Tag: god

January 19, 2026

Good afternoon,

I have decided to look at the Book of Ephesians on Mondays in the year 2026. I have traveled to the ancient site of Ephesus six times. The archaeologists are uncovering things there all the time. I was on six tours with Tom Yoder Neufeld, a retired New Testament scholar from Conrad Gregel. One of his areas of study was Ephesians. I have gathered much from him over the many years when we traveled there together.
For a thousand years, the letter was thought to have been written by the great Apostle Paul. But recent findings and research has given another opinion. The earliest copies of the letter do not have Paul’s name in the first verses. In Greek ( The New Testament was written in Greek ), its grammar and words are not in the same order. The issues of community, theology and salvation are similar.  It doesn’t really matter because the church agreed ( around 370 AD )that it should be part of the New Testament along with the other letters of Paul.

 Paul,

  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

To God’s holy people in Ephesus,

 the faithful in Christ Jesus:

 Grace and peace to you

 from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Ephesians 2:1-2

The beginning is like a form letter. Paul began many of his letters like this. He is writing to one of the first Christian communities in the world. He was the great church planter, almost always  going to the synagogue in the city to offer them life in the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not know how big the church community was in Ephesus. Ephesus was on the edge of the Empire. It was a large outpost city. They had a large theatre, with an athletic stadium and the great Temple to Athena. It was one of the great wonders of the ancient world. Only one column remains from the Temple. The Romans were interested in the mind, body and soul. The city has many statues to the Gods, and three of four markets for the people to shop. 

If you were Paul, how would you go about talking about Jesus ?

Continue to pray for Gaza. People are still hungry and without adequate housing. AMEN

Fred

Each Sunrise calls me

Be present wholly/holy

to today’s future!”   MLP 2026

Sunday  October 25, 2025

Good morning,

Here is one more plug for our Camino Tour. Please consider it. Send the link to others who you might think are interested.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=078bb88293&attid=0.3&permmsgid=msg-f:1846525526065404775&th=19a02d2ec1d1db67&view=att&zw&disp=safeSunday morning. A day of worship

As of today, I will be taking a time away from Ponder Anew writing. It might be the First Sunday of Advent. November 30, 2025 when I will return to the blog.

Thank you for listening and responding to my ponderings. It has been a privilege to write. I began a month after my heart attack in January 2008. It started as a weekly update on my health but it morphed into a devotional on Jesus through the eyes of creation, politics, sports, weather or anything. I wrote weekly until March 2020, but then COVID hit. Since then I have written most days, at first to the Poole Church and then following my retirement , to the wide open spaces of the universe.

Thanks again for listening . I will see you in the future through my words.

Be blessed by God, so you are a blessing to others. Love conquers all.

Prayers

Dear God,

Guard all of these people with your love and compassion.

Keep them safe and in your will.

Keep them watching , listening and caring. 

Thank you for their friendship.

Lia nd Dirk

Rick and Nancy                                   

Bernie and Martha Susan and James

Barb and Roy

Eileen and Willis

Dale and Sharon

Wendy and Rob

Shirley and Fred

Rick and Donna

Wanda

Steve and Donna

Pearl

Marcia and Akii

Agnes

Lucas, Alison, Levi, Emmett,Jared, Hannah, Alaa and Caleb

Susan and Ed

Johane

Maria and Alf

Linda and Art

Monika

Esther

Doug

Mike and Carolyn

Brendan

Judith

Mark and Rachel

AMEN

Please, bring peace to Gaza and the world AMEN.

Fred 

Lines of life in a cabbage.

October 23,

Good afternoon/evening/morning,

We may word things differently, but this perpetual search to know the unknowable is a familiar feeling for many contemplatives. We have an almost ravenous hunger, or some might say a palpable thirst, or a seemingly aimless dull ache that thrums through us. The ache reminds us we are in touch with the suffering of the whole world. All contemplatives, no matter their religion or spirituality, seem to have this in common, and recognizing this makes me feel less alone. 

The contemplative life is not a way of knowing. It is not the path of certitude. In fact, that’s what makes it so alive, so necessarily active. Our glimpses of “arrival” along the way are places we can catch our breath and recall we are moving in the right direction, even if it’s only because it’s exactly where we are. Those times, we remember that the way is not meant to be easy, simple, or comfortable. But these moments only last for a flash in the midst of life because, as the Rev. Dr. Walter Fluker reminds us, “Life will keep going because life itself is alive.” …  from Richard Rohr’s website

I think this describes me. And I am now okay with it ? Believe in the grace of the great Counselor.

I will never arrive at the destination of total communion with the Great One, the Everlasting One, the Holy One, here on earth.

Jesus said that the Kingdom of God has arrived, in his first sermon in his home synagogue in Nazareth. But I have rarely seen it. Am I only faithful a little bit in my life? I do not think so.

I think this means that I am human, and I am on the way to the Spirit of God. I just do not arrive today or next week.

Unfortunately . I have to wait for my death to become a new sense of the Divine. Not quite yet, though.

