<html><body>Part 2<div><br></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">How often has this happened to us? We get so involved in what’s going on that we forget to nourish ourselves and others. Possibly through no fault of our own we don’t notice that the wine supply is running low , or our ability to replenish it is jeopardised. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">We forget that the essential wine for the celebration of our lives cannot be dispensed with. We go through the motions. We put one foot in front of the other. We seem to turn more and more within ourselves, and we isolate ourselves from others or they isolate themselves from us. We lose interest in what’s happening next door. We begin to become suspicious of others. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">We don’t listen. We lose the ability to empathise, to see that we’re all engaged at the Banquet of Life As long as we have our own bottle of wine or bunch of grapes, we don’t care whether anyone else has one. And if our bottle is beginning to look a little small or is getting down towards empty, we become incredibly defensive and the festivities become blighted. And we may well end up by saying, “We have no wine.” The life been drained from us.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“They have no wine” – remember, though, these are Mary’s words to her Son. Someone, thank God, someone has her pulse on the party and is able to cut through everything, to see exactly what is needed and how to resolve it. And, thank God, however grudgingly, however surprisedly, Jesus responds. He takes the commonest elements and transforms all of life with them so that life, so that the relationships, may be strengthened, so that people will no longer have to worry about from where help and hope are going to come.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Still today, people’s hearing and vision can be so out of tune that they don’t hear or see that the wine supply – their own supply and that of others – is in need of replenishing. There are times when we all fail to see our impoverishment as humans in the party of God’s creation.</span></div><div><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">“They have no wine” – that was the cry going up from Madaya in Syria. “</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Madaya is surrounded by government forces and their allies. The last time it received aid was October 18.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “Its fate is linked to a similar siege of the towns of Foua and Kefraya, which are surrounded by rebels.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “But Madaya's plight has worsened since attacks on the nearby town of Zabadani have led to 10,000 more people flooding into Madaya.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “Aid agencies have tried to help, but only after a sustained social media campaign did the U.N. manage to broker an agreement with the Syrian government to access the city.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “Aid agencies have complained that their requests to access many areas in the devastated country are not honored by the warring sides.” <sup>1</sup><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> </span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">By Thursday, at any rate, two convoys had been able to reach the people. “</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Children stood around trucks in freezing weather, ‘so polite and civilized, asking if we had a biscuit,’ a United Nations aid worker said.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> "‘The children we met are fed once a day with hot water and spices. Malnutrition is everywhere,’ the aid worker said.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “They have no wine.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> This didn’t happen overnight. For more than six months, the supply of everything has been shut down. Hot water and spices – siege soup, as the people there call it – is what they have, if they’re lucky, once a day. Supplies were getting lower and lower, but no one paid any heed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> “What has this to do with us?” we might say, many people have said. It’s not our party. It’s not our group. “My<span style="color: rgb(38, 38, 38);"> </span><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">time,” your time, “is not yet,” we may have said, some have said. But the party is everyone’s Banquet. The marriage – the relationship </span>of human to human and human to God – the relationship is everybody’s marriage.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Or Flint, Michigan. “They have no water.” What’s <b><u>THAT</u></b> to us? Except, without contaminant-free water, people will die, or be damaged physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, that there will seem to be no marriage, nothing to celebrate.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> And all this at the start of ministry. The change is enormous. Jesus could have said, “Forget it. It’s just too much. I can’t take care of everybody and everything.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> We may say the same. How on earth can we supply Syria, and Michigan, and the flood-ravaged areas of the U.S., <b><u>AND</u></b> take care of the folk in Albany as well as ourselves?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> Perhaps if you and I can, together, help each other to see that these and every other situation are but separate groups, in different rooms, at the same party, then we may find the imagination and the will-power to go to the person, to the group, to the nation, and to say, “They have no wine!”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="zn-bodyparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> And even if we stop there; even if we keep ensuring that people know about the danger; that people become aware that some – millions, actually – cannot experience the fullness of life; even if simply verbally and plainly making sure that people know that some have no wine, then we’ll have done what we can.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> But there are others, among ourselves as well as out throughout the world, others who </span><u><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">CAN</span></u><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> transform the situation. All it took in Syria – and I know this is an incredibly huge all! – all that it took in Syria was getting clearance and a safe pass for those convoys. Perhaps we may not think that we have the power, the skill, the vocation to do anything about it. But we can try. We may surprise ourselves. As Steve Charleston pointed out, we may do “more good than we may ever know.” We may help others and never realise it. We may be “an answer to more prayers that (we) will ever hear.” <sup>2</sup></span></p><h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> “They have no wine.”<o:p></o:p></span></h1><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">NOTES:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px;">[1]</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> <i>“</i></span><i><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Starving Syrian town: How did Madaya get so desperate?” </span></i><span class="metadatabylineauthor"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">By</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><span class="metadatabylineauthor"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/profiles/nick-paton-walsh"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">Nick Paton Walsh</span></a>, CNN </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">Updated 2:53 PM ET, Tue January 12, 2016 <span style="color: rgb(38, 38, 38);"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/12/middleeast/syria-madaya-qa/index.html">http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/12/middleeast/syria-madaya-qa/index.html</a></span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></h1><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">2</span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <span class="textexposedshow"><span style="background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Steven Charleston 11<sup>th</sup> January, 2016 Facebook blog</span></span></span></p></div></body></html>