Coincidence!

E-mail from Alice:

"strange coincidence!  your last email, under the subject heading 'Jonah!' has appeared in my Inbox just above Fr Rohr's meditation under the subject heading 'The Sign of Jonah'!"
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A friend of mine sent me this last week and so I thought I'd share it as it seemed to reflect some of the ideas behind my Jonah painting. (Plus it was a bit random).

Image: road100_4303.jpg, by xandert on morguefile.com    Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation Seven Themes of an Alternative Orthodoxy Sixth Theme: The path of descent is the path of transformation. Darkness, failure, relapse, death, and woundedness are our primary teachers, rather than ideas or doctrines (Process). The Sign of Jonah Meditation 26 of 51 No sign will be given you except the sign of Jonah.   — Luke 11:29 This clear one-liner of Jesus feels rather amazing and largely unheard. Especially since our logo became the sign of the cross. Maybe they are the same sign? Indeed it is not a sign at all, but more an anti-sign. It seems to demand that we must release ourselves into a belly of darkness before we can know what is essential. It insists that the spiritual journey is more like giving up control than taking control. It might even be saying that others will often throw us overboard, as was the case with Jonah, and that will get us to the right shore—and even by God’s grace more than any right action on our part. Jonah knew what God was doing, and how God does it, and how right God is—only after emerging from the belly of the whale. He has no message whatsoever to give until he has first endured the journey, the darkness, the spitting up on the right shore—all in spite of his best efforts to avoid these very things. Jonah indeed is our Judeo-Christian symbol of transformation. Jesus had found the Jonah story inspiring, no doubt, because it described almost perfectly what was happening to him! Adapted from Wondrous Encounters: Scripture for Lent, pp. 31-32 (También disponible en Español)