Month: September 2023

Categories
being real magic

We Can Do Magic

Magic of a river in full flow after a storm. Abergywngregan August 2023 Photographed by myself

Did you know you could do magic? In fact you do it every day by the things you think and how you hold on to your feelings.

I tried to write this without mentioning the people concerned but realised it didn’t make sense otherwise so I’ve had to name the relationships. Bit of tough vulnerability here!!!

This revelation came to me whilst I was having negative jealous insecure thoughts around my daughter-in-law. As I was journaling and pondering and, I suppose, justifying my feelings, I got a picture in my head of the Snow White’s wicked stepmother. From that picture this came.

Snow White’s stepmother would have been a kind and beautiful woman when the Snow White’s father pick her as his second wife. He didn’t have to marry to have someone to look after his daughter after he was widowed as some men do. He could have had servants to do that for him. He chose her, I am sure, for her beauty and beautiful nature. But she had been wounded in childhood by someone so as Snow White grew into a young woman she got jealous. Then I am sure there were times when Snow White went off and did things just with her father. This would have exasperated the stepmother’s wound. I wonder too if she also pondered whether the father looked at his daughter and remembered his love for his first wife. All this added to the stepmother’s insecurities making her feel angry dark thought inside. She then chose to act on those thoughts and, if she had been successful, instead of helping her step daughter through teenagehood and out into the wider world, she as good as killed her.

It made me realise that we can choose what magic we use and how we act on our feelings. I had a choice – 1. to be jealous and angry with this person and to send out negative vibes. Ok not a poisoned apple but something close to that which would have killed our relationship and killed my relationship with my son 2. I could accept that this was how I felt but then let those feelings slide from me, know that my relationship with my son was not based on who they were with now but on some “deeper magic”.

I could trust in the depth of the relationship with my son and no longer be jealous of his wife then give life to our time, or I could spoil everything with my jealousy.

[I was going to say petty jealous but actually it was very real and I had to accept it before I could let it go. I think too often we dismiss our feelings and so they fester about because they haven’t been truly banished.]

The stepmother did not accept her jealous feelings, instead she acted on them and went into destroy mode. I decided to accept my feelings, let them go, go to my safe place of deep gratitude, and allow a better magic to flow.

And of course as you know the answer to the Snow White story so you can guess the answer to this story. Yes we all had a great time together. There was no negative animosity. I grew in love for my daughter-in-law and got some great times on my own with my son.

The magic I made was my choice, but it comes through the healing I’ve gone, my relationship with myself, my trust in God/The Universe to have my back and love me unconditionally. Without all that I would still have that wound and be wanting to hold too tight, to poison what was, not be able to enjoy what is going on around me.

Though sometimes I think we don’t realise we can do magic so we say things about a situation or person that are not uplifting or positive, we work towards a worst case scenario, and we are not disappointed. Snow White’s stepmother “knew” that eventually Snow White would be more popular and more beautiful than her so she had a plan on what to do with her then. If I had planned in a “I know this time will be hard work” I am sure it would have been. But instead, once I’d free wrote/journaled around it, accepted what I was feeling and accepted that this was not a good place to be, ANSed myself, etc then I could believe this was going to be a lovely magical time with my son and his wife.

Because it was deep magic from being healed and knowing I am an amazing person then it wasn’t a “trying hard” but was from a place deep in my heart.

We need to all remember we are all making magic every day by what we think, feel, do and believe.

Categories
Distractions Trust God

Thoughts on Martha’s Worries

Small dog with concerns about being in the water but needing to cool off. Llanfairfechan, Conwy. Photographed by myself Sept 2023

When I wrote this I was staying in a Travelodge in Cardiff. On my first night I was woken at 5am by a lorry doing its plaintive “stand well clear this lorry is reversing” cry. Last night I lay awake worrying that I would be woken by said lorry at the same time so hence did not sleep well. Take note I am on the first floor in a locked room with a window that doesn’t open far. No one, apart from maybe Spiderman could get in. And the lorry did not get in the night beforehand either! Also the lorry did not reverse in the early hours of this morning. There was silence until about 7.30am! Well as silent as a city is.

