The Joys of Community

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Hello Friends and Family:

Christine’s Icon Exhibition at All Angels Church on Long Boat Key

You are probably wondering what has happened to us since it’s been so long since we ‘ve last written to you all.  So far it’s all good, with Christine being super busy teaching two 4 day retreats, and having two large and beautiful exhibitions of her icons going on simultaneously.  There were also two icon talks and a guided Stations of the Cross  service with her Stations of the Cross Icons in Saint Petersburg.  All good, but keeping her very very busy!

And Michael has been busy as usual, volunteering as a chaplain for the homeless people of Sarasota, two days a week and then 4 days a week working as a chaplain at a retirement village. He is also enjoying doing taking the Global Supernatural Discipleship training with Global Awakening. It has been a great revision for teaching that we first received about fifteen years ago.   It is a five month course and Michael has enjoyed the reactivation for healing prayer and other ways of bringing the Holy Spirit’s presence into peoples lives. Michael is also active in a group of Chaplains and who all came through the International Fellowship of Chaplains, IFOC. He has found the Global Awakening training on healing prayer and deliverance invaluable within the Chaplain ministry.

And, of course, the political situation here in the States is quite strange and volatile, bringing lots of changes that we are still not sure of.  But God!  God aways has us in His capable hands and has plans to prosper us and keep us in His protection at all times. So, we have no cause to fear, but only to stay in prayer and in relationship with Him, listening and responding to His voice each day, as we can.

Something that we are getting a lot more practice with, since moving to Florida, is living in community.  We live in a condominium community of very diverse people, and share different points of view on many things, and yet, we live in peaceful community and are able to share times of fellowship around a meal and the pool. 

You all are never far from our thoughts, though and are daily in our prayers.  We may not be able to physically see you all due to distance, but in our hearts you are very present.

And the condominium community where I have my studio is also a place where we are known and respected and share valuable relationships with folks from other parts of the country. One of my friends at this community is part of a quilt making group and each year they donate beautiful lap quilts for Michael to give to some of the residents at the retirement village who are most in need of a touch of God’s love.  How blessed we are!

Please let us know any prayer requests you may have, and please do pray for the USA and our leadership, that God will hold it in His hands and His plans will be accomplished in all things.

Love and prayers,

Christine and Michael Hales

Hurricane Hiatus

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Dear Friends and Family:

The month of October felt like one disaster after another!  And it is my birthday month, too!  So, I apologize for missing our regular email to you and know that you will understand. 

Sarasota will be a long time recovering from the two hurricanes, Helene and Milton.  Still many businesses and beaches are not open and won’t be for quite some time. the gulf water is not clean enough to swim in yet, but we have been going once a week for an early morning walk on the beach because we miss it so much.

Mick’s arrangement made from my birthday flowers!

During this time, in my morning spiritual journaling, God led me to read 1 Peter, and what an inspiring book to read when life is going sideways!  In 1 Peter 4:12 Peter tells us to not be surprised when we suffer, as though something strange was happening to us, but to rejoice, instead, that we can share in Christ’s sufferings and shout for joy when his glory is revealed!

We shouldn’t expect that things will always go well for us, but we remember who we do put our faith in, and we are never alone in our suffering.  Peter tells us at the end of this book, in 1 Peter 5:10  “And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen and establish you.”

One of Mick’s new cyanotypes

I hope this is encouraging to you, since you also will be having trials and problems to overcome in the days ahead.  But we serve a powerful God who loves us beyond all measure, and as we put our faith and trust ever more firmly in His hands, we will be saved.  Amen!!! As far as our news goes, I’m recovering from extensive dental surgery, but have been able to still get some wonderful creative work done in my studio.  I have several teaching trips scheduled for 2025 that I am preparing for, as well as a large exhibition of my icons at the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Saint Petersburg, Florida, January- May 2025.  Lot to organize and plan!

Michael is still working as a chaplain at the retirement village and volunteering as a chaplain for the center for the homeless in Sarasota.    

