Father Constantine's thinking peace: a reflection on the current human condition

What a terrible week we are having in our human family!
So many tears in France, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Nigeria, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone etc.
God's children, our flesh and blood, dying of terrorism, violence, man's cruelty, disease and lack of access to basic human needs, etc. 
Has God abandoned us? No, we have abandoned Him and each other; we have forgotten the image of God in each person and have become selfish, self-centred and prejudiced against those of different faith, colour or race, etc.
God cannot help us, we ought to help Him help ourselves; we ought to put Him first and not our egos and our selfish motives.
Bad things will continue to happen when good people remain silent.
Let all good people rise to counter the terrible events of this week by reaching out to others in friendship, love, compassion, acceptance, forgiveness, mercy and tenderness. 
God returns among men and women through those whose lives bear credible witness to God's love and loving kindness. May God help us to become saints. Pray always: ALL WILL BE WELL! ALL WILL BE WELL AND ALL MANNER OF THINGS WILL BE WELL!!!

Another Sabbath reflection

No matter which holy or rest day is kept

this website, with its rich content, is worthy of reflection.

Plumwood Mountain is under the Managing Editorship of Anney Elvey.

A #Sabbath Thinking Piece: all about faith and a teeny weeny mustard seed

Sabbath Thinking Piece #4

Post by Rowland Croucher.

Sabbath Thinking piece #3: An Aboriginal Creation Story from Australia

A Sabbath Thinking Piece #3 - Sowing and reaping ... now and then

Picture from here


A brief scroll down this blog
will show that this week
we have had quite an interest in
the 25 babies born on Australian soil 
who are threatened with deportation.
We have written about the Christians
who have been involved in prayer sit-ins
in politicians offices, have been arrested,
have been fined.

We have a significant number of members
of Australia's Parliament, Australia's Government
who profess to be Christians.
These include the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott
and
the Minister for Immigration and Border Security,
Scott Morrison.

For so many Christians, the actions of the Federal Govt
in relation to refugees and asylum seekers do not
match the teachings of the Tanakh, The Old Testament.
Neither do they align with the teachings of Jesus.

On this Sabbath morn when we remember
that Jesus rose from the dead to conquer death,
this Sabbath Thinking Piece
emphasises that we reap what we sow.

Those who have protested the deportation of innocents
born on Australian soil will reap - and will answer to the Lord of all.
Those have promoted the deportation of innocents
born on Australian soil will reap - and will answer to the Lord of all.

Who will be lauded for their actions?
The protesters or the promoters?
And do they have to wait for the Great Day of Judgment
before seeing justice takes its course in their own lives?

A Sabbath thinking piece - #1

One of my favourite internet sites is brain pickings. It is compiled by the wonderful Maria Popova.  The site is full of stuff which reflects its title.  I wanted to include it for the readers of Advocacy as a thinking piece, a reflective interlude. And to introduce you to a site which is part of the treasure trove of good things to be found on the 'net!

Mary Oliver (b. September 10, 1935) is among the most beloved and most prolific poets of the past century — a devoted craftswoman of exquisite poems and a sage of the secrets of the craft itself.

In this recording from a 2001 event held by the Lannan Foundation — the same reading that gave us Oliver on the magic of punctuation — the beloved writer reads the poem that would go on to become one of her most celebrated and lend its title to her 2004 volume Wild Geese: Selected Poems (public library). Oliver’s work speaks so deeply and with such courageous honesty to some of our most profound human perplexities, struggles, and exaltations that it is read everywhere from commencement addresses to yoga classes, endlessly replicated on the social web and borrowed for those formulaic chapter-opening quotations in pop-psychology and self-help books. And yet despite the vast exposure, something singular, something mesmeric and immutably moving happens as Oliver swirls the intricate thought-things of her poem in her own mouth — to say nothing of the impossibly charming George Eliot anecdote with which she prefaces the reading:

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Wild Geese: Selected Poems is a soul-stretching read in its entirety. Complement it with Oliver’s deeply endearing Dog Songs, one of the best books of 2013.