But it got me thinking of the “bigger picture” and our “concerns”

This got me thinking about the story of Martha [Luke 10:38-42] where Jesus says “Martha you are worried about many thing but the better thing is to sit at my feet like your sister“.

We always thinking, or are told by the preacher so it gets into our common belief, that Martha was worrying about the meal she was preparing but I wonder. Often we say things, like Martha did, that are not related to our current situation. I had a row the other day about there not being enough water in the kettle to make a pot of coffee but really what I was saying was something different, or maybe I was just tired. If this Martha was really the one that is the sister of Lazarus, maybe he was sick already and she was worrying about him. When Jesus comes to raise Lazarus from the dead it is Martha who says she knows Jesus is the son of God [John 11:20] . Maybe because Lazarus was sick people had stopped trading with them? Maybe people were shunning them because of the type of illness he had?

Or she could have been worried about the local synagogue. Remember Jesus wasn’t that popular with the authorities. We don’t know how much of Martha’s family’s economic security rested with their place in their community and with the local synagogue leaders. So even though she was pleased that Jesus was at her house with his followers maybe she was also concerned. I wonder sometimes if we get concerned when people notice we are Jesus followers and make assumptions. I had someone the other day say to me that I was religious but he was spiritual and could not get his head round the idea that one could be a Christian and be spiritual. Now that sounds like a piece for another blog around what has gone wrong with the church, with Christians, that people don’t see us as spiritual beings!

I’ve got friends at the moment who are going through some stuff but seem to have taken their eyes off the bigger picture of God. Yes they pray. Yes they ask for prayer. But really they are worrying about the little things. They are worrying rather than trusting. I’m not saying this in a condemning way but I think Martha has much to teach us about how easy it is to lose sight of Jesus in the midst of the God-given ministry and life we have. She managed it with Jesus physicality with her so it is easy for us to do the same when we can’t actually see Jesus.

I think in the midst of everything we have to come back to something I feel that I keep going on about – so I might be talking to myself rather than anyone else. I was the one worried about a lorry outside my hotel – we need to start sitting at the feet of Jesus, at the feet of God, the Creator of the Universe, and we need to just listen and be and stop worry.

What is that verse about tomorrow having enough worries of its own? It isn’t like bad things won’t happen but by sitting at the feet of God we can walk through the things that go on in and around us in peace, contentment and that deep resounding joy.

Categories
Encounter forgiveness

Hagar

For me the beach alone early in the morning is a great place for me to encounter God.

The Bible version of the story of Hagar can be found in Genesis 16

At our last youth group we were looking at the names of God and by mistake I picked out the verses where Hagar runs away from Sarah but meets with God in a big way. She is the first person to say “God sees me” [Gen 16:13] Amazing.

Lots of this story we gloss over but it was horrendous and where I struggle to get my head round Abraham can be one of the founders of the Jewish, and subsequently Christian faith. Hagar was a slave. We don’t know her nationality so she could have been trafficked, stolen from her family, sold by her family. She has no past in the Bible. But she was there to be used to her mistress, Sarah. Hagar is probably very young, and probably a virgin. As we know in the story Sarah and Abraham couldn’t have any children so Sarah “gives” her maidservant to Abraham to have a child with. That is the line that is used. Do we ever think about it too much? Abraham had sex with Hagar, whether she wanted it or not. He raped her. I suspect he raped her more than once just to make sure she was pregnant. Hagar is loses her virginity to serve her owners. It is very similar to what went on in the slave plantations where the master would have sex with his slaves. Funny how we don’t often put this story in that context.

