Heart Centred Holistics

17/02/2026

Interesting 🙏

MELCHIZEDEK HAS NO GENEALOGY, NO BEGINNING, NO END — AND THAT SHOULD MAKE MODERN THEOLOGY UNCOMFORTABLE

Most people read past Melchizedek as if he were a side character. Genesis 14 introduces him without warning. No father listed. No tribe mentioned. No origin story. He appears, blesses Abraham, receives a tithe, and vanishes from the narrative. That silence is not an accident. It is a theological shock.

Genesis calls him both the king of Salem and the priest of God Most High, long before Israel even existed. That alone breaks expectations. The priesthood had not yet been established through Levi, yet Melchizedek stands as a priest greater than Abraham. Hebrews 7:3 leans into the mystery, saying he is “without father or mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life,” resembling the Son of God. Scripture does not say he literally had no parents. It says his record is intentionally absent. The mystery is the message.

Modern readers try to force Melchizedek into neat categories. Some say he was just a historical king. Others claim he was a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. Still others reduce him to symbolism. But the Bible refuses to flatten him. Psalm 110:4 declares that a coming Messiah would be “a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” That means his existence points forward to something eternal, something beyond tribal religion.

Here is where the story becomes confrontational. Abraham, the patriarch everyone honors, gives Melchizedek a tenth of everything. Hebrews 7 argues that the lesser is blessed by the greater. That means this mysterious priest outranks even the father of Israel. The entire Levitical system that came later stands in the shadow of a priesthood that existed before the law was given.

Why does this matter? Because it destroys the idea that access to God is controlled by lineage, institutions, or human authority. Melchizedek represents a priesthood that comes directly from God rather than through ancestry. That is why the New Testament connects him to Jesus. Christ does not come from Levi. He comes from Judah. Yet He is declared a priest forever through a higher order — the order of Melchizedek.

Many believers want tidy answers. Scripture offers tension instead. Melchizedek stands in the text like a shadow that refuses to be fully explained. He shows that God’s plan was always bigger than the system Israel would later build. The bread and wine he brings to Abraham in Genesis 14 foreshadow a covenant meal that Christians recognize in the Lord’s Supper. The king who blesses without genealogy points toward a Messiah whose authority does not depend on human lineage.

The real controversy is not whether Melchizedek looked kingly or mysterious. The controversy is what his existence means. If there was a priesthood before Israel, then God’s redemptive plan never belonged to one nation alone. If Abraham bowed to a greater priest, then pride has no place in the covenant story.

Melchizedek remains one of the most unsettling figures in Scripture because he disrupts every category people try to build. He appears without explanation, blesses the father of faith, and disappears while pointing directly to Christ. The Bible leaves him mysterious on purpose. The question is not whether we can solve him. The question is whether we are willing to accept that God’s order existed long before human systems tried to define it.

14/02/2026

❤️

Before roses were wrapped in cellophane,
before cards were chosen and signed in a hurry,
before tables were booked
and expectations quietly rose,

there was Love.

Not the fragile kind
that depends on mood
or memory
or whether someone remembered the date.

But the steady, covenant-keeping,
cross-shaped love of God.

Love that saw us
before we were polished.
Love that chose us
before we were impressive.
Love that held us
before we understood what holding meant.

We love
because he first loved us.

Not because we’re good at it.
Not because we’ve mastered patience
or always get it right.
Not because our hearts are tidy.

We love because God is love.
Because the faithful God
has poured his mercy into our cracked places.
Because the holy God
has called us beloved.
Because the constant God
has refused to let us go.

On a day the world names for romance,
we remember the deeper truth.

We are already loved.
Fully.
Fiercely.
Without condition.

And from that love
we learn to forgive.
We learn to soften.
We learn to try again.

We love our neighbour.
We love the difficult ones.
We even learn, slowly,
to love ourselves.

Not with sentiment.
But with the strong, rooted love
that flows from the heart of God.

Because before any of us
ever whispered the word love,

Love
whispered our name.

© E Hamilton 2026

13/02/2026

💕💕💕

🌿You are not measured by your to-do list. In Irish, there’s a word that reminds us what truly matters: Croí🌿

(pronounced kree)

In old Irish society, a person’s value was not counted the way we count it now. The early Irish laws, the Brehon laws, did not measure a human being by how many tasks they finished in a day.

