Shore – Page 3 – This Life

HOMƎLAND

or PICARD?

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Looking to the Future: Do We See Doom or Hope!

Isaiah 38:17

Surely it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but you have held back my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.

1 John 3:19-20

And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

…

Words of Grace For Today

How we see the world around us and our lives in it is the result of many choices we make in response to what happens around us and to us.

In ‘HOMƎLAND’ the TV series, the challenges of deciphering deception, love, and despair never resolves in any episode. Instead (no matter what answers are revealed) the persistent looming doom ends each episode and season and we are left craving a resolution, so we return to more of the same. The beginning setting is not great. The end is still not great. Evil prevails like onions still present no matter how many layers we peel back to ‘see’ what is happening. Always people die along the way.

In ‘Star Trek, PICARD’, we see the old heroes of past series of Star Trek play again against all odds, against old and new enemies that would do them in. Each episode may or may not resolve some challenge, but within a few episodes (though wider threats continue) each ‘life or death’ situation is resolved, and as always our heroes live on (or at least most of them!) What we know, even before we start watching, is that no matter the evil that threatens life on earth and in the Federation, at the end, because humans and aliens can and do work together, the goodness of life will prevail. Not all challenges to goodness will be eradicated. Life remains filled with loss, death, and sorrow, but in the balance the goodness of life is restored and celebrated.

How do we play out our days?

How will we play out this ‘today’ and our many ‘todays’ to come?

As we trust that God is greater than our hearts, and that God has put our sins behind God’s back, to allow us to move on, the greatest evils are not eliminated from life for us, but they have no power over our ‘todays’.

Our hearts may continue to condemn us, and convince us that tomorrow will be worse, that ‘hell is other people’, but God is greater and God promises in so many ways that our lives are good and will be filled with goodness, and that other people (damned good sinners that they may be) are not ‘hell’, but rather God’s choice for love, life, and joy …

also for us

today.

So today, let God’s Will be for us, as well.

The Meek and the Poor Say

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

The Days of Autumn Redeem Much!

Psalm 140:13

Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name; the upright shall live in your presence.

Luke 6:20

Then he looked up at his disciples and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God….’

…

Words of Grace For Today

Well, the meek, who will inherit the earth, have taken a good look at it and said, ‘no thanks!’

So the poor, who have the Kingdom of God, have taken a good look at what they have, and have said, ‘If this is it, what’s it worth anyway? How about some clean air and water, nutritious food, enough clothing and sufficient shelter, meaningful work and love? Then throw in some food security, and real security, and peace, and justice, and equity!’

Well, some of the poor, anyway, and by far not most of them.

Many more have given God thanks! Thanks for every little thing that makes for life and love and joy and hope.

It’s not that the rich have more and so they always give more thanks, nor that the poor have so little so we either have nothing to be thankful for, or that we are thankful for even the smallest of things good.

But having been on the wealthy side, and now on the poor side of life, I can tell you that being poor has taught me to say thanks to God for more and more of the things that I used to take for granted.

I guess knowing how to and actually giving God thanks makes the Kingdom of God more visible.

So here it is: the Kingdom of God, in this blessed hermitage beside a lake, with the hard cold of winter coming, after the wildfires, smoke, heat and bugs of summer. Autumn is a lovely time, with many fewer bugs, no more wild parties or crazy campers next door, cool temperatures for working hard in, and plenty of dead wood to collect to feed the wood stove so that the cold hard winter days are still warm inside the insulated tarps.

If, out of 365, 60 or more days are like today, then I see things are real good.

If there is a balance in life at all, then these days of autumn convince me that the balance has tipped in my favour, if just every so slightly.

But I’ll take what I get, with thanks, love, joy and hope … hope that life will continue as well far into the future.

…

Answer 10

The map of North America of the Wildfire Smoke that has taken our breath away this past summer … and it’s all clear across Canada, with a few spots in of light smoke west, south, and south east across the US. Only a few areas are bad enough to be noticed. None are more intense than the light blue.

Get Up!

Get Going, The Devil Is A’Coming!

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

So Idyllic,

until

storms decimate the beach

and all within a half kilometre!

Psalm 91:11-12

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.

Matthew 2:13

Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

If only we knew when to get up and run from danger

in time to make it to …

well where can we run to nowadays.

Earthquakes threaten so much of the earth. Island paradises are either disappearing under ocean levels rising or conflicts raging or can be decimated by hurricanes stronger and more numerous each year. Coasts and shores can flood without warning! Wildfires can rip through any wooded area. Tornadoes, derechos, and plough winds, or droughts or torrential rains can get most anywhere else.

And still the greatest danger is not from storms and climate change induced extremes. The greatest danger, as always in human history, is from other humans set on getting what they want or working to keep what they have.

We all need angels to guard us

and fearless hearts

assured of God’s mercy,

if not to save us from disasters and evil humans,

then to help us recover and live again.

…

Answer 9

Just Air,

Clear Air, Blue and White with Clouds, for that I am thankful everyday, as I breathe

and

out.

And Live!

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.

Winds,

Four Strong Winds

Blow us around and off course.

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Are We Blown Like the Waves Over the Rocks?

Psalm 62:9

Those of low estate are but a breath, those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath.

Luke 6:12

Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God.

…

Words of Grace For Today

The good times seem to have left us, and left us in the lurch, up a creek of shtako with no paddle or hands even.

We may think we are special, of great importance in the course of history even, or at least for a few people now.