My Transfiguration Icon exhibited at the Sarasota Art Center last month

I am very excited about teaching an icon retreat in Santiago, Spain, next May and have started a conversational Spanish club here at our condo community so that I can communicate well when I am there!!

We are so very grateful for each one of you, family and friends are the hands and arms of God in a crisis! (I made that up). Really, we cannot do our ministry without your support and prayers,

May God bless you and keep you always in His hand as you go through each day and watch over you sleeping.

Love you,

Christine and Michael

Mick’s Photography Christine’s Icons and Icon Retreats

Prayers for Caregivers

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Christine and I were fortunate to catch a Global Awakening Conference in Tampa on Cultivate Revival, which was wonderfully uplifting, full of great teaching and the Holy Spirits presence. Global Awakening and Dr Randy Clark, has been such an uplifting ministry for Christine and myself, to be taught, trained and ordained through. It now has developed it’s educational component into seminary standing and is still leading mission opportunities to many parts of the world, which are totally life changing, opening people up to experiencing God at work, with His healing hand.

Our blog had a summer holiday and we are back renewed.

August started out with a major disruption at my Chaplaincy work place.  A mechanical failure in the air conditioning for the building which houses our Nursing Care, Assisted Living and Memory Care units, necessitated all the patients and residents be temporarily moved into the Independent Living facility’s common areas. This posed a huge challenge for the staff, in moving beds and patients, more than two hundred, out of their familiar surroundings. Everyone was engaged and did a terrific job dealing with this upheaval.

There was a point where some of the residents were waiting in a lounge where the air conditioning was too cold for them.  I went to find some blankets, the only ones I could think of were in the chapel, so I retrieved those and handed them out to those who wanted them. It was the sort of action which was done without thinking twice, a small gesture of care, in a difficult situation for the elderly.

Well a month later, one of the ladies who had asked for a covering, saw me and called me to her wheel chair. She thanked me wanted me to understand, how much that blanket had meant to her during that disruptive episode and she still kept it with her.

For me to get the blankets was a simple action, one I would not think twice about, but for those for whom even the simplest of movements are no longer possible, small acts of kindness carry a higher value. Inversely, small acts of neglect can have very damaging results, when one relies on others for help.

All photos by Mick Hales

The times of our lives when we rely on others for their help; when we are children, when we are ill, when we are elderly, when we have no resources or provision, when we are addicted, displaced, trapped or imprisoned. These are the fields of need to which our hearts lead us, as servants of a living God, either as professionals or volunteers. They are also the areas which are underpaid, under respected and over worked. These are the people who are asked, because of their caring hearts, to go the extra mile, to work up to their physical limits. So we find in the fields of caregiving, brown out or burned out childcare workers, nurses, teachers, prison officers, social workers, pastors and chaplains; those who stand in the gap for people who need help. These caregivers need our prayers.

What does the Lord require? Micah 6:8

He has told you, O man, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God?

Please, pray for the caregivers. They need our prayers, for their serving hearts to stay full of kindness and not through exhaustion or ingratitude, weaken into neglect or apathy.

Those who walk humbly, caring for others, cannot be overlooked by the body of Christ, for they carry the heart of Christ.

Please keep us in your prayers, for God’s strength, guidance and help as we move forward in serving Him as best we can.

Sending love and prayers to each of you,

Michael and Christine

Michael’s Photographs Christine’s Icons

Winds of Change?

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Painting by Christine Hales

Sometimes, Christine and I, get to feeling that a cross roads is approaching and God may have a different direction on the horizon for us. We start to look to see what might be calling us in a different direction. It is like being on a sail boat and noticing that the wind has shifted, as it blows over the sea some distance away, and one wonders if that will get stronger and come to you. One has a rapid bracing and alerting of the senses to anticipate what will need to be changed, which sails to adjust and how.

I expect everyone goes through such moments. If the change is radical, we naturally want some kind of confirmation before we alter course and upset where we are established, by asking God for a sign or a ‘fleece’.  Well we have not come to that stage yet, but there seem to be flags waving around us.

