{"id":1860,"date":"2020-11-23T09:17:13","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T09:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/?p=1860"},"modified":"2020-11-23T09:17:13","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T09:17:13","slug":"tearing-open-the-heavens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/2020\/11\/23\/tearing-open-the-heavens\/","title":{"rendered":"Tearing open the heavens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>&#8220;O that you would tear open the heavens and come down&#8230;&#8221;<\/em>, so says the Isaiah reading from the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu\/texts.php?id=48\" target=\"_blank\">Lectionary for next Sunday<\/a> (Advent). It&#8217;s a violent image, but it represent the passion of someone who sees the urgent need for God to<em> do<\/em> something in a troubled world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And yet &#8230; sitting in an armchair is a hypocritical position from which to be praying. It&#8217;s all too easy to be passionate about God doing something, and being less passionate about doing it ourselves. There are times, though, when it feels as if we don&#8217;t have any kind of handle by which to influence what happens in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bracken&#8217;s dying back now and it was easier to see this milestone yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"924\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DSC_1639-924x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1861\" srcset=\"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DSC_1639-924x1024.jpg 924w, https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DSC_1639-271x300.jpg 271w, https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DSC_1639-768x851.jpg 768w, https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DSC_1639-1386x1536.jpg 1386w, https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/DSC_1639.jpg 1444w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;O that you would tear open the heavens and come down&#8230;&#8221;, so says the Isaiah reading from the Lectionary for next Sunday (Advent). It&#8217;s a violent image, but it represent the passion of someone who sees the urgent need for God to do something in a troubled world. And yet &#8230; sitting in an armchair &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/2020\/11\/23\/tearing-open-the-heavens\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Tearing open the heavens&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1862,"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1860\/revisions\/1862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}