Sunday 10th November – 32C

HAGGAI 1:15b-2:9
Some remembered its former glory:
grand,
inspiring,
holy,
reeking with the presence of God
and alive with a faithful people.

They had set out,
a remnant people
free at last
hopeful
despite the travail and peril ahead.
But home was rack,
the Temple was ruin.
Years drifted by:
hope evaporated,
faith paralysed.

Haggai the prophet spoke
of courage
and hope
and God in our midst:
rebuilding.
Not replicating
(a return to the past)
but something new
fashioned for our future
adapting the old,
using the fit
discarding – even burying – the broken,
adding the new
with courage
and hope
and God in our midst
————–

Some of us remember former glory:
small yet grand,
plain yet inspiring,
ordinary yet holy,
reeking with the presence of God
and alive with a faithful people;
on the main street,
in the corner of a paddock.
Neither rack nor ruin
but, wearied by years, it weighs less gloriously
on the faithful, often discouraged, remnant:
hope evaporated,
faith paralysed.

Haggai the prophet speaks to our future too –
of courage
and hope
and God in our midst:
rebuilding …
        © Jeff Shrowder, 2013.
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