Month: September 2023

Gimme

Gimme

More Money, More Money.

Saturday, September 30, 2023

One Of The Pathways In The Woods,

One Must Traverse

To Knock On My ‘Door’.

Proverbs 15:16

Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it.

Hebrews 13:5

Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

A person came knocking on my door today. Not that it’s really a door, although at one point, before someone had it replaced it stood for a door, with a sliding window, probably a screen (though there’s no sign of what happened to it), even having been scratched by a dog to get out. But now it’s mounted on a wood shipping pallet, at 90⁰ to another door which stands in for a wall, stabilizing this ‘door’, with a shipping pallet on the other side, also at 90⁰ for stability. Insulated tarps are taped and stapled around the door, for those are the real walls of this place that is as much as anything that I have to call home. I live in the woods, under lots of tarps or all kinds, wood pallets as floors and walls, and no connection to the electric grid, or natural gas, or TV, or even a proper driveway. It’s just a string of pathways through the woods to get here.

She came knocking, wanting a donation for the poor. How she managed to find this place is beyond me. How she could not notice that this is how a person below poor is struggling to live, not by choice, but by necessity to survive.

I told her I would appreciate a donation for the poor, me, if that could be possible.

She laughed, and said we are all struggling.

I guess she really did not understand what she saw or heard.

…

A person came knocking on my neighbour’s door. How she found the door I’m not sure, because there is fence all around the property and an electric gate that is kept locked that the drive passes through. It’s not even got a ‘man’ gate for a person to go through. My neighbour has the best car and truck, and mower, and snow clearing tractor (a skid steer on tracks) that are all kept in proper garages for each.

She told me he said he was struggling and did not have any donations for the poor. He had to pay for 3 months in rehab for his son, a drug addict from too little responsibility, too much money, and not enough necessity to work to make a living … and too much playing with his ‘friends’, the addicts that he started hanging with in school because he was bored.

…

A person will come knocking on your door, asking for a donation for the poor. How will you respond?

…

She really is just asking for money for herself. She’s convinced that being a multimillionaire is not enough, that she is poor, that she needs help, with groceries costing more and all now. She’s even had to cut back on her vacation trips. She can only manage 6 each year. She used to go somewhere every month, either for work or play; but both are really just play. The work trips just have a few hours of meetings during them.

So how should one respond?

With pity, condemnation, confrontation, or anger?

Money represents and provides one the ability to exercise one’s will, first to survive, then to excel in luxury and comforts. The problem is once one exercises one’s will for luxuries and comforts there is never enough money to keep up with one’s thirst for more.

Better to make due with little, than be cursed with so much one always needs yet more.

Yearning,

Doing,

Thanking

But Only For God’s Gifts.

Friday, September 29, 2023

Thinking of Eating What The World Offers?

It Can Kill Ya From the Inside Out.

Zechariah 8:23

Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from nations of every language shall take hold of a Jew, grasping his garment and saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’

Romans 10:14

But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?

…

Words of Grace For Today

Dreamers we are,

seeing all that is wrong,

yearning that it would be better,

giving great efforts, sometimes amazingly persistently powerful and heroic even,

until the day we see how empty our hearts are and that despite even the accumulation of all humans’ greatest efforts,

we are still lost

to a future

of despair

& doom

& death.

Until

we see clearly

how full our hearts are, and we can give thanks for all that we humans have achieved through the generations,

and we can give our greatest efforts all our concentrated energy and time so that all will be made right in our world.

…

Until we realize that our hope in ourselves is an empty, deceptive hope, so that, empty or full as we may see our hearts and world, the reality is our sin drives us further and further from anything good at all.

…

only then

can we accept

that we need not just to give thanks for humans’ great efforts,

but that we need give God thanks for all that we have received, which we certainly do not deserve, and never can earn.

Then,

with our hope, our lives, our everything

based on what God gives us

we can see the immensities of what is not right

and not despair,

we can see the humongous efforts made by humans through all time and the little differences that all makes,

and not depend on false, empty hopes nor despair,

And

Give

God

Thanks

for all that is Good.

Therefore we go as God sends us, back to the world that is so flawed, which we cannot fix, and give everything,

not to make our world right on our own,

But to give all people all that can be right,

most of all the relationship God makes with us

which is the only thing that can truly be right in our lives and in our world.

Citizens?

Citizens From Where?

Thursday, September 28, 2023

Our View Of Our World Is …

Less Than Perfect,

Sometimes Not Even Usable,

Though We Try.

Psalm 94:14

For the Lord will not forsake his people; he will not abandon his heritage….

