Month: April 2024

Categories
garden Love

Change Anger For Love

A random selection of photos taken by myself on my walks around my local area

This post today comes with a huge thank you to Lily Lewin and her post Discovering the Garden of Love By doing a couple of the prompts from here –

Think about walking into a garden filled with Love! What would that look like? What would that feel like to you? What would be growing in that garden just for you?

And reading through as Lily opens up about her boxes she had – of fear, of failure, of not enough, I was able to put aside all my anger and disappointment about the British government’s Migrant bill that was filling my head and heart.

I spent time imagining my garden filled with Love. There were of course abundant different coloured flowers and a babbling brook, and ponds with fish and waterboatmen and dragonflies, and meadows, and trees. But there were also people of all sorts of different shapes, sizes, colours, races, sexualities, genders, ages, walking the most gorgeous snaking footpaths, sitting on love seats and chatting, smiling, enjoying each other.

The mixture of nature and humanity lifted my heart this morning. This I believe is what heaven will be like. All fear and war and greed and “not enoughness” and disappointments, etc, will be gone. All peoples will be at peace with each other, will be enjoying each other, will love each other.

I found it interesting that I could not write about this Garden of Love without putting people in it. But I think that is because I asked God for their heart and God’s heart is people. Humanity was made as the pinnacle of God’s creation so why would there be a Garden of Love without people?

This does not mean that I won’t send emails with Freedom From Torture or Christian Solidarity Worldwide or Greenpeace or Friends of The Earth or the anti human trafficking group, Anit-Slavery, but I will do it in a way that does not hurt my heart, does not make me consumed with anger and wanting to fight someone. And you know what those emotions leave me tired and not able to calmly protest.

So when I feel that anger rising I will go and have a sit in my Garden of Love with all that beauty of nature and beauty of humankind.

Here’s some Bible verses to help us all remember –

34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other. John 15:12-17

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[d] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, Matthew 5:43-44

18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

19 We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:18-19

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

I finish with my garden back in July 2023. A riot of colour plus a local squirrel sampling from the bird feeder
Categories
migrants refugees UK government

Salt To The Sea

I’ve been trying to write a post about this book Salt To The Sea, which is set at the end of World War Two in the Baltic.

While the Titanic and Lusitania are both well-documented disasters, the single greatest tragedy in maritime history is the little-known January 30, 1945 sinking in the Baltic Sea by a Soviet submarine of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German cruise liner that was supposed to ferry wartime personnel and refugees to safety from the advancing Red Army. The ship was overcrowded with more than 10,500 passengers — the intended capacity was approximately 1,800 — and more than 9,000 people, including 5,000 children, lost their lives.

Sepetys also says, in her notes at the back of the book, that two other refugee boats were bombed or torpedoed as well as two boats carrying Jewish prisoners of war. All destroyed by either Russian, British or American fire. She says how divers do not like to go near that area because there is a strange atmosphere due to the over 20,000 innocent lives drowned there.

Straight after that I read Slaughterhouse Five another atrocity by the Allies towards the end of WWII which murdered refugees who had fled to Dresden believing it to be the city no one would bomb because it had not strategic value. Over 10,000 people were murdered there! As many as in both atomic bombs in Japan!

I’ve been wanting to write about how these things have been hidden and explore ideas around the so-called-good-guys narrative and why this happens. But I’m afraid on Tuesday morning I was staying in a cheap hotel, put on the TV for the dog to watch whilst I had a shower and saw the news that the British government had passed the atrocious Illegal Migration Bill had been passed.

I spent the morning writing angry poetry that I must edit and do something with and I still can’t quite get my head around it all. So for now I am going to park it safely, not blog any more about it, but work on something to say because I believe, even though you are a smallish audience, I have something to say. But I need to speak clearly.

There maybe other blogs to come on other subjects that drift through my sphere but I will get back to this and will expand more on what I see is the connection to the two books mentioned and what has just been passed by the UK government

Categories
control shame

The Need For Control

St Asaph Monday 15th April 2024 Photgraphed by myself

What’s your default mode? What’s the place you go back to when you are feeling tired, stress, anxious, attacked?

In some of the Josh Luke Smith “Speak into the Chaos” stuff he talks about how our shame causes us to want to control our situations. And the more we let go of our shame, forgive ourselves and others, accept as Gabor Maté says that lots of what we do was programmed into us before we had logical thoughts, forgive into those situations and take agency with them, the more we change our belief systems about the world, the more we can let go of needing to control.

I’ve had a few interesting situations over the last couple of weeks where I have firstly felt myself wanting to take control but have ANSed, let gratitude roll through me and let go of the need to control. But then I have spoken something that rock the boat a bit, unintentionally. I was just saying how I saw the situation. I have then been met with a barrage of the other person regaining control in a quite forceful way.

For each of us, until we can let go of our shame and need for control we will all have a default method of dealing with that.

  • There is the person who goes tight lipped and says nothing
  • There is the one who comes out fighting – either with fist or with tongue
  • There is the explain it all away
  • There is the person who will suddenly change tact and agree with everything their supposed attacker is saying
  • There is the person who just walks away and won’t talk about the situation again.

For each, and the myriad of other types, it is a way of keeping control.

My default rolled between going in with words to fight my corner or cutting the person out of my life. I have now come to see that a lot of the time I don’t care. Like with a meeting recently where I’d voiced an issue and the other person was defending themselves way beyond what my concern had been and they gave no hint to the issue I had raised and whether it was valid to me.

Before QECing my default would have been to no longer have anything to do with this person and their organisation. I would have dismissed the whole lot, bad mouthed them to other people, and ignored emails etc from them or emailed to tell them exactly what I thought of them. Instead, no longer needing to have that control over the situation, I allowed myself to feel sad and disappointed that they did not hear my concern, allowed them to waffle on till they had finished, and then went on to the next point I had on my agenda that needed dealing with.