Homeless Chaplaincy

This morning I had a wonderful chapel gathering and communion service with four homeless people at Resurrection House. Each one there was dedicated to God and knew they belonged to His family, even though they constantly experienced, ‘not belonging in the world’. They have nowhere to call their own; no address, no bed, no coffee maker, no shower or toilet, no place they can sleep legally without being moved on, except the Salvation Army, which has it’s own issues and costs $12 a night. Existing on the streets is a dangerous place to be, especially for women. They have stories of being cheated, attacked, of the fear of drug pushers thinking they are connected to the police. They ask questions about God, about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit. They ask if they are prescribed medication by a doctor should they take it, or just believe in Jesus for their healing? Should they approach drug pushers to tell them about Jesus, and if they do not, are they walking away from what God has asked them to do? We prayed for healing, for things stolen to be replaced, for wisdom and guidance, for protection and provision.

It is hard for them. When you do not own things; cars, homes, shoes, society has decided that you do not belong. When we do not belong in society; thank God we still have a place in God’s family. God will never deny us because of what we own, but the Lord cares deeply as to whether we know Him; and in Chapel this morning all five of us did and God was pleased.

Bishop of Spain proudly showing Christine’s Saint James Icon she made for them.

After I came out of Resurrection House there was an email from the director who happened to be on the Camino de Santiago and had just had lunch with the Bishop of Spain, who shared that he had recently Blessed an icon Christine had written and given to an Anglican Meeting  House in  Santiago, for those making the pilgrimage of the Way of St James.

Christine’s ministry quietly touches people all over the place. Her teaching iconography, also has a Spirit filled presence for the students, even when it is online.

Kingdom Arts Ministry- A New Vision?

Kingdom Arts Ministry, has been quietly active for over a decade, but it may be God wants us to become more visible. We have been in touch with a group in Bradenton who are training up a team of people for inner healing prayer under the umbrella of Amazing Love Healing Ministry, directed by Rev. Dr. Sharon L. Lewis. My heart is for healing prayer and this new development is exciting to see it take off with other centers  connected in Gainesville, Lake Placid and Stuart, Florida.

Mick’s photo from his recent NY trip

There is call for ‘all hands on deck’, through what is going on in the world around us and it would seem as though we are all coming up to some cross roads ahead.

1 Corinthians 12:13. ” For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—

Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”

Christine’s painting of the Calling of Peter and Andrew

It is such a beautiful gift that we share the family of God and His Spirit, no matter where we find ourselves or what we own. Just to know the perfect love of God, means we belong, too.

1 John 4:18.  “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

Christine’s News:

I have been making short demonstration videos for my patrons on Patreon- a website where people can contribute a small monthly amount and receive icon posts that will interest and teach them about making really great icons. I’m also preparing two new icon writing classes, one for the end of this summer and the other for next March. They take such a long time to prepare, I find it works better for me if I get them finished well in advance of the due date!

I was recently barred from having an exhibition at a wealthy retirement home because they were under the impression that I would be exhibiting my icons. They won’t tolerate Icons in their gallery because they are overtly Christian! How absurd! It just goes to show that you can’t please everyone- so why try? It just makes me more determined than ever to show my work to the public, as God leads. That door was closed. Another one will open.

Well, that’s all for us this month enjoy the beginning of summer! Sending lots of love and prayers, and don’t forget to pray for us too, God knows we need it! 😊

Love, Christine and Michael

Christine’s Icons Michael’s Photography

…”Whatever is Lovely

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Michael’s Cyanotype of Myyaka Park

Michael here: I have been spending time photographing Myakka State Park and using the old cyanotype process to print the images. It gives a very rich blue color print and after much trial and error I am finally getting results I likes. It also gives me time in nature, which I find so valuable to allow all the different people interactions which occur with ministry, to mellow. Christine and I try to have a walk on the beach together whenever we can, it is a wonderful way to process some of the incidents which have been placed on the back burner during the busy times.