Anyway Hagar gives Sarah what she wanted and Sarah is angry that Hagar has a child and also we get the feeling that Abraham is fond of the child and possibly of this nubile young woman he has raped. Sarah is abusive to her maidservant, the mother of the child that would be classed as Sarah’s. In the end Hagar behaves like a lot of young girls I know would do, she runs away. And it says she leaves her baby some distance away to die. I wonder if she liked the boy? Can one love a child of rape? Some can. Some can’t. I am suspecting she would have been grateful if Ishmael had died. Maybe she believed that if he was no longer about she could get on with her life, forget she’d had a child. Thankfully God knew that she would always love that baby and it would always be apart of her. A baby once conceived is part of a woman forever whether it lives or dies, miscarries or is terminated, very few women every forget that baby.

So there is Hagar weeping under a tree hoping that her baby dies and she can then run away somewhere. And God appears. He reassures her. He shows unconditionally love. But here is what I find the most amazing – God tells Hagar to go back to her abusers. I know my reaction would have been to say “really! Like I love all the things you’ve said about my boy. I claim them. But to go back. I don’t think so”.

What struck me as I was doing a potted telling of this story to my youth group was that Hagar must have had to forgive Sarah and Abraham before she went back. Otherwise she would have gone back all full of anger and hate and resentment and that energy would have caused issues with her relationship with Sarah and Abraham. Hagar had to full forgive them. Then Ishmael could be a full son, could be fully loved, and could gain all that God has promised.

But I think I know how Hagar was able to forgive. Because she had had an encounter with God. Because she knew God loved her unconditionally. God loved her as a slave, a victim of rape, of abuse, of displacement. God saw her for all she really was and loved her unconditionally. I wonder if we can only fully forgive others once we know God fully sees us and all we are. God fully loves us and all we are.

Perhaps if each of us realised we were fully seen, fully loved by the Creator of the Universe then we would be able to fully see and fully love others and not be afraid of what they might do, say, take, react?

Categories
creation Love

God Made It With Love

As always the youth group I co-run blows me away every time. We haven’t met over the summer and I realised when we got together how much I’d missed them. The eldest is only 14 and yet their wisdom is amazing.

I’d decided we would do about the names of God. Unfortunately I hadn’t read the Bible verses I picked for them to read but they were so amazing and I learned so much. Firstly we read about where Hagar meets God [I’ll do a full piece on this in the next blog] which was complicated to explain but I got so much from it especially as it connected to the Forgiveness theme of the all-age service. But this was much more my revelation than the groups.

We then read Genesis 1:1 and I posed that old question of “what did God make the world with?”

One of the girls gave me an almost withering look and said “well God made the world with Love”. Wow! Of course! You know I had never thought of that before. All the world is connected with love and when we love each other and love the world all runs smoothly but when we fight, are greedy, want more, don’t trust and love each other, or when we abuse the natural resources of the world, then things are awful. Then there is suffering. It goes back to that “Why does God allow suffering?” Well God doesn’t. We do More to come on this soon.

This leads us to this bigger picture, to this need to be connected. To trusting and listening to God. God loves each of us unconditionally so that we can love each other unconditionally. Many of us haven’t received that unconditionally love from earthly sources so haven’t given it back. But if we get our heads round the God of the universe loving us unconditionally then we can love each other unconditionally. Or at least give it a try.

So with all this buzzing in my head I then read this blog by Dave Andrews. Someone I met many years ago in passing at Cross Rhythms festivals. Another connecting connection. In this post he talks about how as he has got older he has let go of doctrines and now just accepts that God is love, God loves unconditionally, and we are to do the same.

Well it seems to me, Dave, that at least some young Christians have reached that point in their teens rather than having to wait till we got into our 60s. To me this gives hope for the Church, as in big time Church with capital C, and God moving within and without.

As I was saying to someone the other day “something has to change and it has to come from those in their teens and 20’s”. Well maybe it is but I need to be connected and need to see the bigger picture so I don’t miss it?

