Amid the Chaos …

Saturday 24 December 2022

Stepping Down,

Stepping Out,

Living In The Light!

Zechariah 9:10

He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the warhorse from Jerusalem; and the battle-bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Luke 2:14

Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!

Words of Grace For Today

As the nations wage war, as conflicts consume lives from billions to one single person by another, and as the Devil plays in God’s good creation:

God comes and commands that there be peace among all nations and for all people, for God favours us all.

The sun rises shining bright, lightening hearts and minds in these short days and lately these cloudy days.

The temperature rises to above -20⁰.

And small successes provide music worth listening to this season, blessed music that is not Xmas musak.

Christ is born this evening (we celebrate again the event of more than 2000 years ago.)

And there is cause to celebrate life in all it’s chaotic complications, time to pray for those close and far, and even for those who are bent on destroying me to cover their lies and injustice, and time to rest in God’s peace that permeates all.

What else would one do on Christmas Eve

.

.

.

if one is not caught in the manufactured celebrations and all the pain that go with them?

It’s too unbelievable to not be true?

Friday 23 December 2022

Even at -39⁰ the morning

starts

again

with

Eucharist

&

breakfast.

Psalms 21:13

Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength! We will sing and praise your power.

1 Timothy 3:16

Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great: He was revealed in flesh, vindicated in spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among Gentiles, believed in throughout the world, taken up in glory.

Words of Grace For Today

There are stories that are just too unbelievable to be made up. My ex, a bunch of women, the cops, and the courts gave me such a story. If I had not been so lied about I would never believe what happened, being kicked out of apartments for no good reason except someone was trying to frame me, being arrested, tried, convicted and sent to prison for crimes that never happened (yet alone were committed by me!), and financially sent into debt so far I’ll never see my way clear in this lifetime.

That’s the evil done to me.

Then there is the rest of the story, of people quietly acknowledging what they saw happening as corrupt and unjust, of life criminals going out of their way to protect me from real harm in jail (while guards and other inmates certainly sought to kill me – without getting caught), of opportunities and circumstances that provided me enough to survive on, and the skills to better and better protect myself from the elements and the ever-present criminals, … and from the on-going lies others tell about me which are then used in court over and over again, even though anyone with half a mind knows what is said are lies, yet again.

And the mystery, not that I can survive in spite of it all, which is substantial enough, but that God has blessed me, walked with me in very visible, tangible and life-giving ways, and protected me from all harm that would do me in.

Jesus’ story is like that, too. Every story of God making things happen in spite of evil people working to ‘get ahead’ is like that, too.

There are countless stories like mine. People are dealt with unjustly by people intentionally doing evil. And God providing a better life for them in the midst of all that evil.

Makes one stop and contemplate, how Advent calls bring us to prepare, and Xmas culture lays great expectations on us, and yet God reaches into our lives and brings to us each Christmas (in spite of all the things we do to avoid noticing God at work) the wonder and awe of God being everything for us, even as a young infant child born in poverty.

Thank God for that, again.

And again this day, we stop to wonder in awe, and give God thanks for the simplest things that show us God walks with us.

Just Plain Soaking Wet In …

Thursday 15 December 2022

Ah, we think we are so free,

so high on creation

…

until

we tumble

into the powder all wet

…

with God’s blessings.

Psalms 133:1-3

How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the Lord ordained his blessing, life for evermore.

Romans 12:4-5

For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.

Words of Grace For Today

Wherever and however we live, we live among other people, sometimes with other people, many times in spite of other people who would do us in given the smallest opportunity.

It is a witness to God’s grace given to us, which sustains us each day, when we work to live in harmony with all people, even those so misguided people who think our demise is their gain.

For this God created all of us, to live among and with all sorts of people with different abilities, characteristics, habits, viewpoints, faiths, colours, genders, and everything, including kinds of brains (from neurodiverse to super intelligent to average to simple) … even to mystics and on to profoundly spiritually blind.

It’s a challenge at best. Our demise at it’s worst.

And when we recognize we can only succeed by God’s Grace, it is the sweetest blessing in all the universe, a blessing that God pours out freely on us all.

Some of us just put on supposedly impenetrable ‘raincoats’ to shed God’s blessings so that we can go our own ways.

Even then God’s blessing bounce and splatter everywhere, soaking us all also from the bottom up, underneath all ‘protection’ we don.

