Category: Joy

Memories

That Rot, Trying to Earn God’s Good Graces

Saturday, July 8, 2023

Among the Weeds, See the Beauty?

Around the Beauty, See the Weeds and Thorns?

Amid All That is Life, See God’s

Generous Gifts!

Proverbs 10:7

The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.

Hebrews 6:12

… so that you may not become sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Words of Grace For Today

In the Kingdom of God there must be rewards.

There is so much written and spoken about how we are rewarded for our good works and our good work for others.

Ahh, there is the rub.

It’s all an illusion.

We are nor rewarded by how we live or do or think or believe.

The causation direction is all messed when we talk about how we earn our reward from God.

God rewards us first – when we certainly do not deserve it- and then we get to respond.

We inherit, not as reward, but because God is generous with steadfast, unconditional love.

So how are we going to go into this day?

Fretting how we will get ahead?

Working hard to earn God’s good graces?

Or

Thankful for all we are given that we have not and cannot earn, and sharing those same gifts with others?

Coming Up Short

Again!

Thursday, July 6, 2023

The Light!

Look,

See,

‘Find’ Jesus,

Standing Beside Us,

The Whole Time!

Psalm 25:1-2

Of David. To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me.

Luke 19:3

Zacchaeus was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.

Words of Grace For Today

With all of our expectations of others, of how we should be able to progress through a day, a week, a year, a life, it is too common that we come up short. Of course we come up short when others measure us or we measure ourselves compared to others. (That’s how we pretend that we are better than others, others who are ‘shorter’ at life than us.) The real challenge is when we come up short according to our own measure.

That can bring on our old friend the blues very quickly, and that trusty friend can settle in for an extended stay, even sleeping on our bed because we cannot sleep well at all.

We all try to compensate, somehow or another. Some pretend to be real intelligent, some very wealthy, some very privileged, some very powerful, some from real old blood –

which reminds me of the guy who showed up to camp. Everything he tried turned out poorly. He couldn’t get a place to rent. Landlords kept renting out any room he showed interest in before he could come up with the first months’ rent. He had a truck. On the truck he had a camper, given to him, laden with black mould that he started to rip apart to get at the mould and get rid of it. Before he got very far the police came and told him he was camping illegally and he had to move somewhere else. But, and this came in a conversation after he told me of all his failings, he asked me how long I had lived here. I said five years, meaning this camp place. He proudly said he was bred and born in Cold Lake.

It didn’t matter that we were standing 25 kilometres from Cold Lake, but this he had done better at than me. That made him worth something! I was a ‘newbie’ and he belonged here … until the police told him to move. –

It really doesn’t matter how we try to pretend to be better at life and in life than we really are, making such claims always makes us look just a tad foolish (well under it all we are through and through fools.)

Like David we may fear being put to shame by our enemies, but like David we often put ourselves in shame faster and more thoroughly than any enemy could. So we cry with David, O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me …

to which we add: save us, most of all, from ourselves.

Like Zacchaeus we may have tried to gather as much money and power as we can (at other’s expense) but we know there is more to life than these empty things we fill our lives with.

We want to see Jesus, the healer, the teacher, the one they say is the Son of God.

We don’t have to climb any trees.

Jesus walks here.

At least Jesus walks here with me wherever I go, even when it’s into a hell of a mess. And Jesus walks with me, guiding me and sometimes carrying me out the other side back into the light.

We may come up short, but we are never too short to see Jesus walking with us. Sometimes we need a saint or two or thousands to show us, but there Jesus is, pulling us out of our self made shame again, back into life where we can breathe and laugh and sing and dance … and share God’s blessings with others. Our only real ‘claim to fame’ is that we were born and bred here, we belong here …

with Jesus in God’s Kingdom. (But that’s not our doing. God chooses that for us!)