I hold a service, with communion, in our Memory care wing at work once a week, it may be one of the most challenging and rewarding parts of being a Chaplain there. No two weeks are the same, except I know there is going to be interference in one form or another. I read the gospel, recount a story for the scripture, sing my heart out with, ‘Jesus Loves Me This I Know’, or ‘I come to the Garden Alone.’ We all sing Halleluiahs, from Handel’s Messiah, then have communion. It is so special to see the old fingers diligently receiving the hosts off a small tray and shakily holding a small cup of wine [ the best grape juice I can find]. Even those who appeared to be asleep, minutes ago, want to receive. It is a privilege to be able to step into their awareness with Jesus, as their memories flicker of church past. I make sure I pray for each one individually, before we all wave each other goodbye. For the present, I am blessed, because I get to leave the enclosure, for them that is not a choice.

So, when I am in Myakka Park photographing, I am so grateful to be able to enjoy God’s creation, where every single detail of His creative nature reaches past my comprehension. I give thanks to be amongst His nettles and dandelions, His oaks and thistles. It is too much to reason about or analyze, but to sit as a child and give thanks for the evidence of his extraordinary loving hand. It is when we step away from God that we lose sight of God and we need help sometimes, to find Him again. There are so many appalling happenings around the world it is hard for me to not dwell in them, but Paul’s letter to the Philippians 4:8 has a better way forward.  

Christine’s Mexican Daisies that she grew from seed

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Another step forward for me this last month was making the decision to increase my time as voluntary Chaplain for the homeless day center here in Sarasota, Resurrection House. This gives me the opportunity to get to know some of the people better and hopefully be more of a presence for Jesus there.

Christine has had a busy month with a major show of her icons at the Church of All Angels on Longboat Key. She also has work in two other galleries in Sarasota. She delivered a beautiful icon of Isaiah, which was a private commission and beautiful work.

Christine: Yes, it has been a super busy time for me as well. The Exhibition At All Angels Church has met with rave reviews and one of the icons has gone to a new home. which always makes me happy! Also I’m so pleased that the large red painting of “Once and Future Queen” is on display at the Define Art Gallery- we are praying that it sells and it also goes to a new home!

I’m having some much needed electrical renovations done at the studio that will be a blessing, but at the moment it is very messy and loud and disruptive! I’m trying to keep working in the midst of it all though- I’m sure you know what I mean! I had my apocalyptic horsemen rejected for a show that was titled”uncomfortable”. I’m not sure the juror understood what the four horsemen meant! Life!

Thank you all for being in our lives, we love and miss each of you, but we know that we all have each other as we all walk on our individual and God given paths. May God bless your comings and goings and be with you at the close and beginning of each day. Please keep us in your prayers.

Love and prayers,

Michael and Christine

Michael’s photographs Christine’s Icons and Paintings

Thoughts on the Resurrection

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Life is so busy for most of us, the last thing we need is a rambling account of someone else’s business, so I’ll be brief.  Looking back over the last two months in brief, I led four memorial services, eight bible studies, I married a couple in their 80s, we went to four opera performances and the beach several times, I preached six times and did multiple services through Holy week. After all that, and much more that I skipped writing, what really is worth thinking about?

Resurrection

There is no question about it, it has to be Christ’s death and resurrection. That event in time where Christ reversed the works of Satan and offered himself for mankind to have a path back into relationship with God. An axis point, from which, God starts to call the church body back to himself. The mustard seed was sown and it is still growing, although if you did not know Christian lingo, Easter would seem more about bunny rabbits, eggs and all things sweet. How did we get here? How do we arrive at the ‘Holiday of Easter’, over shadowing  the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection?

How did we arrive at where we find ourselves now? That question is applicable to so many areas of the contemporary world, not only about Easter. The political conflicts and climate changes we see developing in our world leave huge issues for us to deal with.

