a plague of locusts

"Joel speaks of a terrible plague of locusts ..... In its utter destruction this attack symbolizes for him the coming Day of the Lord - " a gloomy day."

But Joel brings a message of hope. If only Israel will repent and turn back to God, who is able to "tthe years the locust has eaten."

Joel paints a wonderful picture of a coming day of God's blessing, when the Spirit willbe abroad int he world."

MAry Batchelor

life that gives life

"The Holy Spirit is life that gives life

Moving all things

It is the root in every creature

And purifies all things,

Wiping away our sins, anointing wounds.

It is radiant life, worthy of praise,

Awakening and enlivening all things."

Hildegard of Bingen

At the recent Loddon- Mallee Presbytery ministers' retreat, Swan Hill

leaving church

simply scary

One of my favourite paintings of Jacob and the Angel

Chagal

in her book Scarred By Struggle, Transformed By Hope, the Benedictine nun and writer Joan Chittister uses the Jacob story as a paradigm for a "spirituality of struggle." In Jacob's story she identifies eight elements of our human struggle—change, isolation, darkness, fear, powerlessness, vulnerability, exhaustion, and scarring.

But God doesn't leave us there, says Chittister, and in each human struggle she finds a corresponding divine gift — conversion, independence, faith, courage, surrender, limitations, endurance, and transformation. "Jacob does what all of us must do," writes Chittister, "if, in the end, we too are to become true. He confronts in himself the things that are wounding him, admits his limitations, accepts his situation, rejoins the world, and moves on."

http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20101011JJ.shtml

jacob wrestles with the angel

found at http://www.chriscookartist.com/html/spiritual.html

Not lose heart

Darkness and light flow in waves,

fluctuating between deep nothingness,

occasional blurry dimness,

waning cold full-moon shine,

the vision-challenging defeated and fading

glow of dusk,

and the surprising stabs of radiant illumination

that break infrequently through the despair.

In the mystery of creation’s brilliant blast,

truth, and the justice

which is ordained to attend truth,

were somehow encoded

into the DNA of the cosmos.

They may be seen intermittently,

borne upon sporadic rays of luminosity.

Thus, in countless stories

imagined, told and written

by every tribe, culture and religion,

truth emerges from the shadows to triumph

and justice is seen to prevail.

Jesus, the story-teller from Nazareth,

also made up such tales,

including one wherein an otherwise

crooked and godless judge

was caused to grant unexpected justice

to a persistent widow.

In real life things are not so simple,

nor are righteous results guaranteed

amongst the many shades of grey.

The poor continue to hunger,

the innocent still languish in prison cells

cruel lies remain unchallenged

and wars go on, being fought for reasons

which are seldom just or true.

Still we whisper among ourselves,

calling forth a strange and precious something

glowing defiantly through the gloom

with words of encouragement to the faithful:

“do not lose heart.”

© Ken Rookes 2010

gratitude and integrity

There is a French Marian legend about a storyteller who gives up his fickle life and enters a monastery. But the life of the monks remains strange to him; he knows neither how to recite nor chant a prayer. He pours out his lament to the Virgin Mary and she tells him to serve God with what he can do, namely to dance and leap. From that moment on, he skips the divine offices and dances during those times. He is called to the abbot and believes that he is about to be expelled. But the abbot only says, "With your dancing you have glorified God with body and soul. but may God forgive us all those lofty words that pass our lips without coming from the heart." -Dorothee Soelle The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance

athttp://www.edgeofenclosure.org/proper23c.html

Gratitiude