Philippians 3:20

But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Ali Ens our all wear these daze, ore sew sez

MIB,

Heiding a mung us in grate digits frum a square the galaxies, given san shoe airie on urth frum all zorts of conflix, wars, and be four ju dices.

Wee, sew sez Paul, are city zenz from heave end, one of the great ‘out there’ places bee yond the urth.

Except, then alzzo Paul sez, that the Ruler Dumb of good iz knot just in heave end but also hear on urth. And Jesus sez (so sae the Go spells) that the Ruler Dumb of good iz kum near, left ear amung us.

So it is hard to understand, a word that is alien to our minds, yet God has not abandoned us to poor understandings and spellingz.

Aliens are everywhere these days, or so says

MIB,

hiding among us in great numbers from around the galaxies, given sanctuary on earth from all sorts of conflicts, wars, and prejudices.

We, so says Paul, are citizens from heaven, one of the great ‘out there’ places beyond the earth.

Except, then also Paul says, that the Kingdom of God is not just in heaven but also here on earth. And Jesus says (so say the Gospels) that the Kingdom of God is come near, right here among us.

God is with us,

Thank God.

This is the World God Gives Us.

Otherwise, who nose wear we wood bee?!

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!

Not That At All. Instead

Go and Tell All …

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Sometimes We Fog Up,

Looking for the Way Out of Our Messy Lives.

God Sends Us Back Into the Mess, to ….

Psalm 31:7-8

I will exult and rejoice in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have taken heed of my adversities, and have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place.

Mark 5:19

But Jesus refused, and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

All too often we ask and even try to demand from God something that we want, something that we are sure is what God would have for us, something that is a sacrifice of all we are and can be, and

God

says

No!

Instead God sends us right back where we’ve tried to escape from, from the grind of daily life, from the hell that daily life is (due to other people, usually), from the past that has dragged us so far into to the pit that we can barely see the horizon.

God sends us back, and tells us to

Tell everyone what God has done for us, rescuing us, healing us, forgiving us, renewing life in us, giving us hope again!

It is that we year and long for everything to be different so that maybe everything will be right in our lives.

Instead, God makes us right with God, so that no matter the circumstances that we live in and under, God can work through us to bring Grace to bear on more and more people.

So it is, this day, we enter our daily lives, looking like nothing has happened to us, and yet

everything has happened,

God has happened,

the Holy Spirit has transformed us poor sinners (actually we are very good sinners, just poorer beyond imagination for it) into saints,

those through whom the Light of Christ shines

through all the brokenness of life

into the heart of the matter, the heart of each person, the heart of God’s Kingdom come near.

Just another day for saints

to be God’s miracles

for others.

The One

Sure Thing

Monday, September 25, 2023

Though Autumn Carpets Abound, Again

Climate Change Teaches Us Now:

Even the Seasons Are Not A Sure Thing!

Psalm 33:4

For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.

Matthew 24:35

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

…

Words of Grace For Today

While we yearn and long to make life better, we chase after all sorts of things,

which we hope will make life better,

But

they are dreamed of out of greed and selfishness

and they bring us more misery and hardships than we ever dreamed would be ours to endure.

Only as the Holy Spirit inspires us to yearn and long for God’s Grace and Blessings to be shared with all other people,

do we start to participate in God’s Kingdom,

wherein God’s Word provides us with the one sure thing,

Grace,

simple, unearned, undeserved, unending

awesome

Grace.

As the Spirit moves us God’s Word transforms us so that

our yearning and longing, our drive and and works,

and our hopes

focus on recognizing what we already have received

and

sharing it with those who have so little and need so much

just to live.

More opportunities this day

await us.

Thanks be to God.

Longing and

Yearning

To Make It Right

Sunday, September 24, 2023

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Portland_Pudgy_safety_dinghy,_rowing.JPG

Not All Life In ‘Dinghies’ Involves Life Jackets and Singing Joyfully,

OR Might It Best Be So?

Leviticus 19:18

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord.

Luke 10:33-34

But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

…

Words of Grace For Today

Yearning, Working For Our Dreams …

and hopefully Giving Thanks.

We yearn and long to make life right for ourselves.

If we are at all alert to the reality of life we yearn and long to make life right for others as well.

Covid vaccines are a great example. If just the privileged receive vaccines the virus continues to spread among those who have no vaccines, and it mutates, and it spreads to even those who are vaccinated. We are in the same boat, but not really. Some are in luxury yachts, others in sturdy ocean going vessels, some in small dinghies and so many others hanging on to pieces of flotsam, hoping for rescue! But the virus spreads quickly, efficiently from the flotsam and dinghies to the luxury yachts and sturdy vessels.

