Category: Calamity

A Time to Cry

December 16, 2015

Tears, bursting in a gush of misery! Streams over stinging red cheeks…

Tamp grief down? Later pay usury! I ignored the sounds heart speaks!

 

Finality has come! So long waiting! I didn’t cry! Tried contemplating,

Cover agony, by denial shimmery; Play pretend; Ignoring truth leaks!

Endurance breaks? Forget chivalry! Love is rearranged in time tweaks;

Hope against hope in time grating; Hearts crushed in longing; waiting…

Out in the cold, loneliness shivery! At last accept an ugly truth; Reeks!

 

Tear drops release in light silvery; washing dark pain away, as joy seeks

Happy days so long in the awaiting; Mourning allows sorrow’s abating…

From Mourning to Joy

December 16, 2015

When loss and sorrow knock on the door, there is no denying grief or the process of mourning. However, it is natural to recoil from the pain and very human to attempt to flee. Grief is as hot and dry as June in the desert, during a long drought. The body, heart, and soul shrivel with thirst when it ravages. When the tongue cleaves to the roof of the mouth and lips crack due to thirst, the high country calls through remembrances of alpine relief, at an altitude high above the suffering of the dry valley below. It seems logical then to dissociate from sad reality and avoid mourning by escaping to the high country. How easy it is to lose one’s self in meadows carpeted by colorful flowers, watered by the still-melting snow. In a mountain June when summer is just beginning, it can seem as if such a heavenly paradise could last forever. The land itself provides food and water enough to sustain the fanciful runaway seeking avoidance of a painful reality…at least, for a short season. Such cooling relief is found here, high above the scorching desert, enveloped in peaceful, majestic beauty! High granite cliffs, where the precious Columbine bloom, produce a special sense of insular safety, as large dark caves promise shelter from summer mountain rains. The grim reality and sorrowful drought of the desert grow more distant with each passing day and it’s so easy to imagine forever, remaining aloof in this comforting solitude.

Summers are brief in the mountains. Days soon pass into weeks and months, as the dry heat travels upward from the desert valley, making its way to the high peaks. The flowers fade and the green grasses mature, in browns and purple hued grays. Grief and mourning won’t be denied their due process and the sorrow of loss stalks its victims. None are wily enough to successfully hide from mourning or forever escape. The void of loss must be faced or it grows to become a starving black hole that no method of coping can assuage. Its ravaging is sure to devour everything valuable, leaving only the fantasy that keeps it growing. Only, truthful reckoning can satisfy it. The reality avoided is sure to reappear. Like a sudden reflection in a mountain stream that reveals the true state of self; of someone on the run, hiding in the mountains, with tangled hair, worn out clothes, and new wrinkles around glassy, delusional eyes. Cold nights with chilly winds, late summer hail-storms, and the leaves changing color, make it clear that the dark season is coming down fast and hard. Truth is present. Mourning can’t be avoided and facing it here, on the mountain in winter would likely, prove fatal. Hungry, sleepy bears and mountain lions (the rightful residents) will soon be claiming all caves. The desert run-away could easily, end up as prey. It’s time to head back down the mountain, to the valleys and the rivers where human beings live and face the reality that can’t be denied.

Acceptance is the beginning. Grief is the accounting. Mourning brings the tears that cleans and heal. An awful truth can bring overwhelming sadness but mourning releases joy, imprisoned in sorrow. Joy even grows stronger in those who embrace divine truth and endure. The joy of Jesus is buoyancy, when grief with sorrow floods our lives and threatens with drowning pain. In Christ we can face all things, do all things, and endure all things. Through faith, we’re given courage to stand and have no need for escape to the safety of some imagined mountain top. Faith is not a dissociative state but strength to endure life in the valleys and the power to overcome.

 

My Response to Terror and Persecution is Jesus

December 1, 2015

Invisible cords of deception are rising from the bottomless pit. Un-noticed ropes of deluded thought are winding, weaving, circling to bind opposing ideologies by an unholy knot of unity. Those who are down-trodden, oppressed, and tired of waiting for relief seek alignment with those who share their common enemies and for the sake of common hatred, set aside their differences. The unseen spiritual forces that move human beings like leaves in the wind are being utilized by the religiously crafty to form a new world religion, by introducing new age compromise to transform ideological foundations into a new world view. The disenfranchised of the world are locking arms (falling victim to the same cult practices of deception in many religious forms) in spiritual deception; and like many who have long been abused, are choosing to identify with the aggressor, adopting violence in hopes of destroying oppression and assuming power. (This is the heart and strength of terrorism, the exploitation of the uneducated and downtrodden.) Not realizing that if they should succeed, they will have become the oppressors, and freedom will elude them. Though the powerful who rule by force and the underprivileged who resort to violence, seek to destroy one another they too share a common enemy; that enemy is humanity’s pursuit of security though power and control over other human beings. Human hierarchy requires the existence of the powerful elite and the powerless. There is no escaping this dichotomy that is natural to human governance. No unity found through spiritual compromise in man-made religion can do anything to end oppression or bring lasting peace because oppressor and oppressed are two sides of the same coin.

