It's been a few days since I posted anything about the Jesse Tree, but I have been taking a few minutes each day to cut out, colour and add the symbol to my tree.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph - four very significant and flawed men, who God called and enabled to take significant roles in the big story of faith.

It's always worth spending a few moments to think about whose 'voice' isn't heard or whose story isn't told.  What about Keturah (Abraham's second wife) Rebecca/Rebekah (Isaac's wife), Bilhah and Zilpah (Jacob's concubines) Dinah (Joseph's sister) or Asher (one of his brothers)? Without the minor characters, the major ones cannot be major...

Tonight's image is a seventeenth century mogul (Islamic influenced) representation of the birth of Jesus.  In India, where many world faiths celebrate the births of significant prophets, the birth of Jesus is at the same time just one more story, and also a story that matters to people who understand him very differently.

A beautiful clay nativity scene from Peru shows the Holy Family as a homeless family, whilst the more wealthy observers look down from their balconies.

A prayer from displaced Peruvian people...

God, our promised land,
Christ, our way,
our journey has become long and hard
because we wander about
like nomads
not knowing where to go.
We are strangers in our own land,
without bread, a roof, a future.
But you came to find us
with your life-giving breath.
You, who are also displaced,
have become an exile with us.
you offer us anew the promised land.
Your spirit urges us toward
that joyous homecoming,

This image comes from Nicaragua.  The banner being carried by the messenger/angel reads "I come to tell them that in Nicaragua the new man has been born'

We used a version of the Lord's Prayer from Nicaragua...

Our Father, who art in this our land,
May your name be blessed
in our incessant search for justice and peace.
May your Kingdom come
For those who have for centuries awaited a life with dignity.
May your will be done on earth and in heaven
And in the Church of Central America,
A church on the side of the poor.
Give us today our daily bread to build a new society.
Forgive us our trespasses,
Do let let us fall into the temptation
Of believing ourselves already new men and women.
And deliver us from the evil of war
And from the evil of forgetting that our lives
And the life of this country are in your hands.

The story from Genesis 2 relates to what one writer termed 'the human propensity to f*** things up' - or, sin, or the simple truth that freedom brings responsibility, and choices have consequences.

Personal or corporate, commission or omission, ignorance, weakness or deliberate fault... humans mess up.

Thankfully, God forgives us not once, not 70 x 7 times, but every single time.

Today is a 'heavy' theme, inviting us to recall our regrets - but we do so in order to let them go, to be forgiven, healed and renewed.

(Oh, and it really wasn't an apple, or why would we still eat them?!)