{"id":1944,"date":"2020-12-18T09:56:10","date_gmt":"2020-12-18T09:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/?p=1944"},"modified":"2020-12-18T09:56:10","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T09:56:10","slug":"never-mind-the-greyness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/2020\/12\/18\/never-mind-the-greyness\/","title":{"rendered":"Never mind the greyness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Never mind the greyness, just feel the warmth. We&#8217;re blessed with air from the tropical seas, so make the most of it. Soon, rain will fall. But for the next few minutes, it&#8217;s delightful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m not a big fan of temporary happiness &#8211; the prospect of the end of happiness or forthcoming trouble kind of overshadows the present &#8211; that just seems to be my psychology. However, my faith gives me the chance to paste my happinesses and unhappinesses into a bigger story, the story of God&#8217;s love acting in the world. Sometimes that story runs beneath the surface, sometimes it&#8217;s told openly. One such time is Mary&#8217;s song, what later generations call &#8216;The Magnificat&#8217;, one of <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu\/texts.php?id=51\" target=\"_blank\">Sunday&#8217;s lectionary readings<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;My soul magnifies the Lord,<br>and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,<br>for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;<br>for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.<br>His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.<br>He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.<br>He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;<br>he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.<br>He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy,<br>according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wonder how many &#8216;rich&#8217; and &#8216;powerful&#8217; people have said those words regularly and with untroubled hearts throughout the generations of the church.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Never mind the greyness, just feel the warmth. We&#8217;re blessed with air from the tropical seas, so make the most of it. Soon, rain will fall. But for the next few minutes, it&#8217;s delightful. I&#8217;m not a big fan of temporary happiness &#8211; the prospect of the end of happiness or forthcoming trouble kind of &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/2020\/12\/18\/never-mind-the-greyness\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Never mind the greyness&#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-1944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944","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=1944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1945,"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions\/1945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobjanet.org.uk\/bobsblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}