Category Archives: Uncategorized

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

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

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!

Don’t Be Lukewarm!

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Michael’s News

I had a quick visit for some photography in Tarrytown, NY,  to shoot a house, which was great to catch a taste of late summer in the North East, with it’s exuberant plant growth.

New Chaplaincy

This month I was asked to be the Chaplain for a homeless day center in Sarasota where I served as a volunteer up until covid started. It is wonderful to be ministering with that population because there seems to be no middle road, in terms of their beliefs. They are either hot or cold in their beliefs, very few are lukewarm. So it is a wonderful challenge and very different from the working with the elderly population who I have been immersed in for the last four years.

In the book of Revelation 3:15-16, Christ criticizes the church at Laodicea with these words, ‘Would that you were either cold or hot!  So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

Whenever I read those words they come as a wake up alarm going off again in my mind.

How easy it is to become lukewarm and not even realize it; not just in our walk with God but with everything we do. The longer we do the same thing the more likely we are to become indifferently warm about it. I know when I ask some of my coworkers how they are doing today, most likely the answer will be. ‘Same old, same old’, with a broad tired resigned grin.

Gratefully, doing a ceremony completely differently can help us reexamine what we are doing usually. I had a request to do a Celebration of Life Service for a family which had just lost their father. As so often happens, due to the various family member travel schedules, it needed to be done quickly. The father who had passed was not a church goer and had requested just a small gathering when he passed. The family booked a boat and via the canals of Anna Maria Island moored close to a former property of the family. Wine was drunk, memories shared, rose petals thrown into the water, a small ceremony spoken with Psalm 23 attached, a prayer for wood workers [he had been] and we were off to find dolphins and manatees. Which we did. The sun had set by the time we were returning to port and his wife asked me, ‘Do you think we will have closure now, will the pain go?’ There would be closure but the pain does not go, but slowly, I assured. But in my own mind I questioned, have I given this man a true commendation to the Lord? So now I recognize how unfulfilling being lukewarm for the Lord is. So when we do not push through, with a full expectation and a complete request of the Lord, we are unlikely to receive it. Being lukewarm is rejected and unrewarded by our living God.

I also made a short video, Christ Our Mediator, https://youtu.be/VPlWjWoIIJQ.

The inspiration for that came from two sources, one was a banana plant we have in a pot in our little kitchen enclosure started to bloom and make bananas. How incredible that whole process is and not something we usually get to witness up close. The other source was from my ESV study bible’s notes on the overall view of the Bible. Please take six minutes to look at it and pass it along where you can.

Christine’s News

Just as the Art Uptown Gallery closed its doors in August, an new opportunity came up with the Define Art Gallery, also in Sarasota, but this time on South Palm Ave.- a very nice part of town and just on the next block to our beloved Church of the Redeemer! What a great location and opportunity! Last night was the first opening and it was packed with well wishers and local art afficiandos.

At the Define Art Gallery opening with a friend and my painting “Celebration” on the right.

Also, I’m so blessed that one of my icons- “Archangel Michael of the Apocalypse”, was juried into an exhibition at the Sarasota Art Center , opening next week. Now I’m preparing for the advent Online Icon Writing Class that will be on Zoom, Dec. 5-8. We will be painting an Icon of the Nativity. Below is the first drawing for it!

Please pray for us to be on fire in our ministry and not lukewarm, and that we can spread the immense joy and love that God has given us for all the world to see and receive, through our ministries and art.

We love you all so very much, and you are in our prayers daily.

Blessings, Christine and Michael Michael’s Photography Christine’s Art and Icons

Revelations

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Michael’s words:

Hurricane Lee is pounding away in the Atlantic, hopefully it will stay away from land and people’s homes. It is hard to imagine being at sea in a hurricane pushing 160 miles an hour wind and I hope the seafarers have managed to avoid such a storm. We were fortunate with Hurricane Idalia, we had very limited damage here in Sarasota, but those further North will be recovering for a long time yet. Hurricane Ian hit us much harder, mostly fallen trees but again we were fortunate compared to those South of us who are still restoring their flooded homes, a year later. Property insurance is skyrocketing, we had a fifty percent increase this year and most likely another 40 to 60% on top of that in 2024.

The foundations of the weather have been shaken and we could easily have more storms this hurricane season. Of course, it is not just hurricanes or storms, it is fires, excessive heat and loss of food supplies. Sometimes, it feels like the ‘Woes’ are already being released.