Categories
connecting God

Connected

Connected cobwebs. Photographed by myself Sept 2023

I’ve been reading about the Red Crescent and the Red Cross lurching from disaster to disaster, appealing for donations and funding; Greek fires, Greek floods, dams bursting in Libya causing horrendous flooding, on-going strife in various African countries. And then there’s the fires in the West of the USA, floods in the South-East, on-going drug smuggling in various South American countries. Add in the migrant crisis – fear of those who leave whether from wars, famines, or for economic reasons and the fears of those who live in the countries the migrants are trying to reach. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But we live in a world that is connected. The whole chaos theory of if something happens in one part of the world it can majorly effect something in another part of the world. The migrant crisis is a prime example of this – wars and famines often in countries we have never heard of affect us here not just with people coming to try to find safety but with commodities too.

So we need to be seeing the bigger picture not just lurch from crisis to crisis, not just try to find resources for X which takes it way from Y, not just giving time this when that means we can’t give to that. We need to know what the big picture is. But, and I know I’ve said this before, we need to slow down. We need to listen, need to really listen – to our world, to God, to stop trying to logically rationalise.

But how?

I think it is by connecting. Connecting with others. Connecting with God. Connecting with the world. When we lurch from one thing to another, one crisis, one trauma, one anxiety, we lose connection. We lose how we fit into the bigger picture.

As I’ve often said I don’t go to regular church any more, but I do feel connected with God and a group of Christian friends, and with the online things that are out there. But last Sunday I went to a church service. It was the sort of thing I like; for all ages but not cheesy; a deep message; time to chat with others about the message and other things; even though it was led by the vicar he did not portray himself as the one with the answers. It did make me realise I do need, occasionally, to connect with others, to hear other people, to think. But also what happened within connecting there was that the things in the all-age service connected into what we were doing in the youth service which followed.

But I think the reason it “worked” was because I did not go along on a superficial level, did not think I was better/more spiritual/more knowledgeable than others – both in the service and in the youth group. But I went along want to connect, wanting to learn, wanting to grow, wanting more than. And because I wanted “more than” I got it.

Going back to thinking about the bigger picture and want to stop lurching from one thing to another – I wonder how often we really want to know more. Whether when we watch the news, see newsfeeds, or even read blogs about all sorts, do we really want to learn, to grow, to get “more than”, or whether we come with our ready made answers that we will then trot out to others whether they want to hear them or not?

I think to connect we need to go in with an attitude of wanting to gain from others as well as give. Then I think we might get a glimpse of the bigger picture of what God is up to in our world.

Categories
Contentment Trust God

It Ain’t What You Think It’s the Way That You Think it

[misquote from Bananarama & Fun Boy Three’s It Ain’t What You Do, It’s The Way That You Do It]

Sunrise over Conwy beach photographed by myself

I haven’t had time to post for a while. I’m also still working on some thoughts to add to series I was starting following on from my friend’s visit. So far I’ve got Hope and Free Will and a drafted post looking at Why Do We Allow Suffering? but I’ve not had time to fully get my thoughts in order as this week has been really busy. In fact last week was busy too.

But this got me thinking about how we look at things. I can be really grumpy that I didn’t get a day off last week and worked more hours than I was rotated in for and that this week has gone the same, or I can accept that this is just the way things are at this moment in time. I can look at my diary and see that there isn’t much down time and feel grouchy about that or I can enjoy each day as it comes and feel grateful for the spaces I do have. Not a false push through sort of gratitude where we try to be grateful for things but a deep into my heart gratitude that I don’t just mean with my head and my will but that I can feel through my whole body.

Now I see these feelings flip flop throughout the day. So I have moments when I feel that true deep gratitude and then I feel lighter, the children I’m working with are easier to deal with. But then being human I can then feel just fed up that I’m still at work and wish these children would go home, feel my legs and eyes aching, and then, guess what? The children pick up that energy and are harder to be with. It is my energy that changes not just my own body but those around me.

I don’t want to just be working towards the coming fortnight when I shall be on holiday but want to enjoy each day as it is. So to add to those lines

It ain’t what you feel, it’s the way that you feel it

It ain’t what you think, it’s the way that you think it

It ain’t what you say, it’s the way that you say it

It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do.