Skipping

Into The Day

Thursday, June 29, 2023

Learning From the Sun,

Which Even On Smoky Days,

Skips Across the Evening Waters,

Our Days Begin With Celebrations: 1, 2, 3 …

Jeremiah 8:4

You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord: When people fall, do they not get up again? If they go astray, do they not turn back?

1 Timothy 1:12

I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service,

Words of Grace For Today

People fall.

People fall often, sometimes physically, more often psychologically and even more often spiritually.

Getting up again, well that is not always a simple matter.

We’d like to simply say, yes we all get back up. Well-being is restored to us and we walk tall and healthy, full of vigour and vitality.

But it just ain’t so.

Most of us walk wounded, stooped over or even crawling from day to day. And all of us will some day not ever again get up, and we hope that someone will honour us enough to lay us in a grave.

While we breathe, wounded or stooped over, we know that God walks with us and gives us strength for this day, and each new day we breathe. We do not deserve such grace. We count on such grace.

With Timothy we give God thanks, for all the strength we need God provides, and when we need added support, God carries us through the hellish days we find ourselves in, until we come out the other side into the light of love, hope, and grace.

As we can then, we take time to skip into a waltz or two step, celebrating all that God does for us, thanking God for such undeserved gifts.

The End

To Everything Will Come

Sunday, June 25, 2023

Don’t Be Foolishly Fooled;

Even the Sun

and It’s Setting

Will Come to an End.

Habakkuk 2:3

For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.

1 Peter 4:7-8

The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.

Words of Grace For Today

Knowing that ‘this too will pass’, can often be a comforting bit of wisdom to remember.

This grief

– after the death of a loved one,

– after a loss of a relationship,

– after the loss of health and abilities,

– after the loss of dreams and hope itself,

(all kinds of grief) will also pass.

The excitement of celebrations, tainted

– by family and/or friends who are not at all kind,

– the reminder of loved ones not present,

– the burdens, past and future, such celebration puts on daily life and/or daily survival,

– one’s own inability to actually eat or dance or talk with others,

(all kinds of celebrations, tainted or not) will also pass.

This life, too often aptly described as hard, brutish, and short, will also pass.

Knowing that everything will pass, eventually, even breath itself, helps keep us focused on what really matters,

… well sometimes it does.

Sometimes we just focus on trying to ‘beat’ time and ‘cheat’ death and ‘get more out of life’.

When we realize that God walks with us through everything that will pass then it is easier (as the Holy Spirit guides and enables us) to see how precious it all is,

even that person who is not at all kind,

even the grief from a loss, that gives witness to how precious who/what was lost really was,

even the celebration that we cannot fully participate in, is precious, and worth participating in as we can.

Each day, each hour, each minute there are so many things that are precious, and

if / when we realize this,

we can take the good and the bad

as precious gifts from God

which gives our hearts, minds and strength the most precious things of all, faith, hope and love:

faith that God created us and walks with us,

hope that the future will be precious as well as each minute now is,

and love for God, God’s people, and all of God’s creatures and creation.

And that can make for some interesting, challenging and rewarding time,

like today.

The Glue-i-ness

Of All That Is

Sunday, June 18, 2023

Five Useful Things,

New In the Last 50 Years,

and a Stapler

(older than 50 years).

Can You Name Them?

Psalm 89:12-13

The north and the south—you created them; Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name. You have a mighty arm; strong is your hand, high your right hand.

Colossians 1:16-17

for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Words of Grace For Today

As exciting as it is to read of new sub-atomic discoveries and theories of how matter is constructed, and that anti-matter must exist … and

As exciting as it is to see new photos of new galaxies, stars and planets, even planets in stable orbits around two stars, and to read of more discoveries about the universe and its origins … and

As exciting as it is to read about and be able to use new discoveries and technologies that give us new and useful products for daily living, like oscillating saws, instant oatmeal, microwaves, heat pumps, hydrogen and/or electric vehicles, computers, cell phones, LED screens, LED lights, and crazy glue (just to name a few things that have become staples for many people over the last 50 years) …

There is no discovery yet that explains the whole universe in all it’s order or rather orders and in all its variations and samenesses, and in its chaos and disorder.