Yet, of greatness or lacking any importance to anyone, we are all but like a breath that passes, of necessity for life to continue, to make room for the coming generations, for evolution to proceed bringing God’s blessings to us through the generations.

What are we to do?

Give up?

…

Go full bore ahead, damn the cost to others, making our way in life?

…

Bury our heads in the sand and pretend all is okay?

…

Lots of options, we people have come up with.

God offers the only one that does us any good:

to head to the ‘mountain’ and spend the ‘night’ in prayer.

The mountain is not so far, or merely a geographical location, just as the night is not merely the time between sunset and sunrise. The mountain is that place where we have encountered God, many times, sometimes even noticing. The night it that darkness that threatens to overwhelm us, against which darkness we can do absolutely nothing.

So we pray.

We pray, God save us!

God save us, sending four strong winds to blow us home again to you, home between the seas and foreign lands, home to rest in your breath, the fifth wind that gives us life, which is really the first wind,

the first wind of all life, and

the last wind.

Spirit.

Gifts

And Promises

Forever … or Not.

Saturday, September 9, 2023

Everything Points To …

Psalm 105:8

He is mindful of his covenant for ever, of the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations,

Romans 11:29

for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

…

Words of Grace For Today

God remembers and does not revoke God’s promises for us, for more than thousands of thousands of generations.

God does not revoke the gifts given, nor the call to us to share those gifts, the requirements of life abundant, with others.

But we surely can deny those gifts in us and the call given to us.

And from that immense dismay, hurt, sorrow, and destruction have covered each generation.

Let us pray today that God will guide us to share the gifts with those in need, so that our hearts may know the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Breathe,

Breathe In

And Take Share in Adam’s Atoms Yet Again.

Friday, September 8, 2023

We Walk Short Distances,

But the Atoms from Our Breath Circle the Globe,

in a year.

Isaiah 26:19

Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead.

Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,

…

Words of Grace For Today

When we breathe in we breathe in atoms that have been breathed in by all creatures who breathe up to about a year before we breathe. When we breathe out, in little more than a year, our expelled atoms will be breathed in by every living creature that breathes in air.

That’s a connection.

That’s a significant reliance.

That’s a dependency.

That’s … scary, considering what we are doing to the air around planet earth!

When we realize that the atoms we breathe in integrate into the bodies we are, which when we die decay back into the earth (one way or another), it is not difficult to acknowledge that when any new life is born or hatched or otherwise begun, it contains part of all who have gone before. So out of the dead rises new life, just not quite like themselves, usually.

This happens almost no matter what we do. Cremation or burial both lead to the same thing, just in different ways on different timelines. If we shipped our body off in a spaceship towards some distant galaxy, only then would our atoms not reenter the life stream on earth.

Laying aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, as the writer of Hebrews admonishes us to do, is on the opposite end of possible for us; it’s impossible on our own.

This we can only appear to do as the Holy Spirit accomplishes it for us. So we ‘run with perseverance the race’ before us, knowing that even putting one foot in front of the other is a gift from the Holy Spirit. Our place in the race is a rather humble one; God runs us for us.

For that we can be thankful this day, again.

Of course, we always have the choice to stop running. God does leave us freewill. Stopping God’s walking us is something to avoid each day.

But we don’t avoid it, not at all, not at all. So God needs to rescue us many times each day.

Thank God, God does rescue us; also this day, again, and again, and again.

Gimme, Gimme!

Gimme Bread?

Give You More Bread,

Haven’t you had enough?!

Thursday, August 31, 2023

It was and will be cold again. And God will continue to bless us. Simple!

Psalm 105:40-42

They asked, and he brought quails, and gave them food from heaven in abundance. He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it flowed through the desert like a river. For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham, his servant.

Matthew 6:11

Give us this day our daily bread.

…

Words of Grace For Today

One knows, even after one has one’s fill, even at a feast, that one will get hungry again.

That’s how it is.

But,

how come we cannot be satisfied, knowing that there will always be enough?!

Well …

Because, there often has been, in history and in our own lifetimes, not enough!

The thing is when we work so there is enough, and take only what we need, not more, then we end up able to share more with others,

and others are more likely to share with us, when the day comes when we do not have enough

and through it all we have not wasted time and energy and opportunities to try to secure enough for ourselves.

Wasted that time is because there is no such security.

Might as well trust God and get on with as good a life as one can live,

which is (as God created us to live) a life of sharing with others, even to the point of suffering ourselves.

So Jesus messes with our lives (messed from how we want always to hoard for ourselves) and that saves us from messing up our lives so bad life is lost.

Today: trust God’s bountiful blessings.

Why not?

Breathe And

Take Stock

Sunday, August 27, 2023

It May Look Bleak, Until We Remember How God Has Walked Every Step With Us To This Blessed Time.

Deuteronomy 2:7

Surely the Lord your God has blessed you in all your undertakings; he knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.

John 1:16

From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

…

Words of Grace For Today

When the frenetic struggles overload our senses and memories, limiting our ability to make choices fully informed, it’s good and difficult to

stop

and

take

stock

the

whole

picture

of what God

has done and still does for us each day:

giving us breath and bread, longings and love, health and hope,

among so many other gifts

we certainly do not deserve.

While we may wish for more, God has and will always provide us enough to find our way home

to Jesus and all the saints.

Another day on the journey there.

Amazed at how much God has done for us.

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.