It is within this context that I took up reading an insightful book, ‘Revelation, For The Rest Of Us, A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus As A Dissident Disciple.’ By Scot McKnight with Cody Matchett. McKnight is leading a bible study on the book of Revelation and came upon it in his research. It is a great book and has a call on Christians to resist falling into Christian nationalism, social injustice and adopting a domination mentality. Reminding us that Jesus’ victory came as a Lamb not as a Lion, and certainly not as the dragon. The book avoids the various schools of thought on the timing and nature of the pre-Trib/ post-Trib, millennial and rapture, and sees the value of seeing the world anew as ‘dissident disciples of Jesus.’

At the same time, some of the James Webb Space Telescope’s photography of the outer reaches of space, were released, which show the extraordinary dynamic of God’s creation. The images are beautiful and apocalyptic, not unlike John’s vision in Revelation. Where God finally addresses the sin within the earth quite radically, while still hoping people would turn to Him, so opening the way for a purely holy place to be prepared for those who believe in Him; to be with Him worshiping through eternity.

Revelation was thought to have been written by John around the year 95 or 96, most likely this was not the Apostle John, but another John, who had been banished to the Island of Patmos because he was critical of the Roman Empire’s culture and the ways the church was being seduced into it. McKnight, draws many parallels within the church and American culture today.

All that being said, this is a time, where we look back at ourselves, realizing many events in the world are pointing towards a culmination of disasters or a perfect storm of maladies. We have to examine ourselves and our own responsibility for actions or inactions towards our neighbors and our God, which have brought us so far from the love and power of the Lamb of God.

Mathew 8:24 “And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.”  And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.”

Christine’s News:

After finishing teaching an online icon writing class at the end of August, I have been spending time exploring a virtual abbey-Abbey of the Arts, with an online retreat on being a monkin the world. It’s been fulfilling to connect with this Irish Abbey and go deeper into my own spirituality through lectio divina and archetypes studies. I think this will inform my icons and paintings moving forward. It’s so rewarding to experiment and go deeper with God into the creative gifts I’ve been given.

The Sarasota art gallery I had been selling my paintings at has closed, but many of us from that gallery have joined up with a beautiful new gallery in Sarasota that opens in October. I’m excited about it and happy to see how it develops. I’ll be leading another online icon writing course in December- an Advent icon retreat. I agree with Michael, these times are like being in a pressure cooker and I wonder if it’s the same for all of you? Let’s all agree to pray together for peace, safety, provision, and health for us all as we get ready to meet the times that are ahead.

Kingdom Arts Ministry, Mick and Christine Hales

Our love and prayers go to you all,

Christine and Michael

Mick’s Photos Christine’s Website Icon writing classes

Seek Alternate Route

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‘Seek Alt Route’, now that is a sign which is tempting to not notice. Quite often our reaction is, ‘Well, maybe that is not for where I am going,’ so we just continue. Then a few minutes later we come to a traffic hold up and we are stuck.

Well, there have been multiple ‘Seek Alt route’ notices about Climate Change, but we recklessly disregarded them. Our inactive arrogance as a nation, can only be seen as a sin of omission, from a Christian perspective, or maybe even more than that, when we pulled out of the Paris agreement completely, turning our backs on the solutions most of the world were working towards.

This July has been the hottest month, some say for over a 100,000 years, and there can be no doubt left that our earth’s weather is now out of equilibrium. Unfortunately our ‘Alt Route’ choices are so much smaller than they were just five years ago; that is for the wealthy nations, but for the poorer countries, many have no choices left and people are having to leave their homes. A Special Rapporteur to the United Nations, ‘said that of 59.1 million people internally displaced in 2021 across the world, most were displaced by climate-related disasters.’

The needs of so many people in this situation is unfathomable. Jesus taught the parable of a good Samaritan to a lawyer who asked who his neighbor was, and at the conclusion of the parable, Jesus asked the lawyer, Luke 10:36 ‘Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” A sin of omission by the first two travelers was not repeated by the Samaritan.

Some time ago I asked a priest, ‘Why is the church not being pro active towards making people aware of climate change?’ The answer was non comital to any action. I hope that this month of July is seen in the future as a line in the sand when the church recognized it cannot ‘pass by on the other side’ of this present climate reality any longer.

Please, join with me in prayer, that the church would be proactive to meet the needs of those already displaced by the climate change and ways to mitigate and reverse this disaster.