It is tempting, as humans have for all of our history, to turn to our concepts of ‘God’ to explain only the inexplicable, and say that there is no complete explanation for the universe this is ‘proof’ that God must exist.

The saner turn of thought is to accept the reality that if God exists (and we do so believe) and if God created the whole universe and all that is in it (and we do so believe) then:

All that we discover in and about the universe is made possible by God’s creating the universe in such a manner, and by God’s creating us in such a manner

so that: we can discover order and explanations for things that exist –

so that: we can invent new things that are of great usefulness to us –

so that: we can imagine wondrous things (such as Tatooine orbiting around binary suns), and later discover that they are actually things that exist in the universe

so that: we see God in all that is and all that is possible for us to imagine and to discover and to use well.

Take crazy glue. It is so good at mending broken skin, so much so that medical variations of it are used now in surgery to replace stitches and even to hold tissues together that stitches cannot. Yet when used as a regular glue, at least my attempts prove, it fails as a glue more often than not.

Thus perhaps a helpful analogy is that God is the ‘glue’ that holds the universe together, that holds us together, a ‘glue’ that is so much better at its purpose than crazy glue, a ‘glue’ that is perfect and a ‘glue’ that created everything in the beginning as well.

Now to ‘discover’ and ‘use’ that ‘glue’ would be more than a little exciting. That would bring us to break out in a joyous shout of amazement. So it is for Tabor and Hermon and countless people through all time, and even me and you today (again) to break out in joyous praise and wonder at all God has made and is

for and with us even today.

…

…

…

… now back to the top for the answer

to what are the five useful things in the photo, besides the stapler, that are new in the last 50 years. Actually the miniature stapler is new in the last 50 years, just not the plain old stapler. –

…

ready?

  1. crazy glue
  2. coloured and clear plastic, stick on, page markers, dispensed in serial
  3. floss – now replaced by floss sticks-picks
  4. the plastic mat under everything
    (the stapler, but it does not count for this quiz and, finally,)
  5. the LED flashlight providing the light (a tricky, hidden thing, but what fun is a ‘find everything in the photo’ without something tricky, not unlike the whole universe, or?)

…

Notice the shadow. Everything has a dark side, eh!

.

.

.

Oh, And Happy Father’s Day,

now if the kids would just be in contact, it would make my day!

Give Us

A Break

Sunday, May 14, 2023

The Trees May Look Goners,

and the Sky Dark

with a tiny sliver of a moon,

but that Moon Reflects

the Light of the World.

All is not lost or dark.

Daniel 6:19-24

Then, at break of day, the king got up and hurried to the den of lions. When he came near the den where Daniel was, he cried out anxiously to Daniel, ‘O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you faithfully serve been able to deliver you from the lions?’ Daniel then said to the king, ‘O king, live for ever! My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths so that they would not hurt me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no wrong.’ Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God. The king gave a command, and those who had accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the den of lions—they, their children, and their wives. Before they reached the bottom of the den the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces.

John 10:27-28

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.

Words of Grace For Today

“If one is awake at all, one knows that there is more that goes wrong in life than goes right.” So goes the ‘wisdom’ of those who propagate fear in order to control others, whether it’s politicians or just your local neighbourhood kid out to make her way among the other kids.

Jesus knew (it’s not that great a secret) that fear is the deadliest enemy to living a good life, a life abundant and blessed. In so many ways he taught with words, healing, and example how to live free of fear.

Not that living free of fear frees one from what can take life from us, but why help all that evil life-sucking stuff get to us sooner than it may anyway. Let evil have to work the full routine if it’s going to get us.

