Category: Sky

To Be Seen

To Be Known

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

And Loved

Especially When We Are Cast Out,

Cut-Off,

Alone.

Job 40:3-4

Then Job answered the Lord: ‘See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth.

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1 Corinthians 13:12

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

There is nothing more frightening than to not be seen.

To have no one see one as a person, as a person of worth.

Or worse, to be seen and valued as worthy only for what one is not. To be a lie.

…

In the Psalm for this coming Sunday we read

 O God, you are my God; eagerly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Our hearts, minds and spirits know from where we have come, and they thirst to be seen and known for who we are.

Most often we seek to be seen and known by other people. This is not misguided, for God created us people to be for each other God’s presence, God’s voice, heart, hands, and feet, graciously sharing all God’s gifts.

And as Jesus taught, to be God’s loving presence especially for the poor, the ill, the lost, the outcast, the foreigner, and even for our enemies.

What does God do for those, like Job, whom all others have rejected and there is no one to be God’s presence?

God comes and makes God’s own self visible, palatable, healing, loving, and enlivening in mysterious ways, in ways mystics have spoken of for generations.

Just as Paul knew there was no danger in not being seen by other people, because God still sees us, and knows us.

We need not bring our protests to God for how terrible the world has treated us, though we may. God can take it. We can know that God is Great above all, and we are but dust given spirit as a gift from God,

and we therefore can, especially during our Lenten journey, remain humble and still, bending low before the wonders of God all around us,

witnesses to God’s steadfast love for us.

And when we pray it can be in thanks in words the Psalmist gives us this Sunday:

For you have been my helper, and under the shadow of your wings I will rejoice.
My whole being clings to you; your right hand holds me fast.

It Once

Was Good

Sunday, March 16, 2025

But Now You Hide Life From Me

the light is nearly gone, just a sliver of it left,

and then …

Psalm 30:7-8

By your favour, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; you hid your face; I was dismayed. To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication.

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John 16:22

So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

Oh, it used to be so good, blessed people said, though they plotted and schemed to bring me down, down, down,

without cause, just jealousy and fear at being seen for what they are.

So

it was

but now

is no more

The joy is gone

the hope has died

for even God has deserted us

and all that is left are promises, promises, promises

as old as the ages and newer than fresh snow

that have been broken

through the ages

so often and

so often

again.

…

Where is the joy?

Everything is

Just the Same

Saturday, March 15, 2025

Old Story

The Blues,

from Sky to Ice

and Back.

Isaiah 62:2

The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.

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2 Corinthians 5:17

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

The Promises people make,

the Promises scripture makes on behalf of God,

the Promises people make to one another,

the Promises.

…

How can it all be new,

when it’s the same old, same old.

Putting creases on my face, and on yours.

Wearing my all down, down, down.

…

promises

promises

promises

…

More lines, more grief, more loss, more sorrow, more lines.

Until my face, your face, is no more, except dust.

…

So?

One God

One Big Mess –

Friday, March 14, 2025

Us

Oh God, Guide Us, From Darkness

to Light.

Zechariah 14:9

And the Lord will become king over all the earth; on that day the Lord will be one and his name one.

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Romans 10:12

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

God is One.

And we are always one big mess.

Individually and collectively.

Look at the mess in and around us today. It just keeps getting more and more chaotic. The world around us keeps getting fractured into more and more competing fragments of hearts and minds, and bodies.

Yet

God is One.

As we have come to believe, for we cannot know, nor change God.

And only by the work of the Holy Spirit can we know anything true about God.

And this we know: God is generous to all, without distinction.

So open your minds.

Open your hearts.

Open your spirits.

God would have us be God’s own who are as generous to all without distinction.

Found, Favoured

and Sent

Thursday, March 13, 2025

Out of Darkness

into Brilliant Light, God Calls

and Sends Us …

Genesis 6:8

But Noah found favour in the sight of the Lord

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1 Peter 2:9

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

…

Words of Grace for Today –

…

God chooses us, favours us,

and oh, we could celebrate ourselves into oblivion with such great pride!

But

God does not choose and favour us that we may be made important in our own eyes or in the eyes of the world.

God chooses us, favours us, and then sends us out to proclaim with our deeds God’s mighty acts of saving us miserable sinners caught in the deep darknesses of our own making.