Since Cain murdered Able, the justification for brother killing brother is often, religion. Today, Islam is the most recognized banner raised by those who seek to topple the powerful, who have long reigned under the flag of Judaism and Christianity; but people have fought wars in the name of every religion seeking God’s power as their own. What is common in men from every ideology is the desire to own God’s power and use His Name as a covering while committing violent acts in pursuit of security, by gaining power and control over others. It is easy to imagine God is “on our side” and never stop to consider if “we are on God’s side”. Able obeyed God and became a prey to Cain who chose his own method of sacrifice, in disobedience. Cain is the father of man-made religion and the first to murder his brother in an attempt to supplant his vision in the place of God’s simple command. Able sided with God and died, while Cain imagined gaining God’s power as his own and committed the first of many murderous acts that continue to fill the earth with blood. Choosing to do what is right can put us in harm’s way especially, in dangerous times; but choosing to do what is right is the only way to remain on God’s side. Though many will lift the banner of their preferred religion, philosophy, or political ideology, even to murder their brothers and sisters in its name while seeking power, it is what we are willing to die for that has any hope of ending the bloodshed and bring about peace, with true freedom. Oppression will never end until human beings surrender their need for control to God and submit to His personal governance. We are designed to obey God not be Him. The religious persecution that began when Cain murdered Able will never end until, people cease subverting God to their own purpose and stop seeking to force that purpose on others.

Though the political and religious leaders of our day are seeking global unity, we are living in fractured times. Pressure comes from all directions to align with one faction or another. I am responding by seeking to choose God’s side and alliance with Jesus. Though religion (even some religions bearing the name of Christian or claiming the Name of Jesus) may demand I prove my faithfulness by my willingness to kill those who oppose it, I know Jesus died for me and asks me to kill no one. Jesus lived the life of an underprivileged man, persecuted by powerful religious leaders, and was put to death for threatening their power, because He lived to please God and not the religious elite. Without any worldly alliance, the political system gave him no protection but surrendered Him to those who wished to usurp God’s power as their own. Jesus was willing to die in order to obey God and by doing so, He made the perfect sacrifice that freed human beings forever, from the need of religious ordinance to make them acceptable before God. Jesus didn’t live, die, and rise again to start a new religion. Jesus came to demonstrate how to live according to God’s Will, as the Son of God and the Son of Man. He came to die so those who believe in Him could receive eternal life, enjoy a personal relationship with the Father, and learn to live a different way; by surrendering the need for control to God and trusting Him for security. I trust Jesus, the keeper of my soul to be my source of courage in a world that seems to be surrendering to terror; and responding in fear, by choosing death for their perceived enemies, when the same enemy lives within them. I choose Jesus, the one who teaches me to love my enemies, and pray for them. He is the same one who gives me victory over the enemy within. I look to the example of Jesus, who ended my enmity with God and guides me in living an obedient, simple life. I trust Jesus, the one who promises that the meek, not the powerful, will inherit the earth. I wait for that day and look forward to living in His righteous Kingdom, in peace and true equality, when by God’s mighty work, the valleys are exalted and the mountains laid low. In response to terrorism and the increasing threat of persecution, I choose to mirror Jesus, the one who chose to die for me.

Joy Waits on God

November 19, 2015

I am war-weary, in need of a furlough, and awaiting an honorable discharge. I am battle-hardened but this war is long; it has been raging for centuries, filling the earth with blood. My enemy is a deceptive predator who sometimes, weakens me by sneaking into my thoughts. You see, I once fought on his side, he thought he owned me. I was his tool, a common weapon that he had no regard for, and he thought to destroy me just for the twisted joy of practicing destruction. Please understand, my enemy, who was once my master can only, destroy. He has no power to build and he is enraged because the purpose that drives him has only one end, his own destruction. He targets me with his vengeance because I am the tool he prized for dishonor that was rescued by the One Who limits his power; by giving him over to his own desire. Though I once belonged to the enemy and was set to suffer his fate, my Savior rescued me, cleaned me up, repaired me, and gave me a new purpose. I no longer serve the purpose of destruction. I now, serve a new Master, my Friend, Who is the author of eternal life. By His Mercy, I live to serve God and surrender all that I am for His honor and glory.