Now the writer of Daniel took another tack. We like this one. The enemies plot and succeed in getting the king (against his wishes) to throw our good Daniel into the den of lions to be eaten. Gruesome end, to say the least. But then God intervenes and frees Daniel not only from fear but from the beasts that are to be feared. The king celebrates and then deals with those who forced him to toss Daniel to the lions. He has them thrown to the lions and for them and their families there is no rescue. The lions ‘overpowered them and broke all their bones.’ At least we are spared the bloody details.

But that is not how God works, as the mountain of evidence to the contrary shows so well. Evil, whether it is a company of schemers and plotters who would have us thrown to the lions, or the neighbourhood kid out to run the other kids her way, or the politician who would create fear in order to win elections, or the lawyers, judges, ex’s and other criminals (liars they are) who create lies and punishments for obvious lies, – evil seems to win.

Exactly to that appearance Jesus speaks: it is not a win for them. It is a loss. A loss of decency. A loss of good life. A loss of truth. A loss of honour. A loss of blessings. A loss of one’s soul to the Devil. As for us who suffer the evil efforts of others: we win again, not because of what we do or do not do, but because of what God does for us.

God blesses.

God protects us.

God shows us how to live, even when evil seems to conquer all around us, and how to live free of fear and filled with joy.

God shows us how to leave the battle with evil to God’s power, the power of love in weakness, suffering, and even death – to which God responds with eternal life for us.

No one can take from us what God gives us. And that is the win of a lifetime. Greater a win there is not.

Abandoned?

Abandoned

To Wonders of Wonders

Thursday, April 27, 2023

The Wonders of Wonders

Surround Us

Each New Day.

Isaiah 44:21

Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you, you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.

Romans 11:1

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

Words of Grace For Today

When Covid, on top of deceptions and lies, on top of deteriorating health, on top of life decaying into old age, leaves one feeling abandoned …

and who cannot identify with that reality when no one is there or here, or anywhere …

the only saving grace is to know and trust that God has not forgotten us, that God has not rejected us.

For the beauty of the world still surrounds us.

The celebration each morning still reflects the light of Christ in the Eucharist.

The provisions for survival are still possible.

And life is still possible, even peaceful, and we have learned to enjoy solitude immensely, knowing God walks with us, is for us, and protects us.

Is this not also the blessing God provides for us all?

Easter

Resurrection

Celebration of Life,

Again.

Sunday, April 9, 2023

And There IS Life, and Light, And Hope … Again!

Psalms 3:6

I am not afraid of tens of thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.

Mark 16:9-10

And all that had been commanded them they told briefly to those around Peter. And afterwards Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.
Now after he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping.

Words of Grace For Today

Only when we understand the darkness that God suffered by dying on the cross, and the darkness that permeated all creation, pushing, shoving, and sucking everything toward uncreation,

can we then truly celebrate

that Jesus is Risen, indeed!

And we can live, and laugh, and pray thanks, and dance, and hope, and reach towards others

with the same grace God has extended to us, through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross,

offering them life, laughter, prayers of thanks, dancing, hoping and community so precious.

We can but overflow with prayers of joy and thanksgiving, for all of creation can live again.

Carry

What Is Most Important

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

If We Make Our Own Way,

Everything Becomes an Obstacle.

God Would Carry Us Through It All,

Focused Instead On Giving Life to Others.

Psalms 103:14

For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.

2 Corinthians 4:10

[we] … always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.

Words of Grace For Today

If one is confused about who one is then one can carry so much with one each day (baggage, sins, dreams, memories) that do one no good at all.

Take Kurt or Jane or Kjeet or Norique, all who earned more than $500k a year, and sometimes with bonuses netted over $1million. Each ‘earned’ their salaries by taking from others, one on the stock markets, one as a corrupt lawyer, and one as a drug dealer with a day job of librarian, who loved to gamble just a lot too much. The last one had lied constantly to the children, the police and the courts, in order to get ahead by destroying others who seemed to be in the way forward. It was all a delusion, but the results were devastating to everyone. All four ignored the destruction that they left in their wakes, and consequently they carried all that destruction as baggage into each day.

