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From Macaronesia (Again)

Currently enjoying a few sun-blessed days in Arrecife, the capital of Lanzarote for the second year.  Today Sally and I took a short stroll around the current exhibition in La Casa Amarilla, a small municipal gallery in the town. Last year it was an exhibition focussed on rituals around death and mourning which we visited on our last day here, preparing me for my return to porridge, though I have applied few of the more local rituals in the year since. Today I thought we were visiting an exhibition called "Gateways to Macronesia", assuming these were the lesser known (and indeed non-existent) big brothers of Micronesia in the Pacific,  without knowing why such an exhibition would have wound up here...
But no, I had missed out an "a" and "Gateways to Macaronesia" was actually an exhibition of old photographs of ports and airports across the Canaries, Cape Verde, Madeira and the Azores, with the name going back to the ancient Greek "Isles of the Blessed/Fortunate" the legendary outpost of Elysium on the edge of the known world, and applied by ancient geographers to these sunny islands beyond the Pillars of Hercules. But this unknown (to me) descriptor of these beautiful islands and its unexpected discovery today chimed with my reflections on the Beatitudes (the Greek for which is "Makarios" for "blessed/fortunate/happt") today and particularly the promise of blessing/happiness for the peacemakers, because globally we need them at present... Even these blessed islands are not immune from the ripples caused by the current activity of those who can by no means be given that label...


Blessed are you who are poor and powerless, for you have a passport to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Happy you who are hurting in heart or mind or body for you will know real healing and wholeness.
Blessed are you who are voiceless and vulnerable for you will win God’s lottery.
Happy are you who are hungry, whether it be for food or for fairness, for you will eat your fill.
Blessed are you who forgive for you will be given to.
Happy are you whose hearts are spotless (whoever you may be), for you will see God face to face.
Blessed are you who are peacemakers for you have proved that you have God’s DNA.
Happy are you who are persecuted, be it because of your righteousness,
or because of someone else’s sense of righteousness
for you too are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven.
But blessed too are you who are plagued with doubts, for you will be pleasantly surprised.
Happy are you who think you have nothing to offer for you are more ready to receive and to share.
Blessed are you for whom death is a daily reality
You who see it in the face of a loved one,
or immanently, intimately in the mirror.
Happy are you for you will know real life.
Blessed are you who have loved deeply enough to know the real depths of loss,
For you will come to know that such love cannot be conquered by death.
Happy are those who feel unloved, un-noticed, unimportant
For you are due to sit at God’s top table.
Blessed are you who are society’s unmentionables
Those who are unclean and unwanted, the unemployed and undesirables,
For you will be at the head of the parade when Christ comes into his own.
Happy are you who are depressed and anxious, anorexic and/or suicidal
For you will know that you are truly beloved.
Blessed are you who are undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers
For you will find a place to call home.
Blessed are you who have been slandered and misrepresented
For you are in good company and your good name will be returned to you.
Happy are the homeless and those from dysfunctional families
For God welcomes you into his home and family.
Blessed are you who are burned-out and the overworked picking up the pieces
Of broken lives in a broken world
Because you will know the breath of God filling your lungs and spirits.
Happy are you who say “Stop! This is not right!” in the face of impossible odds
Because God’s got your back.
Blessed are you in the midst of the brokenness
Happy are you, not hereafter, but here and now.

Shalom

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