The Restory Retreat Centre

  Israel/Gaza And Our Image Of God The Conversation Elements From The Conversation If God Would Go On A Sick Leave: A Prayer For Peace Nowhere is there more prayer. The Nuns at the Holy Sepulchre. The faithful at Al Aqsa Mosque. The worshippers at the Wall. The call to prayer at dawn and dusk Warbling from the citadels. The church bells, The Persian trills, The passion spilled over texts From every major/minor religious sect. Nowhere is there more prayer than Jerusalem, Thanks be to God, Hamdilala, Baruch Hashem. And yet, I'm starting to think that it's You and not them, God, what's the point of prayer? If there's nowhere where There's more prayer, And terror reigns Then, Who's to blame? If suddenly, without a whisper goodbye, Jesus, Allah, Adonai, The three men they admire most All took the last train for the coast, And the Moslems got up from their knees And the Christians put down their rosaries And the Jews stayed their hands from kissing Their mezuzahs, And...

Jerusalem Nowhere is there more prayer. The Nuns at the Holy Sepulchre. The faithful at Al Aqsa Mosque. The worshippers at the Wall. The call to prayer at dawn and dusk Warbling from the citadels. The church bells, The Persian trills, The passion spilled over texts From every major/minor religious sect. Nowhere is there more prayer than Jerusalem, Thanks be to God, Hamdilala, Baruch Hashem. And yet, I'm starting to think that it's You and not them, God, what's the point of prayer? If there's nowhere where There's more prayer, And terror reigns Then, Who's to blame? If suddenly, without a whisper goodbye, Jesus, Allah, Adonai, The three men they admire most All took the last train for the coast, And the Moslems got up from their knees And the Christians put down their rosaries And the Jews stayed their hands from kissing Their mezuzahs, And everyone looked up, And realized something's missing... God is missing. Stop ...

I am currently reading the autobiography Walking Tall by Simon Weston. Weston was a British soldier who got badly injured during the Falklands War in 1982. The ship he was on at the time, the Sir Galahad , was struck by a 2000 pound Argentinian bomb and he received terrible burns on forty six percent of his body. What followed were years of rehabilitation, countless operations and many adjustments. Simon at a parade shortly after the Falklands War Although the bomb exploded about 20 feet from where he was and his face was burnt beyond recognition, there was astonishingly enough no scarring of his eyeballs. As a military surgeon told him before one of the operations to his eyelids: “The blink reflex is a remarkable thing and it can usually outpace any foreign body flying towards the eye, or any flash, so it is very rare that the front surface of the eye is directly burned.” Since reading that line I’ve been blinking a lot, once again reminded of and fascinated by the h...