However, all of these issues are undergirded by a spiritual failure: the spiritual failure Jesus Christ came to save us from. Christ highlighted this on his last discourse to the disciples as recorded in John 13:34 
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.“

This was more than He had been commanding before, that we love ‘others as ourselves’, the bar rose, to we are to love ‘others as Jesus loved us’, a much higher standard.

God has used prophets through the years to direct people’s attention to where they now stand and what they are now facing. Their message always comes with a call to action and warning.  As Christians we are to address these huge issues touched on above, with the love Christ has shown to us, and to stand firm in loving those in need. Ephesians 2:4-5 reminds us of where we have come from and our call to demonstrate God’s grace.

” But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,  even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—” 

We would be giving much sweeter gifts, if along with chocolate Easter eggs we were explaining the full story of God’s grace by Christ’s death and resurrection. A small explanation of the cost of love by Christ, will go a long way towards salvation. Michael

Christine: Amen!

And gratitude for the immensity of All that God has given us is key to living in the joy and life that the Resurrection brings. It is unfathomable, the many plans of God to save and redeem human kind. From the subsiding of the flood waters and the saving of Noah and all the animals, to the parting of the Red Sea, it is humbling to really take in how very much God loves us and wants us to be cleansed of sin and in HIs saving embrace.

When I was a little girl, on Easter Saturday early evening, we would take baths, wash hair, get into clean pajamas and go to bed excited for Sunday to come. We would wear our new Easter outfits to Church, and to me that symbolized a new life in Christ, clean and joyous and grateful!

And I am very grateful for all the opportunities God is giving me to share my work with others. I have a large exhibition at All Angels Church on Long Boat Key that will be up for two months, and various other icons and paintings on view in galleries in Sarasota. Here is a link to a recent newspaper article about the Icon exhibit:

We know your lives are probably full as well, and we are so grateful for each one of you. At the end of the day, what matters is the God we love and the people we love.

Please do keep us in your prayers, as you are in ours,

Much love,

Christine and Michael

Michael’s Photography Christine’s Paintings

Forgiveness

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Christine has several opportunities to hang her art work, both the icons and her contemplative paintings, in different shows and venues, happening in Sarasota. First Friday of the month the local businesses open for the evening and crowds promenade through downtown visiting galleries and shops. Christine has two large paintings in the window of the Define gallery, on Palm Ave, which are catching a lot of attention.

She has been working on creating icons and religious paintings, exploring how God wants her to do each one. It’s such a privilege to be able to do this work and she uses just about all of her time either teaching , praying, reading, writing, and painting. She’s pretty happy!

To exercise my creativity, I started exploring the early method of cyanotype printing for my extensive collection of photography. It has been a lot of joy rediscovering the pleasure of seeing images in print form develop and come alive again.

Chaplaincy offers the opportunity to run different programs for the activities of independent living residents and we offer at different times of the year the Alpha Course, which is a great blessing to the folks at work.

Home

Originally from Holy Trinity Brompton, Alpha has had a powerful impact on our lives when we first attended the course, on it’s initial introduction to Saint Bartholomew’s in NYC. Since then we have run the course many times for different churches and communities, always with wonderful results.

I have also been facilitating another course which the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, initiated called Difference. https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/priorities/reconciliation/difference-course

The Difference Course, sets out to teach three basic habits to help us overcome division, in relationships, in community etc. We can see how destructive division can be not only close to home, but on a large scale, we see polar opposites in politics, in the church and between nations. The three habits fall under; be curious, find out as much as you can as to how the other person arrived in their present position; be present, do not run away but be able to represent yourself and hear the other; to reimagine, a better outcome for both sides than the present.

This week in the course we were covering forgiveness and we watched a video of a white South African talking about the ending of Apartheid and what happened after the reconciliation period, when he realized he needed to take responsibility for his unwitting complicity in the ramifications of color separation and racism. The discussion about this video afterwards within the group, led to several deep personal revelations, as to how racism had affected their lives as children growing up in America on both sides. From the simplest of childhood memories, like black and white children not holding hands even though their gym instructor had told them to line up as a circle holding hands. The discomfort of early rejection and separation can easily become a root of bitterness, with one layer of hurt after another being laid on top of it, so the division is so embedded it becomes normalized.