The war I endure as hardship is the war with sin within. Those old thoughts and desires that the enemy knows so well and does all he can do to re-ignite, in hopes of weakening me and bringing me down. He oppresses me by the sin that flourishes without, in hopes of making my new purpose ineffective. He attacks and wounds my flesh, he threatens my existence. He taunts me, deceives me, and sets traps to make me fall. He accuses me of the evil he wishes me to commit. He castes his shame on me, hoping to weigh me down with undo guilt. He mocks me as he also, mocks my God, my Savior. He surrounds me with clouds of confusion like poison gas. He’s desperate because he knows he’s fighting a war he can’t win and that desperation has driven him mad. His fury is unleashing now to destroy everything and everyone in his limited power to destroy. He seeks to destroy me and those others like me who belong to Jesus. He can drain our blood and break our bodies but our souls belong to Jesus, the One Whose body was broken, blood drained out, but rose to live again.

Though all who believe in Jesus, in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, be wiped from the earth, they will remain safe in Jesus, awaiting His return. Then the enemy of man, God, and life will have his full season; a short time to visibly reign as god and bring woe to those who remain on the earth. Then Jesus and His called out company will return and cut that awful season short; because God is merciful and does not rejoice in the death of the wicked. Then my enemy will do hard time, awaiting Judgment, an eternal sentence in the prison of the torture he invented and visited on God’s children; suffering the eternal torment that belongs to the enemy of God. Then I will receive my furlough, it will last 1,000 years, in a world very different from the world I live in now. Joy won’t have to hide. Joy won’t be frustrated. Joy will over-flow and rejoice in the rapture of ultimate liberty!

My honorable discharge will come on the day I set foot in the new heaven and new earth, after one final battle with Satan; but it will be short. By then, all will know Satan for the loser he is, and sin will no longer sting and infect God’s children with death. Until then, I wait for my Jesus to return, strengthened by the joy I have in Him; protected in battle, my wounds tended, and relying on God for final victory. When overwhelmed by the specter of the enemy’s destructive force, I look up. Jesus is coming soon and I walk by faith, not by sight.

Fight Evil, Exalt Jesus!

November 15, 2015

12 Help, Lord, for the godly man ceases!
For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.
2 They speak idly everyone with his neighbor;
With flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

3 May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,
And the tongue that speaks proud things,
4 Who have said,
“With our tongue we will prevail;
Our lips are our own;
Who is lord over us?”

5 “For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy,
Now I will arise,” says the Lord;
“I will set him in the safety for which he yearns.”

6 The words of the Lord are pure words,
Like silver tried in a furnace of earth,
Purified seven times.
7 You shall keep them, O Lord,
You shall preserve them from this generation forever.

8 The wicked prowl on every side,
When vileness is exalted among the sons of men

Ode to Roseburg

October 11, 2015

 

Something happened on the other day!

Something so difficult for me to relate.

Something that I recognize as tragedy.

Nothing can be changed or time repay;

Nothing now can be done to alleviate;

Nothing humanly transforms tragedy.

Anything I hope or I can possibly say,

Anything directed at redirecting fate,

Anything given can’t reverse tragedy.

Everything I beg for and all that I pray,

Everything regretted, sorrowing state,

Everything’s not adequate for tragedy.

Continue reading “Ode to Roseburg”

Joy Mourning The River of Lost Souls

August 8, 2015

The following is an article from my home-town paper concerning a plume of contaminated water released into the Animas River by the EPA. This is your tax dollars at work folks. No terrorist organization could have done it better. The Animas River may never be the same and many of us desert-dwellers depend on the waters of the Animas for survival. Please pray for all of us who live along The River of Lost Souls.

AZTEC — State and local officials blasted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a briefing in Aztec this morning over its handling of a dam that burst in southwest Colorado Wednesday and released water contaminated by a mine into the Animas River.

“We haven’t even been able to confirm what the levels of contamination are on the river,” New Mexico Environment Department Cabinet Secretary Ryan Flynn said.

An EPA team was working at the Gold King Mine above Silverton, Colo., at about 10:40 a.m. Wednesday, and they disturbed a dam of loose rock allowing the release an estimated 1 million gallons of mustard-colored water, according to state and local officials.