God, help us to bring peace to Gaza, with children, parents, grandpas, moms, single women, singers whales and trees. AMEN

Fred

black and white shadows

crush humanity’s freedom

am I complicit ? MPL 2025

October 15/16, 2025

Good morning,

I wrote a few months ago that I do not believe I have any or very few new ideas. I say things in a different way in my blogs or my sermons.I don’t know where my thoughts or ideas or beliefs have evolved from. But, I know they have come from others, maybe even the readers of my blog. Many of my thoughts come directly or indirectly from Jesus of Nazareth. But I get other ideas that come from  many different sources. I subscribe to a ‘ substack ‘ ( a new word for blogs ) from Kristin Du Mez. She is a church historian from Calvin University in Michigan. She is fearful that she will get fired as her interpretations go up against the Trump Empire, and evangelical Chrsitians. I am afraid for her safety. In this week’s blog she quotes her pastor’s( Len Vander Zee ) sermon. The pastor in his sermon quotes from a book by Deb Rienstra. Here is his quote from the book:

” This week I read Deb Rienstra’s wonderful book “Refugia Faith.” In the book she gives us a wonderful analogy of what we are called to be in this time of climate crisis. In 1980 Mt St. Hellens blew its top, leaving a swath of utter devastation. Today if you go there you will find a lush mountainside or flowers, grasses, growing trees, and all kinds of critters.

How did this happen? There were pockets of life and seed and fungi hidden in the mountainside. And the volcano ripped them open, and eventually spilled their life into the rich volcanic soil. Scientists call these pockets of life refugia.

Deb suggests that this is a good model of the church. A small, often hidden and overlooked community rich with God’s life and a different story to tell the world.

“They[ the early church ] served Christ as Lord and King, and refused to give that status and authority to any earthly emperor, and they paid for it. They practiced the radical hospitality of Christ’s kingdom, welcoming slaves to share the table with their owners, and in a few years, calling the owners to free them. Calling people to share the wealth rather than horde it. Picking up thrown away babies, mostly unwanted girls, and taking them into their homes. They said a clear no to any kind of violence.”

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.   I John 4:7-9

My faith, ideas, thoughts come from everywhere in creation and beyond. The threads are there.

Hoping that the ceasefire will hold, and a peace might come to Gaza and the West Bank. AMEN

Fred

black and white shadows

crush humanity’s freedom

am I complicit ? MPL 2025

September 24, 2025

Good afternoon,

My friend has dementia. It is not rare, and probably all of you know someone, or have a family member who has the disease. My father-in-law suffered from it for seven years. We lost a part of him every day. Every time we saw him he was always a little worse. I am not the only person who is asking the unanswerable questions about disease, life and death.

But, of course, it is personal this time, as well at other times too. My friend is in the hospital now. I sat with him for a few hours last evening. There is nothing to say, or I cannot find anything meaningful to say. Maybe if I could sing 1970’s rock and roll music that would be good. But my friend is not in the room anymore. He is there physically, but where has his mind gone ? He looked into my eyes, I think, and nothing came out of his mouth. When the words came they were mumbled and so quiet. How should I pray ? I had hours to think about it.
With disease, we can pray,  ” Dear Lord, please take my loved one, or heal them now .” I know prayer does not work this way, but I would like this to come about. With disease, we are often at a loss of what to do. We do not like to see someone who is hurting and/or in pain. I do not like to see my friend, and his family, suffering. Vietnamese culture says that ‘ life is hard, there will be suffering ‘ . Our culture, I think, believes that suffering should not happen to us. and if it does, there should be some treatment to fix it today or at least tomorrow. Two very different cultural attitudes towards life and suffering. So, how do you react to the role of suffering in the human condition ? Is there an answer at all ?

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 

                      Why are you so far from saving me, 

                                          so far from my cries of anguish?    Psalm 22:1 ( Jesus said these words on the crosss as well. )

Praying for the peace of Gaza. AMEN

Fred

black and white shadows

crush humanity’s freedom

am I complicit ?

 MPL 

August 4, 2025

Good afternoon,

I am not good with administration. We delayed receiving our CPP and OAS until this year. This is fine, but when I did get to it, it took a long time because forms stress me out. You could do it on-line, but that was a mess for me. So, I went to the office on Frederick Street, and I found out that they moved it to the south end of Kitchener, near the 401 highway.  I went into the office, and they said I needed our marriage certificate. The form did not say I needed it for OAS or CPP. I went back three more times, and although the Service Canada employees were polite, they all said slightly different things. Finally, for the fourth time I went last week to bring the final documents. Now I will wait for the secondary persons to tell me what I did not give to them on the forms. Fortunately, we will get money back retroactive to when we applied, I think.

Last week, I sat down in the waiting area ( for the last time ? ) to wait for the Service Canada representative to call my name. A man sits down next to me, and says ” I am a miracle “.  Last week I was in tremendous pain, and I could not do anything. It was going on for six months. The doc finally diagnosed me with polymyalgia (?) , and three days ago I started meds, and it is a miracle. Look at me . ” . He stood up, and raised his arms above his head, and he jumped up and down. He couldn’t do it three days ago. ” It is a miracle, ” he said over and over again. I asked him if there were any side effects. He began laughing and could hardly get the words out, ”  The doctor said I will have, ‘ chronic happiness , no, no, manic  happiness’. Can you believe it ? He kept laughing and smiling. ” Manic happiness “. Wow eh !! My number was called, and I gave the man a fist bump, and I left him smiling. When I came out, he was gone. I think I was visited by an angel.

 As Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him.  Two blind men were sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was going by, they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

 The crowd rebuked them and told them to be quiet, but they shouted all the louder, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

 Jesus stopped and called them. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.

 “Lord,” they answered, “we want our sight.”

 Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.

 Matthew 20:29-34

Praying for peace for the children of Gaza. AMEN.

Fred