Sadly, as we come to black history month in America, those layers upon layers of rejection, negative judgements and fear, has created a full closet of unconscious divisions between black and white people. Which inevitably breaks out as violence and hatred causing death and destruction in this land; once heralded as a melting pot of people. This has to be an abomination to God and all of us. We, collectively, placed those layers of rejection, we are all complicit to one degree or another. Some by radical racism and some with blind eyes or simple denial. And yet when another incident occurs, a killing or a riot in reaction, we express surprise at this outcome and question how could this be? Yet, we told them to go to the back of the bus, we would not hold their hands in gym class, we stopped them swimming in the sea with us, we saw them as nameless and called them ‘boy’, no matter how old they were.

I have to accept my complicity in this tragedy. Born in slavery and colonialism, continued by greed and fear, normalized by rejecting our complicity. I have to accept my complicity and ask God into a full awareness of the cost my behavior has been to others.  God is the only way forward through this tragedy and His opening the door for awareness, repentance, forgiveness and healing. Only God through His grace, can direct a way forward, for unraveling and releasing years of pain.

“See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;”

Hebrews 12:15

Please, lift up your prayers for healing of these racial divisions and that all the body of Christ would seek God’s grace to help us all to forgive, repent and heal.

Sending much love and prayers,

Michael and Christine

Michael’s Photography  Christine’s Icons

Expect Miracles

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Christmas, for Christians,  Christ’s birth, is one of the most significant happenings ever to occur in this world, it is on par with Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection. And it is a miracle! A miracle that keeps birthing more miracles is one that we don’t want to overlook!

Christmas, as a holiday celebration, can be mostly a family gathering that centers on gifts, food, decorations and carols, with a nod to Christ’s birth and a sprinkling of good wishes.

Keeping a healthy balance between those two sides of Christmas can be a challenge, but attending Advent services, reading the gospels pertaining to the birth of Jesus, they all help build an anticipation to what really is the most earth shattering reason for joy! 

I always have to add to it Christmas celebrations with my own birthday on Dec. 24, and this year a memorial service, a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day service and then there is New Year’s Eve ….and it becomes something one is just glad to have come through!

nativity Icon

My Nativity Icon at Church with myself and a friend looking at it!

But when we stand back and review the big picture, nothing else, so far, can be compared to Jesus Christ’s presence as a human being on this earth, fully human while still being fully divine.

The concept that God could have a son, to some, is fully outrageous or just plain folly. The concept of God as a trinity being in the form of a person, is equally difficult to absorb. That Jesus Christ came through a virgin’s birth and the supposed King, was born amongst animals, just goes against all reason.

And yet, for two thousand years Christmas has been celebrated and it’s significance held high through many different cultures and nations.

God is still working powerfully around the world, even when our clarity of who Christ, the Holy Spirit and God the Father are, or correctly, is and how we relate to each Person of the Godhead.

Christine and I just returned from a Global Awakening Retreat, fortunately held close to our home. It was an opportunity to look into each of the Persons of the Trinity and their interconnected indwelling. There was some excellent teaching and times of refreshing with powerful worship.

I got a word from the Lord, which has resonated through me since it dropped into my mind during a long period of holy silence, at the end of a days’ worship. ‘Stop looking back, Michael. Look toward me, your Lord.’ As I consider the many different messages in that word; of discipline, intimacy, direction, authority and security. I thank God that He loves us.

Christine’s News

We had our daughter and her family- husband and two sweet little daughters visit for the week after Christmas. Lots of fun family times and getting to know each other and bond together as a family. Michael took them to see the flamingos at Sarasota Jungle Gardens, and their other grand dad took us all for a boat ride to midnight pass! So very much to be thankful for!

