ChRiSt iS aLL, and is iN aLL...

One more meditation from Fr. Richard Rohr:

We are too tiny, too passing, too recent to imagine any eternal greatness within us, but the Biblical pattern of incarnation always has God disguised and hiding inside of littleness, particularity, ordinariness, and seeming insignificance. God seems to want us to do the desiring and all the discovering. No one finds God who is not looking for God and willing to go to the edges to find God. Unless we leave our comfort zone, we really do not meet God at all, but merely pull God inside of our own small sphere, and it is no longer God that we meet at all. Just religion.

tHeRe iS gOoD nEwS aT cHriStMaS...

Prayer: 

O Rising Sun, enlighten my darkness.

" Through the heartfelt mercies of God, 

      God's Rising Sun 

will break in upon us,

   Shining on those in the darkness,

      those sitting in the shadow of death,

   Then showing us the way, 

one foot at a time,
      down the path of peace."    (Luke 1:78-79)

Pre-industrial people were far more connected to the natural cosmos and seasons than we are today, and were very aware that the 21st of December is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere... not really the death of the sun—but its rebirth! The liturgical year was easily connected to the seasons of nature. 

here's a little review of our first 6 days on the road...
From Belfast, to Edinburgh/Scotland, then into England....firstly the Northumbrian coast to Lindisfarne on the Holy Island; Durham; Leeds and Manchester...

We had our last good-byes in Belfast with a lovely dinner and hang out time at Pádraig´s house. 

LoVe cELeBrAtIoN viDeO

for some reason, one of the songs I used in the video of our Love celebration has copyrights and is not possible to open in certain countries, like germany... odd...
If it´s restricted in your country, click here instead... 
not so good sound, but hey !!!

Shalom
Salaam
Peace
Paz

LoVe cELeBrAtiOn VidEo

check here for a youtube video...
If it´s restricted in your country, click here instead... for some reason, one of the songs I used has copyrights and is not possible to open in certain countries, like germany... odd...
when I find time I´ll post some more :-)
we´re just now packing the van to start the road trip back to the Mount of Oaks...through Scotland, England, North of Spain till Santiago and north of Portugal...

Shalom
Salaam
Peace
Paz

oN tHe rOaD...

Here'e me and emma starting our trip from the Mount of Oaks to Ireland... in our van that now has a name, "soraia"... it came with the wind-brake we got as you can see...
We left on sunday afternoon and on wednesday we were already in the north of France close to the place we'd take the ferry to Ireland... so we still had a day to rest from travelling and enjoyed the day at a beautiful beach in Normandy...
I'll just leave you with the pictures and some brief comments...

"cHuRcH aS pErMaCuLtUrE..." ?!!!

This is part of some daily meditations I get through e.mail from Fr. Richard Rohr, a Fransciscan monk living in the north of America... Obviously he's relating with the reality there, but we can see  the same issues in our part of the world...
He gave this tittle for the week "Church as Permaculture"... I had to laugh... and read..., specially because it was just the week before the Permaculture Course here...
so here goes:
"Mere beliefs do not necessarily change the way we live in this world.  What we have been calling “Emerging” Christianity or “Lifestyle Christianity” involves a real movement toward simplicity—at all levels.  A return to a simple lifestyle is the only way we are going to be able to respect this planet and create honest community instead of this social climbing we are involved in today.  

tHe sToRm cOmEs bEfOrE wE rEaCh tHe sHorE...

I was meditating this morning on the passage in Luke 8:22-25, when Jesus and his disciples got on the boat to reach the other side of the lake, and got stuck with an heavy storm...
I was quite familiar with the story, and the teaching of Jesus to his disciples (me included) of how little faith we have when we face different storms on the way...
Again I got confronted with the same question Jesus asked his disciples then : "- Where is your faith?"

what was different this morning was that I kept reading while I was trying to get familiarized with the context... that's when my perspective changed...

a LoNg wAy tO gO...

This is me next to Lesley a week ago during the Permaculture Design Course. I sprained my wrist when I was tying a rope from the tarp in front of the kitchen. I was on a step ladder and wearing an african fabric tied around my waist as a skirt... not a good idea !!! even though I lifted it and tied it up to my waist, as I was stepping down, the fabric untied itself and blocked my knee... so I was not able to step down, fell on my butt and landed on top of my hand... Outch!!! it did hurt... Thank God it was not worse as I had a knife on that hand... Fiiiuuu !!!
     This was just one of the many "incidents" I experienced the last weeks... but there were many blessings too... I would suggest you would grab a cuppa to read the rest...I will try to sum up the last months on these lines ... but I can't promise it will be short :-)

3 mOrE dAyS iN aNgOLa...

      It's been a good time here visiting my parents...
the reason why I came so unexpectedly was due to my mom's health condition. She had broken 2 ribs and during the time of recovery she felt really bad...one night she almost couldn't breathe, she had high fevers and was cold as ice...  My dad said she was virtually dead... they went to the hospital and she was immediately looked after ... one of her broken ribs had punch one of her lungs, and they took out more than 1 liter of blood...