knows Us

Every Nook and Cranny

Thursday, August 24, 2023

Think We Can Hide Out There?

Think Again.

God Knows All About Us!

Isaiah 49:3

And he said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’

Acts of the Apostles 10:36

You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Bonhoeffer wrote Who am I? Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. … and he ended with:

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am thine!

That is for all of us the most determinative thing to know about ourselves, that God knows us!

God knows us, every nook and cranny, all our good past-present-future, and all our terrible, hidden, denied, covered up, destructive acts and wishes and thoughts. It can be more than scary to think God knows all that! It can be downright debilitating, making us want to give up entirely,

EXCEPT

God demonstrates again and again, not only that God knows us inside and out. God shows us over and over again that God also loves us, as we are!

Knowing that God loves us, makes us able to love ourselves, and to love others (even though we never are very good at knowing ourselves or knowing others completely).

Knowing that we can love ourselves and others is liberating.

Knowing others do love us is marvellous, if entirely suspect, at times.

Knowing that God loves us is everything!

And of us miserable sinners (actually we are rather good at sinning) God brings us to be those who bring God to be glorified, by us and others, awestruck by God’s works for us all.

Blue

Blues.

Blew It Blues

Friday, August 18, 2023

Blue Sky, Missing the Point.

Two Birds Fly

With Grace.

Psalm 119:2

Happy are those who keep his decrees, who seek him with their whole heart,

Matthew 5:19

Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Blue

Blue Blues

Blue Dark Blues

Blue Dark Blues because we’ve blown it.

Blue Dark Blues because we’ve blown it, and it is the most important thing in all of life, the most important thing in all of everything that ever was or ever will be.

Deep, Dark, We-Blew-It-Biggest-Time Blues!

If ever there were a more hopeless situation it could not be known: Happy are those who keep God’s decrees and seek him with their whole heart, for God is the source of happiness and all that is good in life – BUT not one single person can ever keep God’s decrees and seek him with their whole heart. No one has. No one does. No one ever will be able to. Except Jesus.

For the rest of us, we are doomed, and there is no better reason

to not only sing the blues (for we’ve lost out on happiness and life and goodness, totally)

but

to be the blues,

stuck in the blues,

lost,

alienate from God,

in the blues forever.

…

Except

that

God’s work in Jesus Christ to demonstrate that God extends Grace to us all,

forgiving us for not seeking God with our whole hearts and

breaking God’s decrees though we would do otherwise

which Grace turns our forever-blues into hope

that never ends and does not disappoint.

So it is that Blue is the colour of hope.

So that singing the blues is an act

of hope, even though we

blew it big time today

like yesterday and

tomorrow, So

God’s Blues

Carry us

onward

blessed

Black

No Hope?

Do Not Lose Heart?

Wednesday, August 16, 2023

As In Every Photo,

In All Views Of The World,

Black Plays Freely.

First Chronicles 29:15

For we are aliens and transients before you, as were all our ancestors; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope.

2 Corinthians 4:16

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Black.

Black absorbs all light.

Black blocks out all light so none passes through.

Black is the colour of

void

stillness

hopelessness

sightlessness

shadows

grief

death.

There is life like a shadow that is so fleeting one cannot but watch it pass, or like a shadow that grows and grows, coming toward one until all everything is no more as if consumed by a black hole.

And there goes hope, out the door to the far end of the universe beyond imagination.

Black.

Black holds all light.

Black shades the burning heat of all light so none passes through.

Black is the colour of

fullness

calm

hope amid the burning storm

relief to the eyes

shades

waiting for rebirth

promise of life.

…

While we live our bodies deteriorate. Some say after the age of 24 our bodies start to die. Some say the warranty is up at age 30. Some say …

… well all the someones say everything that is said.

And if our minds

do not succumb to the wear and tear of life, dropping our awareness to minimum levels and below, so that we do not even know our own families, which is a horrible thing to anticipate,

then we may experience the full impact of our lives continuing on despite the deterioration of our bodies and physical abilities,

and find delight.

…

Black.

Black is the colour of all that was before creation, of God in the universe alone, together three in one, lonely … it would appear … for company even with us imperfect, sinful humans.

Black is a colour given by God, to us, and in all times, black or not, God revitalizes our spirits, calling us to live out God’s grace (exercised for us) for others.

So even when it appears there is no hope, God

…

God recreates hope 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.

This Again!

AND Again!

Really! @#$#%#%$!!

Saturday, July 29, 2023

Blues Musician Mississippi Fred McDowell in 1960

Psalm 77:3

I think of God, and I moan; I meditate, and my spirit faints. Selah

Matthew 26:38-39

Then he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.’ And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.

Words of Grace For Today

Some days the weight of Shtako, of Evil playing so freely all around and in our lives, and even in our own hearts, leaves us wondering if God can ever reach us, helps us, save us.

It’s too damn often that we are left so damn alone!

Even the thought of God, our prayers, our meditations, our efforts to sleep leave us grieving and moaning at how cruel the world is and how cruel everything in our lives can be to us and those we love.

…

We may well sing along with Steve or the Proclaimers

“Just when every ray of hope was gone, I should’a known that you would come along. I can’t believe I ever doubted you, my old friend the blues.

“Another lonely night, a nameless town. If sleep don’t take me first, you’ll come around, ’cause I know I can always count on you, my old friend the blues.

“Lovers leave and friends’ll let you down, but you’re the only sure thing that I’ve found. No matter what I do I’ll never lose my old friend the blues….

“Just let me hide my weary heart in you, my old friend the blues”

My Old Friend The Blues by Steve Earle, covered by many!

Only faith

Only faith given to us

Only faith given to us and renewed in us by the Holy Spirit

can assure us that God is with us, along with our friend the blues.

This is the faith that the saints have shared with us, and we saints today share with all people, especially those so often left in the company of the blues.

Then when the dark, blue silences catch up with us and we sing along with Simon and Garfunkel:

“Hello darkness, my old friend I’ve come to talk with you again because a vision softly creeping left its seeds while I was sleeping and the vision that was planted in my brain still remains within the sound of silence …”

We know the song does not end with us, and these dark, silenced times.

God sings along with us …

until we see we stand in the light of Christ again, the choir of saints singing with us

and

we can give God thanks, once again, and again.

Even today Blue is also the colour of hope, after all.