I have begun two icons of early Christian Martyrs, Felicitas and Perpetua. Also getting ready to bring two large paintings to the Define Art Gallery for a February exhibition. I’ve been asked to be secretary for the Women Contemporary Artists Group I am a part of, and I’m still learning the ropes on that one. But I’m as excited as I’ve ever been to continue exploring the type of paintings God has called me to do. This year you will no doubt see some of the new work and I will look forward to your feedback.

Until next month, stay warm, and close to God. You can’t go wrong that way!

A Prayer Against Hatred

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There are two events in November, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving, which indicate we are approaching the ‘holiday season’, this is the politically correct way of addressing different religious celebrations which have become an annual merchandizing opportunity. Buddhism celebrates Bodhi Day, Wicca celebrates Yule/ winter solstice, Judaism celebrates Hanukkah and Christianity celebrates Christmas.

Community Outreach For Thanksgiving

The wonderful thing about Thanksgiving is it has not yet been pulled, full force, into the merchandizing calendar, although Black Friday is knocking on the door, by being extended in both directions, before and after. Thanksgiving has remained primarily a family affair with people focusing on eating together and giving thanks. The community where I work as a Chaplain has a tradition of raising donations for turkeys for the homeless. We are still doing it, but now we give gift cards for grocery stores, because turkeys are not always the best choice for the homeless. This way they get to choose what works best for them. We raised over a thousand dollars and the gift cards went out in decorated envelopes, through the assistance of ‘Turning Points’, an organization that provides help and hope for those in need.

Michael’s News

I’ve been photographing at Myaka, a state park close to Sarasota, as a way to stay connected to nature. Myakka River Park was hit very hard during Hurricane Ian by wind and flooding, many of the live oak trees were felled, and the park was closed for months while some restoration was undertaken. On a recent visit feeling overwhelmed by the news from Israel and also here in America, I decided to pray and it became a spontaneous prayer against the hatred that appears to be compounding around the world.  I recorded the prayer at that time and later created a video using evocative images from the park. Here is the link:

An overarching question arises, why is there so much hatred in the world? Hatred just creates more hatred. It can only fuel a destructive downward spiral, but that seems to be the only tool many select. Jesus instructed us to love our neighbors and turn the other cheek, but the skeptic says where is the power in that? If you bomb me, I will bomb you back ten times over. Love seems to be powerless against bombs. But love is not powerless against hatred. When hatred morphs into violence everyone is off to the races; arms races, abusive behavior, destruction and revenge.

Alternatives

There are some examples though, where nations chose to try a different route. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in the 1990s, helped galvanize South Africa’s peaceful transition to democracy after decades of white supremacy as the law of the land.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission granted amnesty to those who would fully confess their crimes. “Human beings can leave you speechless, really. They can leave you speechless by the horrible things they do, but they also leave you speechless with the incredible things they do. We saw so many times people who ought to have been bristling with bitterness and anger, and when they meet the perpetrator, actually being able to embrace.”

Proverbs 10:12     Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

There is no doubt humans are capable of incredible good as well as incredible evil. But when we think we can live this life without God’s love flowing through us, although we may hold all the destructive weapons of the world, they can only lead downwards. Whereas the power of love and God’s direction, can only lead us upward to healing and rebirth and connection to God. That is a choice everyone must make. Please pray with me especially during the Christmas Season, that peace will indeed rein on earth in our time.

John 15:18-19.

 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Luke 2:13-14

“They said, ‘Glory to God in heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors. ‘” The Good News: In announcing the arrival of Jesus to the terrified shepherds in the field, the angels declared God’s wish for everyone: peace on earth.”

Merry Christmas Everyone, and may Peace Reign on Earth!

Christine’s News

I’m just finishing up teaching and leading a four-day icon retreat online.  It’s a tremendous amount of preparation and it skills to make it all happen but it is very rewarding.  Many of my students have been studying with me for a few years at least, and I feel we are beginning to make very beautiful contemporary icons.  This week we are painting a very beautiful icon of the Nativity.

