Elijah Under The Broom Tree Update

Update : I  laughed aloud this morning when this appeared in my inbox from Word For the Day. It is a splendid rejoinder to the quote from Rilke at the bottom of the post from yesterday, and a sure and healthy indication that paradox is alive and well when it comes to faith and life.

Refuse to fall down. 

If you cannot refuse to fall down, 

refuse to stay down. 

If you cannot refuse to stay down, 

lift your heart toward heaven,

 and like a hungry beggar, 

ask that it be filled,

 and it will be filled.

 You may be pushed down. 

You may be kept from rising.

 But no one can keep you 

from lifting your heart toward heaven.

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

                                                                             Image source

Looking ahead to this Sunday, Scripture readings are here

The first reading is a fragment of a much longer story but the image in this reading is a powerful one.

Burnt out, at the end of his rope, sitting under a broom tree waiting to die. 

And this is a prophet !!

Elijah the powerful Hebrew prophet, the fierce and uncompromising champion of Yahweh, the God of Israel. 

What happened next and does it carry a meaning today ?

I'm working on it .

This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.

Rilke