Thank you to – Bananarama and Fun Boy Three

I know I won’t get this right every time but I will try. So today, even though I am doing twice as many hours at work and can’t have time write as much as I’d like, enjoy my dog, etc, etc I will be grateful for this day, this week, this time God has given me and enjoy it to the full rather than wishing it was something else and I was doing something else.

Because “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it” Psalm 118:24 rather than bemoaning what we don’t have.

Categories
free will Mystery

Free Will

“I’m just looking, Mum” – my dog on the beach 6th September 2023 Photographed by myself

[This is the second of some blogs following on from discussions with a friend who stayed with us over the last weekend. She is exploring her faith and asking those “awkward” questions]

One of those things that comes up in those discussions about God is free will. As in “these things happen because God gave us free will” . But sometimes one does ask why!

I work at a local after-school club and yesterday was really struck by the meaning of “free-will”. It was the first day back and I wanted to give the children ownership of their after-school club so I came up with some great ideas. Did they want to do them? No! All they wanted to do was play hide and seek in the confide space of the after-school club room [a converted double garage] with very limited hiding spaces. All worked very well until they started to fight about who could hide where, who was actually counting, etc, etc. as I put away all my games I’d got out for them.

But it made me think of God and how in the Creation myth God gives humankind this beautiful garden but humankind goes “no I want to find out about good and evil”. Then later on God gives some suggestion on how to live a long, peaceful life – take the 7th day as a full on rest day, take the 7th year as a full on rest year, trust that you will always have enough, believe God will supply in the right timing.

So mankind thinks that really that 7th day is to do some extra-curricular things [sports, church, shopping, etc]. Of course you can’t really not do anything for a whole year because then you’d starve/not have enough so humankind does not give the land a rest or themselves. And then we come down to the “enough”. Humankind then decides they don’t have enough land, enough food, enough, possessions, etc and so some take more than they need. In fact most of us have more than we need or will ever use but we think we’re ok because we can point to others that have even more again. But there are so many in the world who do not have enough. And that’s not God’s fault. That is our greed, fear, and not trusting God.

So like the children in my after-school club who did have amazing things they could be doing, we reject the good because we think we know best and then we fight with each other when things don’t work out. And of course with my friend in her explorations we blame God for all that. Doh!

Categories
hope Mystery

Hope!

Conwy Beach, 7.10am 6th Sept 2023. Photographed by myself

[This is the first of some more following on from discussions with a friend who stayed with us over the last weekend. She is exploring her faith and asking those “awkward” questions]

I love a good sunrise. It always fills me with hope for the day ahead. Here on this deserted beach yesterday, even though there was a busy day ahead I was filled with hope.

Hope in what you may ask. Well just hope of a great big God, of a great big world, that all my needs would be provided for the day, that I would not walk alone, just hope

I was reading Creed: reexamined beliefs just now. In this Fiona talks about whether what we believe really does bring wholeness to us and to the world. The part that jumped out at me was the bit about Hope and I will requote her quote

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.”

Barbarba Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

As Christians what do we hope for? I mean not what do we say we hope for but what do we really hope for? Does what come out of our mouths echo what is in our hearts?

Things like do we really believe in going to be with God when we die? Do we really believe God is with us in all that we do? Do we really know we can call on the Holy Spirit whenever and they will be there?

It seems to me that there are a lot of people who still would say they are Christians who don’t go to church but are exploring the things they were brought up with. Things just don’t “work” for them. For instance how can God be a God of love if certain denominations tell us to hate people who are not heterosexual, not living the lives from that denominations view point. How can the Holy Spirit be there to guide us if we look so glum, worry about death so much, are anxious, are fearful, greedy, don’t ask for help? Etc etc.

If we aren’t living the basics – God, as in the whole full Triune God, is love, loves us unconditionally, and is there for us always – do we really believe what we then try to tell others?