MUSIC OF THE NIGHT

I’ve given myself a belated B-Day present. Today Christine & I are soon going to enjoy Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 70th B-Day Concert Tour presenting all of his major musical moments. I’m eager for this musical treat. 

TOP OF THE MORNING ( a poem)

TOP OF THE MORNING

Sweetheart delivered my morning hug

Familiar now, no youthful fainting.

Hot Coffee in my Tom Thompson mug,

With printed image of his painting.

A quiet start to an easy day

I leisurely gaze through misty blur

A distant pine tree with gentle sway

A black crow sits on its topmost spur.

From two hundred feet above the ground. 

He surveys the realm of human homes.

Drew my attention without a sound,

Found his way into one of my poems.

© Ron Unruh, September 2019

77 YEARS OLD

 Yes, it is my 77th birthday, no big deal really, just another day, another year. Yet a friend had the nerve to remind me that 36 months remain until I am 80. We’ll he’s right, as if I couldn’t figure that out without his impertinent reminder. In fact on this side of 75 a person often thinks about the slide.

But it’s okay. I find it interesting how a person at my age makes some naturally comfortable conclusions that an imminent departure from the planet’s surface is not tragic. In fact apart from the family connections with children and grandchildren which one does not want to leave, it seems okay to leave. It’s expected after all. Everyone leaves eventually.

And I have the assurance that my faith provides to me, that life ending here does not terminate my existence but rather I live beyond the immediate in an arena of glory about which I know nothing other than what scripture promises is true for me.

Don’t ask me why I am discussing ‘demise’ because I don’t know. I have a lot of life and every reason to be content with my life at the moment. I am humbly grateful for my health and my mind and my loved ones and my fun activities including painting and writing and marshalling at a golf course, and occasionally preaching God’s Word. So today I start a new year for me, my 77th on Planet Earth. I am looking forward to what God will do this year.

RAPID CHRISTIAN RESPONSE IS NOT A TOO-TALL EXPECTATION

It’s not surprising that some Christians become disillusioned and disappointed with a church, with its leaders and with the Christian friends who comprise it. Christian education and evangelism are not the only services a church should prioritize. When a person, or couple or family experiences a crisis, the church should respond. Rapid Christian response should be the ready position. Christian friends should jump to assist. Even when the presenting issue is awkward, distressing, immoral, angry, or hopeless, it is a God-assigned responsibility to love and to listen and to counsel and to shelter and to give aid. That’s not a too-tall expectation.find the entire essay here ... at my NO,MAYBE,YES SITE

VERITY - a poem

VERITY

Fervently believed it, trust so stout

so life was joy and faith uplifting.

Yet now with life, belief is shifting,

listening to alternate voices, 

compliant with some lifestyle choices.

Daringly rejects it, choosing doubt

so life seems bliss as faith’s evolving,

assuming this is problem solving.

Only for one, for others heartbreak,

collateral damage in the wake.

Ardently trusting the others shout.

Their lives are hell but faith’s compelling.

Their God will amend this rebelling;

His love will bring recalibration,

Restoring conjoint admiration.

By Ron Unruh, September 2019

Back Story: Sometimes loved ones experience disappointment that derails them from faith and relationships with people who care deeply. 

A petite peek at my theology

A short selection of blurbs I stick on Facebook, freshly expressed, occasionally

A petite peek at my theology:
Human bodies are like one-person tents. Of satisfying, practical and robust construction yet impermanent. Matched to earth but short-lived. Much of life makes us groan, expecting a promised new covering when we graduate from mortality to life beyond for which God’s Spirit is our present warranty.

A petite peek at my theology:
When a soul is too cramped for God to enter, hoarded but useless contents must be removed. Into the resultant capacity God will come to stay and will keep the soul uncluttered and spotless. More satisfied and positioned for a Kingdom.

A petite peek at my theology:
God is great. Must be. Pre-existed all we know. Needed no one. Chose to create humanity to reflect the Creator. Humanity tarnished. Creator came here to restore that reflection. Human efforts to associate Creator with social, political, and economic interests and personalities cheapen Creator’s greatness.