So it is, we, God’s children, often in spite of ourselves, live in an uneven harmony, singing an odd tune to God’s melody, tripping all too often as we dance through life.

Where to today? To which melody?

Soaking in God’s blessings regardless!

God Gathers In All Kinds

Wednesday 14 December 2022

At each fork in our day’s path,

which will we choose

as our future?

Zechariah 2:10-11

Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! For lo, I will come and dwell in your midst, says the Lord. Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord on that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell in your midst.

Revelation 7:9

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

Words of Grace For Today

We humans are generally more comfortable with what we know, with what we are familiar with, and that goes for other people as well. If we know and are familiar with others we are comfortable around them, or so we say.

There are the exceptions where we know and are all too familiar with people who abuse, lie, and take advantage of others (us included) by criminal acts and many not recognized as criminal acts. We stay very uncomfortable around them.

The internet has many ‘social media’ services that push content at us from like-minded people, so that we are comfortable with what is being done to us, as advertisements slowly scratch away at our very being, moulding us into consumers before anything else. Our interactions on ‘social media’ (those so regulated by such algorithms) are ‘heard’ only by those who already agree with us. And the ‘echo chamber’ effect takes our perspective away from us, until we can all too easily think that all good people must think as we do, even when what we think is totally disconnected from reality, fed by ‘fake news’, and wilful people seeking to increase their power and control over others. Via the internet that can be millions and even billions of people, all led like lemmings over the cliffs of reality into the seas of fear, racism, radicalism, and then on to destructive violence, small scale one on one, and large scale as these ‘enlightened lemmings’ seek to rid the world of ‘those’ people. All the while power hungry people (many just as ‘enlightened lemmings’ as their victims) manipulate economies, wars-conflicts, elections, and just about anything they can use to their ‘advantage’ to have more power, whatever the cost to other people.

God sure did create humans capable of great chaos, nearly enough to move the whole precious planet back into pre-creation chaos of non-existence, or at least void of life.

What for?

God has, even as all the ‘enlightened lemmings’ and power hungry corrupters of reality work to create chaos, also created God’s people in the middle of all this chaos. God’s people.

These are not just one stripe of a kind of people. Not one nation. Not one creed. Not one colour, race, gender, or any other category we use to delineate ourselves from ‘those others’ with whom we are uncomfortable.

God’s people come from every nation, every corner of this precious planet, every kind of person, every faith, and every category of people.

That’s pure light made of all colours of the rainbow called together, living in harmony, in peace, serving one another, bringing justice based on truth to bear for all the poor, feeding the hungry, bringing living water to the thirsty, and sending us out to proclaim God’s welcoming grace to all people.

Today, we of God’s people, will choose at the forks in our paths, to serve God, or ourselves. Which will we choose: to participate in creation’s harmony or work of chaos? Small choices mostly: tremendous consequences.

Thirst, Testing, and Reaping: Or Grace?

Tuesday 13 December 2022

We Thirst

Most of All For

Cool, Clear,

Light.

Christ’s Light That Gives Life.

Deuteronomy 6:16

Do not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.

Galatians 6:7

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow.

Words of Grace For Today

The people in the wilderness are thirsty, for there is little to no water for them and it has been so for days. So why did God bring them out into the wilderness? It’s freedom. But freedom can mean being free from the necessities of life and that is not what they thought God would provide for them.

They are ready to rebel. Moses is to be their victim, and then? They would be worse off than before! Or?

And God offers Moses access to water, using the staff that parted the waters of the Red Sea for the escaping Hebrews and then un-parted to drown their pursuers. Water flows from a rock.

Well, God showed those people how water can be had, eh?

Not really. God showed the people that God would provide.

Not that it helps. When they are hungry, having had little to no food for days they demand of Moses and God that they have food, and then even meat!

And that is all reasonable, right?

In Galatians the people are warned that they will reap what they sow. Except that is expressly what Jesus saves us from. We reap what God sows for us.

Somewhere in there is God’s reality and not our confused interpretations used to hammer each other into submission and obedience to our wills (not God’s).

God provides all we need, and asks us to beg, cry, and demand from God what we need. So we pray for everything we need!

God also understands that we are never free from sin. God needs and promises to continually forgive us our sins, exactly so that we do not ‘reap what we sow’ so that we can live free of that burden, a necessity before we can live anything close to thankful, gracious, and generous with ourselves and others, and God’s good creation.