In the Light, by God’s grace alone, we see

God’s Wonders

so clearly contrasted to our own miserable attempts to make things right.

The greatest wonder is that God chooses to save us from the darkness.

Remember.

Re- member.

All that God has done for us, so that we can share it all with others.

Not Found

Zeroed out.

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Goners

Smoke steals air

on our way to

zeroing ourselves out of life.

Jeremiah 50:20

In those days and at that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and none shall be found; for I will pardon the remnant that I have spared.

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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 –

…

The order was given

by the devil’s generals

to zero us all out.

Out of shelter, clothing, food, water, even air.

Out of energy, movement, thought.

Out of time, out of hope, out of love.

…

Instead God came to zero out our sins

so that we might live free from the incapacitating chains of fear

so that we might live ready and able to give life to others

so that we might be filled with hope and love for all people.

An impossible journey made possible by the only one who made the journey to death and hell to pay for our sins of helping the generals of the devil zero out other people.

So we step forward, against all expectations

into the light of humble penance,

and hope for love that

can transform us

and

the world.

Drowning

Drowning

Monday, March 10, 2025

Drowned in our own arrogance

Drowning with creation

in the pollution of

arrogance, CO2

Psalm 4:9

I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O Lord, make me lie down in safety.

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John 14:27

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

Drowning in violence staged by uber-hubric arrogance.

Drowning in hate that robs life from so many around the world

and us here, without a home.

Drowning is troubles and horrors, that should long ago have been eliminated from human lives, hearts, minds.

Drowning

Drowning

Drowning on this obligatory journey.

So we cry, save us, God.

Save us and give us peace at night and through our days.

Save us.

Save us.

Save

us.

Lost

Out Somewhere

Sunday, March 9, 2025

Nowhere

Where?

Where Are We?

Where!!

Psalm 105:3

Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.

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Romans 15:13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

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Words of Grace for Today –

…

The Lenten Journey is begun,

but we are lost.

Lost in the dashed hopes of all time

and of our time.

Lost to joy.

Lost in seeking.

Lost all hope.

Lost is all peace.

Drones strike, hearts fear, threats spill like regurgitated thoughts, already long since rotten food eaten, poisoned the mind, digested – puked onto the political world stage.

Lost is all power to move.

Yet on a required journey to discover

again the meaning of life.

Seeking is futile, as always.

Find us God we pray, knowing God knows we are lost for God is always also here.

Faith

A Most Precious Gift

Sunday 23 February 2025

Guarded By God

https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/northern-lights

Wonders of Wonders,

And More To Come!

Zechariah 9:8

Then I will encamp at my house as a guard, so that no one shall march to and fro; no oppressor shall again overrun them, for now I have seen with my own eyes.

Luke 8:24-25

They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’

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Words of Grace For Today

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Life has all sorts of challenges.

Many would do us in.

More would just make our lives a whole lot more difficult, leading to an earlier death.

How do we hang on to our faith in the midst of these challenges?

…

If faith were our own making, the news would be devastating. We could not hang on to our faith. We’d lose it. We’d be toast.

Thank God, the Holy Spirit creates faith in us, and through our experiences collected from our forebearers and our own experiences, we can learn that there simply are no challenges to us, not even imminent death, that need create fear in us that we are on our own, that God has abandoned us to the deep and deadly.

For God stands as sentry to our hearts, minds, and spirits, protecting us from all that would do us in. For, since God has made us sinners into saints (though we also remain sinners), we are therefore spiritual beings on a human journey, not mere humans on a failing spiritual journey.

Death is not our end, just an end to this journey, and then comes …

well that we will find out, but God promises it will be more wondrous than this journey as humans.

Thanks be to God.

Shepherding The Flock

Equipped for Grace

Friday 21 February 2025

See the Light of Christ,

Let It Guide Us

To Be God’s Own

Micah 7:14

Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock that belongs to you, which lives alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land.

Ephesians 4:11-12

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

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Words of Grace For Today

…

There are lots of callings, all according to the gifts we receive. All given to be shared so that others will have life abundant, knowing God loves them.

So God guides us all.

Let us be guided by the Spirit, this day, too.

For that is who we are, Spirit led saints, God’s voice, feet, and hands in this world.