A petite peek into my theology:
The grand designer says, “I never told you that the measure of your worth is directly equivalent to the measure of your stuff. In fact I denounce envy as your most persistent 21st century economic driver. What you should have heard from me is that you can gain a whole world full of toys but still not be rich enough to protect your soul.”

A Petite Peek Into My Theology
It’s reasonable to conclude that since God forgives human sins, not holding on to resentments but reconciling with humans for the purpose of relationship, that the forgiven ones can similarly reject resentment in favour of reconciled human relationships.

A petite peek into my theology:
The world has never been more connected than it is now when you are alive. Ironically despite that access to connection, loneliness is pandemic. Yet we were created for relationship with the Maker and with those He made. Authentic connectedness to one another is contingent upon our connectedness with God.

A Petite Peek into My Theology:
God is the Creator, not us; we can’t shape God to be Liberal or Conservative, Republican or Democrat; and we can’t tint God white, brown, carmine or black. We can’t make him passionate about what we love or make him angry about what angers us.

A petite peek into my theology:
I know I am loved and therefore I can risk the uncertainty of loving others, you in fact, for the One who loves me most, knows me best, and I ain’t perfect. That’s emancipating and emboldening, and together we can make this work.

A petite peek into my theology:
Faith and redemption are themes in W.P. Kinsella’s novel ‘Shoeless Joe.’ Kinsella’s protagonist is Ray, the corn farmer who heard Joe’s voice telling him to build a ball diamond on his Iowa farm and ‘they’ will come. With faith Ray complied and each evening from his cornfield, came ballplayers from the disgraced 1919 Chicago White Sox, dubbed the Black Sox because seven teammates took bribes to throw the 1991 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Ray’s estranged and deceased father John was one of the players on the field. In an emotional redemptive reunion father and son threw the ball to one another before John faded into the corn. Kinsella writes fiction, entertaining make-believe that I endorse because I enjoy the genre. In my non-fiction real life world, faith and redemption are priority themes about which I insist upon truth that I believe embraces faith in Someone whose self-sacrifice redeemed me for life with him.

WHAT’S TRUE & WHAT’S NOT - Sermon

John 21:1-19    WHAT’S TRUE & WHAT’S NOT & DOES JESUS’ RESURRECTION MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

Ray is a corn farmer. He and his wife Annie and small daughter Karin live on farm in Iowa. Ray is a good husband and dad perhaps because he made up his mind to be different from his own father John who was seldom around when Ray was a boy. Their relationship was always troubled and then John died. 

Year later Ray began to hear a voice telling him to build a baseball diamond and an outfield on his farmland. The voice told him, "If you build it he will come." Ray doesn’t understand the persistent message and unable to ignore it he believes it and he persuades Annie let him build a baseball field with spectator seats. One evening some uniformed players begin to emerge from out of the cornfield and they begin to play ball. They appear so happy to play. The game ends as the sun sets and the players withdraw into the corn. Neighbours hear about it and at first think Ray has lost his mind. A game happens night after night as these ghostly players come from the corn and the neighbours show up to watch one night, and return each following night. 

If you haven’t recognized it, Ray is the protagonist in a novel called ‘Shoeless Joe’ written by Canadian author W.P. Kinsella, a novel that was turned into the movie called ‘Field of Dreams.’ In this fantasy drama Ray doesn’t know that the voice belongs to Joe Jackson, nicknamed “Shoeless Joe,” who was an outfielder with the 1919 Chicago White Sox. That team became known as the Black Sox because of a dreadful scandal, when seven players all dead and gone now, were disgraced and banned from baseball because they accepted bribe money for intentionally losing the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. 