A person’s honor price, their lóg n-enech, was tied to their character, their integrity, and their keeping of promises. Reputation mattered.

Generosity mattered. Loyalty mattered. A person could lose cattle. They could lose land. They could lose a harvest.

But what truly lowered someone in the eyes of the community was cruelty. Dishonesty. A hard heart.

What raised them was fairness. Hospitality. Steadiness.

Not how productive and busy they were.

A good name was earned by how someone treated others, not by how much they managed to accomplish before nightfall.

Croí… It means heart.

Not just the one beating in your chest, but the deeper kind. Your kindness. Your warmth. Your softness. The quiet goodness at the center of who you are. In Irish, when someone is described as croíúil, it doesn’t mean they were productive. It doesn’t mean they were successful. It doesn’t mean they crossed everything off their massive list. It means they were good-hearted.

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned a harsher lesson. That our worth is measured in finished tasks, clean rooms, and long lists at the end of the day. If the list is done, we feel worthy. If it isn’t, we feel like we’ve wasted the day. But the old Irish heart wouldn’t measure a life that way.

Maybe today you meant to clean three rooms, work on two projects, and do four loads of laundry. But instead, you sat and tried out a new sketchbook, or reached out to a friend you hadn’t seen in months. If you have children, maybe you drew pictures with them.
You listened to someone share their story.
You wiped away a neighbor’s worry with a kind word.
You laughed with a friend over tea.

Or maybe you just nourished your soul by curling up with a good book and a cuppa.

You kept up with life as best you could, and when the house grew quiet, or the day ended, you thought, “I didn’t get anything done today.”

But you did.

You used your croí. You gave your time. Your patience. Your warmth. Your presence. You made someone feel safe. You made someone feel loved. You made memories that will last far longer than a clean floor or a finished task.

So if today was full of chores and accomplishments, that’s wonderful. But if it wasn’t, you still carried something more important.

If all you did today was comfort a child, or reach out to a friend just to check in, there is a good croí in that. If you were gentle when you were tired, there is a good croí in that. If you offered someone a kind word or a listening ear, that is the work of a good croí.

If all you did today was make it through the day and try to be kind to yourself, just for a moment, there is a good croí in that too.

You are not only what you produce. You are not only what you finish. You are your kindness. Your patience. Your warmth. Your love. All of that lives in your croí.

So take a breath.

Put the list down for a moment.

A good heart has always mattered more than a long list of chores. If you carried that goodness with you today, then the day was not wasted at all.

23/01/2026

💕

18/01/2026

💕💕

This 'mystical and ghostly' lake in County Antrim is a one-of-a-kind natural wonder and it's open to visitors

15/01/2026

Love this 💕

14/01/2026

💕light 💕

The light of Epiphany is the light that illuminates God’s heart for us to see. First, in a guiding star, then in the heavens breaking open, this revealing light leads us to Jesus, the One who is himself the Light of the world. The expression of God’s heart—for us, and with us. The life of Jesus is a constant revelation to his contemporaries—the glimpses they receive are wholly unexpected (and only *mostly* welcomed). The belovedness spoken at that baptism was lived out in the care for the ones who are often ignored, touching the unclean, loving the broken, inviting each person’s full, beloved humanity to the table.

And Jesus continues to be God’s revelatory light in a world that often seems darker by the day. We reel at the violence, the injustice, the ways beloved humans are not treated with dignity and care, the way that expands into whole systems and shows up in the smallest details of a single life.

This week, as you notice these places—in your own life, in the life of your community, or the world—that feel confusing, heartbreaking, lost… consider keeping an eye out for the glimpses of Epiphany light in the midst of it. What is God illuminating for you to see, even in your awareness of the personal and political realities that can feel so disorienting?

There is also a progression, from the original, creative “let there be light” to the guiding starlight to the unveiling of Christ in the waters of baptism to Jesus naming “I am the Light of the World”…to the place in the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus says “YOU are the light of the world.”

What if the light of Epiphany is not just something witnessed from afar, but something that pours through and out of you? How might you your-beloved-self, be an expression of Epiphany light—not as one more thing to try to *do*, but just in who you are as you let the light permeate your being and offer its glow out into a space that needs illumination so, so deeply? Even when you're having a hard time seeing it yourself, can you trust that this light *is* in you, on you, reflecting God's heart into spaces desperate for a glimpse of goodness, truth, and beauty?