I am still showing some of my paintings at a gallery in Sarasota, and that is a source of pressure, unfortunately. If only I had inherited a large income to support us in our old age!  Please do pray for us, for income sources to open and for God to open new doors of opportunity as He feels best for us.

I’m delighted that I’ve been asked to be on the Board of the Contemporary Women Artists group in Sarasota. They are a great group of women artists and I look forward to getting to know them better in the coming year.

That’s all for now.  May God bless you and your family and we wish you all a very Merry and Christ filled Christmas!

Love and Prayers,

Christine and Michael

Michael’s Photography       Christine’s Icons

Sowing Seeds

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God and nature use multiple ways of getting seeds out into the world.

Going through my photos for this month’s blog, I realized that many of my choices  were pictures of seeds. This being the autumnal season, one would expect a harvest of seeds, in the form of grains, fruits and nuts. Jesus uses in the parable of the sower, the story of seeds falling on different types of soil or stone, and which seed succeed or fail. In this parable he is using the seed to represent the Word of God, or the gospel, and the type of people where it can grow, mature and spread.

When Christine and I moved to Bristol, England, after finishing training at Global Awakening School of Supernatural Ministry, in Pennsylvania, we were drawn to include Psalm 126, in our daily morning prayers. These two verses seemed to fit our situation from that Psalm and I always found them encouraging.

5 Those who sow in tears
    shall reap with shouts of joy!
6 He who goes out weeping,
    bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
    bringing his sheaves with him.

Now, some thirteen years after that eighteen month England venture, I realize how unaware we are about the seeds we have sown and what grew from them. In fact, at one point of total frustration soon after returning to the States while doing two sets of tax returns, for both England and USA, I asked God, well what was the point of our going over there?

I immediately got the answer, ‘It is none of your business.’ It took me some time to process that God was telling me, not to question, what He was doing with what Christine and I had done, but to hold fast in faith, that He was doing His work.

We so often look for a visible result while God is doing a much deeper work. It might take decades for sown seeds to bear fruit, but it is our faith that God will continue to nurture them in His way and purpose. Simply put, ‘let go and let God.’

Unfortunately that does not always satisfy our human yearning, ‘to come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.’

We have a built in desire to know how we are doing, how well we are performing. In a culture where ‘success’ or winning, has to be evident, slow germinating seeds appear to have little worth. But this culture is not the Kingdom of God’s. Walking in faith that God is working, so often requires time.

Today we would question; Why would you plant an oak tree, they take forever to grow?

Apocalyptic Archangel Michael Icon by Christine Hales

Where as our great grand parents would have reasoned; an allee of oak trees will bless our family for generations to come. Have we lost our faith that there is time for future generations? Are we subconsciously acting, from seeing the world fall apart around us with climate change and the radical challenges in Ukraine, Israel, Palestine and so many parts of the world, as though we are approaching the ‘end-times’?

In a group exhibition “The Narrative” at the Sarasota Art Center

I have been leading a bible study in the book of Revelation for two months now and it has been intense, but very worthwhile. John, the author, delivered his vision to the seven churches, in a time where the Roman Empire infused it’s culture on everything, including the churches. It was inescapable because of the glamour, domination and success of all things Roman and that included the worship of the currant emperor as divine. John had been banished to the Island of Patmos, because he spoke out to both the church and the state: there had been a fusing of nationalism and religion. A very powerful bond, which we can trace, empire by empire, through the ages producing unholy extremes behind a veil of righteous religiosity. 

We stand there again, now, wondering is our’s the final empire heading into the final time? Have we reached the point where it is too late to sow seeds for the side of the Lamb? Never, because ‘it is none of our business’ to know, how God uses seeds He sows through us, for His Kingdom. It is though our work, to show the love of the Lamb, in complete faith of His holiness to come.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1.

“The Threshold” painting by Christine Hales

Sending love and prayers to you all in these bewildering times. Thank you for being our prayer support all these years. May we all continue supporting each other in prayer until heaven calls us home!

Love and Prayers,

Michael and Christine

Michael’s Photography Christine’s Art work and Icons