Christine’s News

I am preparing to teach another online icon writing retreat this month. Preparation takes at least a month, since I have to paint the icon and video each step for demonstrations. Then, edit videos, prepare talks, prayers, etc., and on top of that, my participation in the Sarasota gallery has been full on. So, here I sit, feeling ill and exhausted!! God has ways of showing us when to slow down and rest! 😔

To end on a positive note, my Saint James icon is on its way to the new Anglican pilgrimage Center in Santiago, Spain. Saint James is the patron Saint of Spain and his symbols are the scallop shell and the sword.

That’s all for now, now off to rest! Sending love and prayers to each of you, and please keep us in yours!

Love,

Christine and Michael Christine’s Icons Michael’s Photographs

Climate Change Caution!

God Prepares Us

chaplain, Chaplaincy, Icon Retreats, icons, non denominational ministry, Prayer ministry, Uncategorized, video, , , , , , , ,

Christine’s News

Christine has had a busy month with some large hurdles to overcome. Possibly the most significant has been getting permission to show her icons in the gallery she is a part of in downtown Sarasota. The gallery had denied that before and it was cramping Christine’s full talents. Now she can show both the iconography and her symbolic contemporary painting. She made a presentation to our church on iconography which was very informative and had people to color in some icon drawings while she was speaking. You can watch a video of the talk through this link-https://youtu.be/i_kKo9-Zbn0 .

Christine also shipped her large icon of ‘Our Lady of Guadalupe’, to Fairfield California. This was more of a challenge than we expected, but finally two UPS ladies, got fully behind the project and helped prepare the package to fly out. It is great how people are able warm up to a challenge, when they realize the full significance of it.

Michael’s News

We used to live in Philmont, a small village in Upstate NY. It had been a textile mill village, but all that work had gone abroad long ago, and the village was struggling, as so many rural villages do. Years ago, I felt like God had asked me to make a cross, but I put it off for several weeks, until he questioned me why I had not done it yet and told me exactly where to find six-inch nails in our basement. So, I hammered together two dead cypress tree trunks we had cut down on the property. Then I heard Him ask me to walk it around the village.

It happened to be a Wednesday evening in the summer and the volunteer fire brigade had all gathered outside the fire station and here I was carrying this big cross right past them. It was heavy, and I was totally embarrassed, but inside I felt very close to Christ. After that first time, I walked the cross several times around the village when I felt God asking me to; the young kids would josh me if they saw.

Back In New York for a Short Trip

Well, the reason I am recounting that story is because two weekends ago I was up in NY doing four days of photography.  Somehow my schedule changed, and I had a free evening with time to kill. I happened to be not far from Philmont, so I decided to look at our old house. “Why not?” I thought.

I parked my car down the road from it and walked through the old neighborhood. As it happened one of the neighbors who I had not been in touch with for five years happened to be outside his house and we caught up our news. We parted with a prayer together with his family. I thought to myself that was an unexpected Blessing and left it at that.

Well, I was in the airport days later, on my journey back to Florida, and my phone rang. It was that same neighbor. He was crying. His sister was in hospital in the last stages of her life. He asked me to pray for her while he held the phone up to her ear. Which I did, I shared my faith in Jesus and prayed with her. She passed that evening.

God Prepares Us

So, what were the chances of me being in our old village, the first time I had been back for over five years because my scheduled changed and I had time to kill; that my neighbor was outside when I walked past, and that he knew he could trust me, to pray out of the blue for his dying sister?

Maybe the reason I walked the cross through the village many years ago was so I could take the opportunity to speak for God to his sister. Of course, we never know how God is preparing us and how He may be currently using us, often not until later.

Romans 10:9-10, says there are two significant actions, to this outward evidence of an inward faith. That there is a deep inward trust in our hearts in Christ as our Lord and that we say so. Those two parts will make us want to have more of God, more of His presence, more of His love: just plain more of Him. We get drawn to seek Him out, after all it is a love relationship. With all love relationships there is a mystery and a strength we often do not value while we are involved, it is later we realize how we have been Blessed. As Joni Mitchell sang, ‘You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.’

Such good advice Paul gives in 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18.   Rejoice always,  pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 

We send you all our love, on this Holy and sacred Fourth of July, praying for peace and love, in our families, in our homes, and especially in our countries.

Love and prayers,

Michael and Christine Mick’s Photography Christine’s Icons