Near the end of the story as the players return into the corn stalks, only the catcher remains on the field. He removes his mask and a handsome face appears that Ray recognizes as his father John when he was a young aspiring ball player. Ray says to Annie, "It's my father... I-I only saw him years later when he was worn down by life. Look at him. He's got his whole life in front of him, and I'm not even a glint in his eye. What do I say to him?" Ray introduces John to Annie and Karin and choking with emotion Ray asks, "Hey Dad? Do you want to have a catch?" The two enjoy a game of catch between father and son one more time as the sun sets. Then dad waves goodbye and moves into the corn stalks. 

Kinsella story is an inspired piece of literature about the themes of faith and redemption. He writes fiction. He deals in make believeand it’s entertaining and we are okay with that because we understand the genre. 

However, those themes of Faith and redemptionare customary themes in church too. Here in this place we are uninterested in fiction. We want and we expect truth in our conversations and in our teaching. We certainly want the truth about faith and redemption.  

TEMPTATION READINESS ... Audio file of my sermon Luke 4:1-13

Dr. Ron Unruh, "Temptation Readiness - How to Say No" from Luke 4:1-13, a sermon that I preached on February 10, 2019.   <------- a="" audio="" is="" link="" this="">

I delivered this message at White Rock Community Church. Pastor Steve Doerksen was preaching through Luke’s gospel, and on Feb 10^thneeded someone to step in for him, giving me liberty to choose my own section of scripture and subject or to continue in Luke. I chose to continue his run through Luke. Luke 4 was my text and that is the story of Jesus being tempted by the devil at the outset of Christ’s earthly ministry. In his successful rejection of this enticement, Jesus has taught us how to be ready for temptation so that we also can effectively recognize it and refuse it. Our objective is to say “No.”   

The Temptation of Jesus

1 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. 

3 The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." 

4 And Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone.'" 

5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 

7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." 

8 And Jesus answered him, "It is written, "'You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'" 

9 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written,  "'He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,' 11 and  "'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'"

12 And Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'" 

13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

If you take time to listen, I thank you. I trust that God’s Word that spoke to me, has also spoken to you. 

Gina’s Biggest Commercial Opp

My daughter in-law Gina’s big commercial shot in South Africa was an experience of a lifetime for her. She did great and looks splendid. It’s called ‘Vacation.’

Here is the Video
https://www.ispot.tv/ad/oIlH/myrbetriq-vacation?fbclid=IwAR2OC8EUEuaDb9_4wwaZA2Y0SJToTw9VuGXwj9lN1XfWsqVXPyczP4tilr0

STREET PERSONS

Sat with him in his bus shelter, his fixed address

for several months and one day asked him

did he care for fruit, as in I’d buy it for him,

“Selectively,” was his answer. 

“How long living like this,” I asked and he,

“eighteen years, chose it to be free.” 

Of people, duty, cares, I guessed.

Shopping cart swollen with all he’d need

for warmth and inclement weather.

An A&W supper, cart outside, waiting for night,

his bus shelter bench for a bed. He’s gone.

Empty shelter one day.

I lost him.

Many more like him, on concrete islands

where posted signs say panhandling’s illegal.

Handwritten cardboard invitations to give,

and sometimes I do, selectively.

His bike in the bush, he walks bent at the waist,

I’ve watched. he is clearly disabled, crippled,

walking or riding with effort, and I give to him.

Another with prosthetic leg needs help.

Another is suspect with new backpack and shoes, 

and cell phone in hand and smokes. 

Only a few gals in this collection of homeless,

all are not vagrant, or tramps or bums,

but alone, unaided, displaced, poor and needy. 

© Ron Unruh, June 2019

Comment: The narrative free verse says it all except for my conviction that our elected officers and public funded agencies are failing a segment of society that yes, may be addicted to substances and yes, may not be employable, but who are still persons as my title states, and are deserving of a societal compassion and serious help, that does not insult them but rather respects them by provisions of shelter and clothing and foods. Instead my observation has been that these people living in tents or under tarps or cardboard get regularly rousted by police and city bylaw enforcers. We spend huge amounts of public money on superfluous things when we could make miserable existences somewhat more bearable.