May 2015 – Aspirational Adventures

In all I do I want to glorifying God. What on earth does that mean? And I do mean “on earth” because I think in heaven glorifying God will be easy – because He’ll be there.

I am a writer. I am away on a writing weekend with some lovely people. How do I glorifying God whilst I’m here? How do I glorifying God in my writing? I can only write what comes into my head and I do not write a very openly “Christian” story. Yes I have written poems and short stories where, for me, God is very much the centre, but that may not be open to those who don’t follow God. In fact I can see God in almost everything whether openly Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, new age or supposedly nothing spiritual at all. But how do I glorifying God in that?

I was walking this morning as the place where we are is beautiful with wonderful grounds. I had just

The Lighthouse, Tytherington, where I walked this morning with the sky a similar colour to this.

read some very tough stuff in John Piper’s “The Presence of God” book and was chatting to God about it and weeping. I was thinking of my son, who’s just been so a trauma for him of seeing a dream he had planned for about ten years fall apart and the people he expected to stand by him making accusations about him. Now I, not being God and able to see all things, don’t know how true these accusations are but you know what I love my son even if they are true. And that’s the thing, these other people don’t love him with that unconditional way I do because they don’t know him. He has had to learn to trust that I love him unconditionally. He has to learn that his stepfather loves him unconditionally. But this has taken time, has taken heartbreak for him and has taken a time of others letting him down. I know this is how God is for me. With the things that have gone on in my life, not just the last three years of dealing with too much grief, but in all the other shattered dreams in my life before and after making that choice to try to put God in the centre of my life, I have had to learn to trust that God is trustable, not just when things go how I want but when they don’t. I have learned God loves me unconditionally and delights in me even when the world falls apart around me, even when I screw up, even when I make mistakes, even when others hurt me. Its not that things happen as a lesson for us to learn form but that life is about growing to know that God is trustable even when He doesn’t do as we want. My son is learning to trust us when we give to him unconditionally. It is like he is a child again, which is what we are when we first start following God. But there comes a time with God, and will come a time with my son, when He backs off, when we back off, when the trust is built and stuff can happen that we don’t want.

This isn’t me but it is how I like to write; laptop, coffee, journals, and then the dog at by feet and the cat on the back of the couch, or visa versa 🙂

The question isn’t how can I glorifying God in the bad times but how can I glorifying God when life is just normal? It is easy to reach out when the waves crash around us and just let God hold us. It is also easy to praise God when things are going so well. Like it was easy this morning to praise God when the sun was shining, when everything was as it should be; peace, calm, sunshine, bird song, toad croaking, someone else sorting out my meals and doing my washing up. But I want to work out how to glorifying God, not praise Him but really glorifying Him in the mundane of my life, in what I write, in what I say. Not in a cheesy openly evangelistic way but in a way that is me, in a way that is natural.

But maybe, just maybe – and this is how so many of my posts are, full of questions and no conclusions – I just need to keep being me and keep just letting God be God?

The Rules of Francis of Assisi sums it up really:

Simplicity: “There is no pretense in the Franciscan Spirituality. We who live by the Rule of St. Francis strive to be the genuine article, that is, people who do not care much for fame or wealth–people who live in simplicity.”

Poverty: “Love of Gospel poverty develops confidence in the Father and creates internal freedom.”

Humility: “The truth of what and who we really are in the eyes of God; freedom from pride and arrogance.”

A genuine sense of minority: “The recognition that we are servants, not superior to anyone.”

A complete and active abandonment to God: “Trusting in God’s unconditional love.”

Conversion: “Daily we begin again the process of changing to be more like Jesus.”

Transformation: “What God does for us, when we are open and willing.”

Peacemaking: “We are messengers of peace as Francis was.”

So is God polyamorous? What is polyamorousness? Well by definition poly means more than one and amorous means loving, so loving more than one person.

Perhaps a definition from someone in the polyamorous community might help – Taken from The Huffington Post on 12/03/2013 “Polyamorous relationships are about more than just couples.”

There is a common misconception that a polyamorous relationship is really no different from an open-relationship agreement: one committed couple, with some lighthearted fun on the side. But the word “polyamory,” by definition, means loving more than one. Many of us have deeply committed relationships with more than one partner, with no hierarchy among them and no core “couple” at the heart of it all.

And from the Urban Dictionary – The state of having multiple sexually or romantically committed relationships at the same time, with the consent of all partners involved.

“Polyamorous communities emphasize love and honesty in their multi-partner relationships.”

Well God is totally open and honest with the whole world. He had people write about Him, even if at times His people have interpreted it hurtfully. He sent Jesus Christ to show the world what He’s really like, His totally love and care, and yet so often we all miss what that really means. He build His Church and said it should be a place where all are accepted as they are, all given equal status and respectability, though often people, through their own fear have made it an unsafe place. So Yes I think God is polyamorous because He loves all equally, wants to be honest and open with all people all the time, and never wants to do anything that will be harmful. Ok that can’t be said about His Church all the time but that doesn’t mean He isn’t.

The reason I am thinking about this is because of friend of mine and her husband have decided to move into a polyamorous marriage and over lunch she was telling me about it all. One thing my friend said was that you have to care for and respect yourself and care for and respected everyone in your polycule. A Polycule is the constellation of people who are seeing each other. What really struck m was this whole love and respect yourself and each other, because it comes back to the whole “love your neighbour as yourself” or as it should be “love and care for yourself so you can love and care for others”. I have seen this friend go through some amazing healing to get to this place where she can care for her own well-being and also care for the well-being of others. I wonder how often us professing Christians are at this place.

I must say I do not want a polyamorous marriage but I do realise that I do actually love others too not just my

husband and my children. There are friends I have that I do love. I do wonder if maybe be don’t get God’s love because we can’t get our heads round being able to love more than one person at a time, even though most of us do, but we are often expected to have a hierarchy of who we love most. And if we are like that then even if we preach that God loves all equally we will also want Him to love us more, or think He loves us less or whatever.

Please comments would be great from those who agree and those who don’t, but if it gets unkind I will delete them 🙂