So we hope we will work not for vengeance, but for love of neighbours all, even offering what we cannot easily give, as the Samaritan does the man robbed and left to die. One can ask, is it this Samaritan, a relative, or a friend, who contracts leprosy and then is healed by Jesus?

Life is hard.

The only way to keep yearning and longing for things to be better for others is to recognize how much one already has to give –

to give to others in need,

and

to give thanks for.

Staring with

that we

breathe,

also this day.

Closing Time

The Last Dance Is Done and …?

Friday, September 22, 2023

The Day Is Coming To A Close.

Now What?

Isaiah 55:5

See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.

Ephesians 3:14-15

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.

…

Words of Grace For Today

When we wake up to the reality of what we have done with our lives, as the carouser wakes from the ‘Johnny Walker wisdom’ run out, leaving us with no more than a dark hangover,

the question is what can we do, now that the ‘party is over’, the last dance danced, and it’s long since been closing time, in so many ways?

Time to return to the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth.

It’s not a jump into an alternate reality or timeline.

It’s not a huge jump across the ‘pond’ to another continent.

It’s not a huge trip into the Hinterländer.

For God has walked with is into every hell-hole party, through every good and bad dance, and through every closing time.

God is right there with us, in us, around us; we are not alone, and it’s never closing time for God’s Grace for us.

That is the one thing of goodness and life that never closes down on us.

Thanks be to God.

The Cracks

That’s how the Light gets in.

Thursday, September 21, 2023

The Light Is Gold,

The Light Is Distant,

The View Mottled.

How Does the Light Reach Us?

Zephaniah 3:7

I said, ‘Surely the city will fear me, it will accept correction; it will not lose sight of all that I have brought upon it.’ But they were the more eager to make all their deeds corrupt.

Luke 19:45-46

Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, ‘It is written, “My house shall be a house of prayer”; but you have made it a den of robbers.’

…

Words of Grace For Today

In all our efforts to have a ‘good’ life, we most of all deny that we have screwed up life tremendously.

We try to pretend that it’s just a little problem, that we did something ‘not quite right.’ When in fact the result is a crack in the foundation of our lives that tears more than the curtain in the temple. It tears apart our own hearts, minds, and souls.

Whenever God gives us ‘temples’ and ‘houses of prayer’ we turn them into ‘dens of robbers’ in so many ways, so many same old, same old ways, that people have used since the beginning of time, all trying to make our own way in life and make it better than it was. The more God gives us the more eager we are to make all our deeds corrupt, trying to cover up our latest corrupt deeds.

What does God do with us, then?!

God uses exactly those cracks in the foundation of our lives to shine the Light of Christ into the foundations of our lives,

to revive us.

God never repairs the cracks, as if they never were. The wounds heal, though the cracks remain, so that the Light can continue to shine in on us

so that we can live and breathe in the Light

even as we turn yet to more corrupt deeds,

also this day.

By God’s Grace alone, though we can breathe.

Breathe,

and bask in the Light,

and give God thanks,

and trust the call to go out to share the Light with all people.

When I Wake Up

I know who I am going to be!

Wednesday, September 20, 2023

The Moon Sets as the Dawn Breaks,

Who Will We Be This Day?

Proverbs 14:26

In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and one’s children will have a refuge.

Romans 8:35

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

…

Words of Grace For Today

Knowing who we are is a great start to any day.

Often our confidence in who we are is lost in delusions and dreams unreal.

There is only one identity that we can know of ourselves that will bring us life with each breath and that is …

—

Yet there is, before we speak of it, so much that would tear us from that identity.

Not least of all is our own drive and dreams to be something worth being.

Through hardships we forge ahead, proving we are worth the breath we breathe.

Through distress we dig deep, proving we are made of goodness.

Through persecution we deny our persecutors their satisfaction, proving we cannot be conquered (even as we sink deeper into the abyss.)

We try to survive through famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword, but then the course of nature claims us in our deaths.

Oh, how futile all our struggles turn out to be. And how foolish our enemies have made themselves out to be, as they sink faster into the abyss with each move made against us!

There is no confidence we can have, about anything, least of all about ourselves that will save us.

We are doomed, all of us.

—

The one confidence that we have is a confidence given to us, though we do not deserve it, not at all, not at all.

That identity is one given to us by Jesus: we are the bearers and sharers of Jesus’ love for the world and all people ever.

From this love, nothing can separate us,

because God gives it to us each day, each hour, each minute.