Then there was Rolf, Srijet, Olaf, and May. They were all so poor each day was a struggle to survive. Two were homeless. One lived in the bush. The other couch surfed, from friend to friend, then changed cities and repeated it until there were no friends not ‘visited’ and then the cities-friends were repeated.

Not one of them was happy. All worked each day to have yet more money, thinking that would make them happy. Such thinking was at best mere futile wishes. At worst, through neglect, it destroyed others and themselves, for not one of them gave any attention to the other people around them who struggled just as hard to survive. Their selfish drives to get more for themselves drove them deeper and deeper from anything like life that God created them to enjoy.

Knowing one is made from dust and born of God’s Spirit one can choose well, though not perfectly, what one carries into each day.

We all know the saints, who regardless of their circumstances, turn their focus each day to helping others find the true meaning of life.

Are we one of these saints?

What will our day look like today?

Are we aware we are dust, carried in blessings and glory abundant by God’s grace alone so that we have more than enough to share with all people in need?

When we live, by grace alone aware that Jesus’ died for our bodies, minds and souls (along with everyone else who has or ever will live), with the marks of Christ’s death freeing us from anxiety about our own deaths, and our own lives, THEN our bodies, lives, minds, and time will reflect the glory of Christ resurrected to save us all, by the power of love’s apparent weakness.

It is simply like dust made alive with breath: a miracle each day.

Wake Up!

See The Poor

Saturday, March 4, 2023

How Wide Is Your Sky That You Wake To?

What Joy Do You Know

and Share?

Psalms 12:7

You, O Lord, will protect us; you will guard us from this generation for ever.

John 6:63

It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

Words of Grace For Today

The world is in trouble. Grave trouble. Dark trouble.

We are all going to die.

That’s just how it is.

Knowing that God walks with us and protects us gives us the spirit to move into all that trouble, bringing blessings, peace, and joy.

Harmon wakes cold in the winter and too warm in the summer. His insulated tarp tent is a collection of 2 years of collecting other people’s junk. His greatest boon was when a foreman at a construction site let him pick through the scraps before it was shovelled into the dumpster for disposal. He landed 5 insulated tarps in rough shape, and he came back later to get the few metal 2×4’s and five 2×6’s the foreman let him put to the side because he could barely carry the tarps. Even then he couldn’t manage the 2×6’s so the foreman tossed it all in the back of his pickup truck and had a young worker deliver it and Harmon back to his campsite in the river valley or as near as they could drive. The young man helped carry it all in, he said under orders from the foreman.

It was a tough life, Harmon knew. But it was so much better than living with his uncle up north. There he woke to getting hit before breakfast for he never knew what. His uncle served the same for lunch, supper, and before bedtime. It was better than what his friends managed in the tent city downtown, where the only thing between them and the elements and thieves was a thin piece of tent and their sleeping bags. Though they had ready access to water, showers, supplies and clothes. Twice a week Harmon hiked up the river a mile or so and then across and up into downtown for a shower and supplies, and food, sometimes even a hot meal. Otherwise he was content to collect scrap wood for a fire, read books he got from a helpful woman at the library (they were going to be tossed out anyway), write and draw. It wasn’t much, but along with helping serve meals on Sundays at ‘his’ church, he kept his spirits up.

We are all going to die. That’s 100% death rate for us. But before then there is life. Best to keep it in perspective.

Paul writes that the body is nothing, but Harmon knew that you needed to care for the body or the mind and soul had no chance at all. And you needed to care for your mind and soul or your body had no chance at all either.

What do you wake to each morning? How many running feet of floor or square feet of space is yours to roam? How many hours does it take to provide all that for yourself? Do you provide for others? Do you find time to volunteer? Do you see, hear, know, or remember the homeless, the poor, the ones Jesus came to live among?