Living free, in God’s grace, does not mean that we will get it right all the time, or even a little bit. It does mean that at the end of the day, and at the beginning of each new day, we can thank God for everything and ask God for everything we need … and even everything we want, knowing God will pare down our what-we-want list to only those things that are good for us and others and all creation.

So likewise today, we give thanks and beg like mad for what we need and want. Often we cannot discern what is which, anyway. But we need not fear God’s response. God walks with us and suffers what we suffer, suffering at the hands of our enemies, and giving us

Assurance that when we thirst, there will always be a rock that flows freely with water for us.

Exodus 17.2-7

The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah* and Meribah,* because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’

When There’s No Morning Light?

Monday 12 December 2022

Morning comes so late and

then in a snowstorm,

barely at all.

Still God’s Light is with us,

more than the oil processing plant’s light

breaks the northern horizon’s

quiet.

Psalms 31:17

Do not let me be put to shame, O Lord, for I call on you; let the wicked be put to shame; let them go dumbfounded to Sheol.

Ephesians 5:8

For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light…

Words of Grace For Today

‘Let the wicked be put to shame and let them go to hell!’

Which is all fine and good, except that, when we are honest we have to recognize that on our own we are the wicked.

Ahhh, yes, what goes around comes around, so to speak!

We were once the darkness of the world, but now we are light. Once we were the wicked, but now we are the righteous, though we are only light and righteous because God so makes us by removing our own records from us and applying Jesus’ pure record to us in relationship to God and all creation.

So we get to live as the Light, as the Righteous, even though it is not us, but rather the Holy Spirit working in us.

And what are we to do with others who practice wicked ways still? Forgive them, so that they can repent and join the Light and the Righteous. And when they refuse to even recognize their wicked ways, and do horrendous damage to so many people, well …

well then God must deal with them.

We can work on forgiving them, or we can bind their sins, and let them know they are bound so that they know God will judge them according to truth.

As for this day, there is plenty to do to survive the cold of winter, and prepare our hearts, minds and lives for the Christ-child-come-celebration ahead.

Now is time of reflection, sombre introspection, and thanksgiving for all God does for us each day.

So we take time, time to rest and think and pray and sing and …

let God speak to us again,

and to recognize that God walks with us each day, no matter what comes our way.

Let It BE So

Sunday 11 December 2022

We need not be caught in the ‘fog’ of not knowing.

God makes all our paths

(past, present, and future)

clear.

Proverbs 5:21

For human ways are under the eyes of the Lord, and he examines all their paths.

Luke 1:38

Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.

Words of Grace For Today

How often will we get the opportunity to respond to God’s Word for us by saying, ‘Let it be so, as You will?’

God watches over us, knows everything we think, say, write, and do. God has since the beginning of time communicated well with us so that, if we care to listen, we can understand God’s will for us, each day.

We get that opportunity to submit to God’s will every day.

Even today.

Ears, eyes, and hearts open and we will understand God’s will for us … well enough to choose to follow God’s will or

to choose to follow our own way

and suffer all that comes

from rebellion

instead of all the gifts that come from submitting to God’s good will for us.

Oh, we pray, may it be that we will submit.

Oh, we pray, may it be so, today.

Welcome Home?

Saturday 10 December 2022

As many as the grains

of all the snows

are the people

God welcomes

home.

Isaiah 66:22

For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, says the Lord, so shall your descendants and your name remain.

Matthew 8:11

I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven…

Words of Grace For Today

As antisemitism spawns like unwanted weeds around every corner we ask:

Why do we not take note?

Why do we not stop it?

Why do we tolerate it as ho-hum?

Do we think it is so old it cannot really hurt anyone?

Do we think that Jews are power people so it does not hurt them (meaning we think racism is only possible when it’s against people of no power?)

Similarly do we think that abuse (including racism) cannot be part of what people with ‘less power’ do to people with ‘more power’?

Racism and all kinds of abuse are possible by all people against all people, and it’s wrong every time, all the time, in all circumstances!

That means that an indigenous person who abuses a middle aged, white male is still abusing another person.

That means that a woman who lies to the police and the courts to put a man in the sights of the police and in court puts the man in jail, still lies and abuses the man, the institutions of the police and the courts, and she abuses all women and men who work for justice (based on truth) for all people, no matter who they are (gender, race, religion, or any other category.)