Flynn said domestic well users within about a mile of the Animas River should have their wells tested before using the water. He also encouraged people to avoid direct contact with the water until the state environment department says its safe.

Flynn said the mine is a Super Fund Site, meaning the site contains significant pollution. Iron and zinc are the primary known pollutants in the water — but it also probably contains heavy metals, such as lead, and mercury, he said.

But the EPA has not told the state environment department, the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer nor local officials how harmful the waste is, officials said.

And the EPA did not inform the environment department of the spill until about 9:40 a.m. Thursday — almost 24 hours after it happened, Flynn said. State Engineer Tom Blaine and San Juan County Emergency Manager Don Cooper also said in the briefing that the EPA has handled the emergency poorly.

The mine waste surged into a creek in Silverton, Colo., on Wednesday and then flowed into the Animas River. At the time of the Friday morning briefing, the plume of orange pollution was 5 miles north of the state line.

No EPA officials attended the briefing.

Dan Schwartz covers government for The Daily Times. He can be reached at 505-564-4606 and dschwartz@daily-times.com. Follow him @

Joy Endures and by Hope, Overcomes Calamity

August 4, 2015

Calamity is feared, hated, played into, played down, and ignored; but no matter how we feel about calamity or respond to the possibility of it, calamity is outside human control. Neither science nor philosophy can deter the crushing, life-changing effect of calamity when it decides to strike. Even the righteous are subject to calamity and even those who are wise enough to predict it are seldom able to fully avoid it. The power of personal choice in obedience to God, can maintain personal integrity but our good choices have no power to control the lack of integrity, in the world around us. When Adam and Eve sinned against God, in order to become their own gods and thereby direct their destiny, the integrity of God’s Creation was destroyed. Calamity is the normal state for those who attempt to wrest God’s power from Him and in loving grace, God allows calamity for the purpose of turning His children back to Him, so that He may bless them and strengthen them with an attitude of joy; enabling them with the spiritual strength needed to survive in a world set on destruction.

 

Calamity is the active force of death and death is the final limit God places on human beings, living as gods and attempting to control what human beings will never be able to control. By wresting control of their life and choosing for themselves between good and evil, Adam and Eve lost eternal life and traded it in for temporary life. The same kind of life all must live out, beneath the shadow of certain death. No matter what technology people create, or whatever they rise up to build, all things put together by human hands, will someday come apart.

 

It is easy to observe calamity in another’s life and judge them. None of us want to believe the same could happen to us; but it can and it will. Because of judgment, people suffer personal calamity in silence. They put on a brave face and deny the truth of their broken-ness until, the shattering can’t be hidden any longer. Then calamity rises as a spectacle and people fear then, pray. Some turn back to God and find healing but most turn to denial and seek strength in human pride; not knowing that by doing so they make themselves a prey for an insidious form of calamity that destroys from the inside out. Human beings apart from God can’t endure the sad-happenstance that is normal in this mortal world; and those who persist in the illusions of human god-hood will meet death and be consumed by the final fate that none can avoid.

 

Though calamity in this world can’t be avoided, it can be endured and by hope in Jesus, victory over certain disaster can be won. When calamity comes, we will either respond by giving up or reaching for God. These are the only two choices left for those who by experiencing calamity fully understand their weakness and inability to control outer circumstances. Those who give up will die in torment, having known only temporary life in a world ruled by certain doom. Those who reach for Jesus are restored to God, in a loving-parent-child-relationship that internally, restores the right order and surrenders control to its rightful owner, Father God. The menace of temporary life begins to fade when eternal life is revealed and those restored by it, receive joy; one of the spiritual fruits enjoyed by those who abide in Jesus, nourishes the believer’s spirit and soul. It produces inner strength and enables those who belong to Jesus to endure all calamities, in hope of enjoying life without death in the world to come.

 

Calamity equals loss and what is lost will always be missed. There is nothing more disastrous than losing those we love to calamity, by the hand of death in all its forms, even living death. There is no loss more devastating than to raise an adored child and then see them fall victim to calamity and be destroyed. These experiences of death leave us forever changed but in Jesus, we will not be defeated. Like Brother Job, all we have lost will be restored in the future and we will be blessed to receive even greater blessings. Cups now empty will overflow in a new world characterized by joy. That quality of joy which is produced by faithful endurance and rewarded by hope fulfilled.

 

Ref: The Book of Job