People are people.

God welcomes our ancestors, including all the children of Abraham and Sarah, and all the children not of Abraham and Sarah!

God welcomes all of us, all people, or all a times and all places, into God’s home, made for us all.

That’s God’s broad merciful, gracious, forgiving, life-giving and generous attitude towards us all.

When are we going to adopt that as ours for other people?

Well some of us already have, namely the saints of all time, including today.

So, today, what are we going to do with this attitude of God that God gives to us?

What Was and Is Done

Friday 9 December 2022

Knowing Our Troubles, Even Compared to Others, Is Significant. More Important is Knowing God Walks With Us, and Knowing That Even In Our Darkest Moments Christ’ Light Is ‘Up There On The Treetops.‘

Isaiah 53:4

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.

Hebrews 12:3

Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.

Words of Grace For Today

Since the beginning of time we humans have taken out our irresolvable-conflict-shame&blame on other innocent people. It’s called scapegoating.

Isaiah’s ‘Suffering Servant’ was such a victim, who bore shame, blame, and execution in order to free others from being made victims of scapegoating. Not that it helped end scapegoating, though it was a model of how many through the ages have sacrificed themselves, even as scapegoats, to save others.

Jesus came as God and as human and was also such a victim of scapegoating, who bore shame, blame, and execution in order to free others from being made victims of scapegoating. Similarly Abraham took Isaac out on the mountain to sacrifice him as an offering to God, and God interrupted and instructed Abraham to use the ram in the thicket instead (the goat definitely was used as a scapegoat, animal not human). That story’s message for all was simple: no more child or human sacrifice. It may have slowed child sacrifice in some ways, though still today children are sacrificed as soldiers in conflicts, as victims of starvation, disease, and climate change. Jesus’ story is a clear message: no more scapegoating. Not that it helped end scapegoating, though it was a model of how many of Jesus’ followers through the ages have sacrificed themselves, even as scapegoats, to save others.

When others attack one, physically, psychologically, socially, with false accusations, and lies to the police and under oath in court, the effects are devastating. When the lawyers, prosecutors, and judges hear and know the lies for what they are and instead of insisting on truth alone, actually pile on layer upon layer of lies, until court records contain so little of anything true, one has the making of a book. But the book has been written many times and nothing changes.

How is one to continue?

Many continue as they only can, in situations far worse, and have since the beginning of human times. So our way forward is not that bad, right?

Well, it is still bad, though knowing how much others, like the Suffering Servant and like Jesus, can give us courage to face each day’s challenges.

Freewill Offering of Ourselves

Thursday 8 December 2022

Finding one’s way past all obstacles, or walking through in all with God at one’s side?

Exodus 35:29

All the Israelite men and women whose hearts made them willing to bring anything for the work that the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done, brought it as a freewill-offering to the Lord.

1 Peter 2:5

… like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Words of Grace For Today

It is one thing to offer up what one has, and then again another thing to offer up everything one has.

But is it a whole other kind of life to offer up oneself along with everything one has and is and can be.

That’s the offering we get to make in response to Jesus work for us.

So we are spiritual sacrifices, living sacrifices, all so that others may know that God is gracious with us and with them.

Not that it is exciting, necessarily, to be stones, even if living stones. For what the world measures as success is not something that stones can achieve. So we sacrifice everything the world would measure as success and trust alone in what God provides.

At-38⁰ one hopes that what God provides is sense enough to prepare well for the deep cold of winter, the hot heat of summer, the bugs, the coyotes, the squirrels and the thieves’ and liars’ intervention in an already difficult life, a life of solitude, off-the-grid peace, and wonder.

There’s wood. And a stove. And water. And food. And not quite enough insulation, but it’ll have to do. Things are freezing. The sun shines brightly.

And there is power to write, and warmth to rest by, and read of wonders wrought by God’s hands, here and in places distant, now and in times far removed.

So it is when God walks with us, never alone even in this wonder-filled hermitage.

And for the rest of y’all? What has God got to offer other than life abundant, free from things and dishonesty and strivings and ‘bettering the Jones’ and false pretenses.

If one but wishes a life, a difficult life, fully blessed, a life offered completely to God’s work of bringing grace and truth to all people.

So what’s on the agenda for today for you?