Because I did not go into my old default way of keeping control I could let things wash over me, decide what was important, forgive them for not hearing me, and move on.

Too often we lose the most important thing because we “throw the baby out with the bath water” because we need to keep control, because we refuse to give ground to the other person.

I think Jesus did that. When challenged he didn’t come out fighting but would tell a story to emphasis the point. He’d bring the energy of the encounter down a notch or two. But I think that’s because Jesus knew and trusted his own heart. Too often our hearts are full of shames and hurts and wounds that we ignore them, we don’t see them as important. We don’t see they are trying to communicate with us. So we shut them away. We hold on to our shame, our hurt, our wounds.

For those old enough do you remember the “What Would Jesus Do” [WWJD] bracelets, mugs, etc used to help us know what to do? Well I think in any and every given situation that arises Jesus would breath, not rush to an answer, would check his autonomic nervous system was in balance and regulation, know he carried no shame, guilt or hurts, and would be able to respond with a gentle, strong, clear heart.

If we want to get to be more like Jesus that is the place we need to get to.

Version 1.0.0

Categories
comfort zone peace

Comfort Zone!

Renly in his comfort zone 🙂

The phrase “you need to get out of your comfort zone” has always bothered me and I seem to be hearing it more and more especially within well-being self-care type settings.

As you can see my dog looks happy and content in his comfort zone. He is calm. He can sleep well. His heart is regulated. In our local park if he sees a dog he is nervous of he will rush around barking loudly. He is out of his comfort zone and so he isn’t happy. Though actually he is less frenetic within our park than if we see a big scary dog somewhere he isn’t used to.

So if we see this with animals why do we think we should push ourselves out of our comfort zones? What is wrong with being comfortable?

I can hear voices shouting “but you won’t reach your full potential” as if that is the most important thing to reach. Whereas reading some of the Henri Nouwen’s meditations he says that to know you are loved unconditionally by the Great Creator is the key. And it is from that place that you can test the waters as to what your giftings and talents are. From that place you can explore your comfort zone and see what it truly is.

I know I write at my best when I’m content. In fact a lot of info on how to write well is to make sure you are in a comfy place and are regulated. Then it gives your deepest thoughts a space to flow. If you are out of your comfort zone, in an uncomfy place, then it is hard to be creative. Always when I run a workshop I make sure people are comfy first. In fact that is my key to running good creative workshops, and probably why I run them in my own house. That way I am comfy to start with.

So why this thing of saying we need to “get out of our comfort zones”?

QEC is all about getting you from your uncomfy place, the place where your fight/fight/freeze/faun nature is running on autopilot, to a place where you are comfy with yourself, with your past, present and future, and can work from a place of calm and safety. QEC is all about “getting into your comfy place“, of no longer running from that place of fear, of unsafety, of haves and oughts and shoulds, away from that place of if onlys.

I used to do prayer days with someone who was very good at staying in her comfort zone. She did do a hard job and was very clear on her hours of doing extracurricular things. She never did the early or late sessions. She was a great intercessor, a great one for helping come up with ideas, but she did it all within her comfort zone. It was a safe creative space for her.

I do wonder, after having read things like The Myth of Normal and other books like that, if we have, as a society, come to believe that to be at peace, to be calm, to not be running at speeds beyond our comfort., is not “normal”. But that “normal” is that we should be pushing ourselves all the time, be achieving all the time, be doing something different, something “worthwhile” all the time. With the unfounded belief that this is the only way to “leave a legacy.”

People like Einstein, Da Vinci, Curie, and others great inventors, achievers, etc spent a lot of time thinking, a lot of time doing nothing and allowing their brains and hearts to be open to new thoughts and different ideas. They knew that the way the best ideas came to them was by not thinking, by walking, by just being. Interestingly too each one of them stayed within their comfort zones of knowledge rather than trying to be all things to all men.

They achieved great things by staying within their comfort zones and exploring them.

How will I, how will you, how will any of us, know what the deepest desires of our heart are if we keep pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones?

Categories
Genesis youth group

Genesis 3:15 – I Get It!!

No connection to the post but a cute picture of my dog taken Saturday 13th April 2024 exploring the storm swept beach close to our house

I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will bruise his heel

Genesis 3:15

I have been a follower of Jesus for 32 years now and I’ve never understood this verse until Sunday night a youth group. I’d sort of knowing it was Jesus crushing the serpent’s head and brutally destroying sin – though of course the brutal bit hadn’t occurred to me until Sunday night.

I might be telling you something you already know but if I am humour me. For me this was an awesomely exciting moment.

My lovely vicar friend pointed out to me, as I openly struggled with this verse and slowly gained realisation, that Jesus’s heel was bruised by mankind’s sin which of course the serpent represents here.

I’d often wondered if it had been the serpent/sin having a nip at Jesus as he was on the cross which is why he said some of the things he said. But know it was my sin, your sin, the world’s sin, that was causing the bruising to Jesus. And … now here’s the really exciting bit that I knew anyway …. Jesus took all that sin – mine, yours, the worlds – all those bits where we had missed God’s mark, gone our own way, done hurtful things to others and ourselves. He had taken that. But he was hurt by it.

It was not a blase-this-is-my-role sort of thing. And it wasn’t just the nails and the beatings etc that hurt. It was taking those things that came in through the serpent, thought the deceiver, that have then caused our world to be filled with wars and pollution and greed and selfishness and fear and [add your own because there are so many more]

So Sunday night I went from “that’s an odd verse and I don’t get it” to “oh my I can understand now why we need to memorise this verse”. The Six Beats One Story even suggests the young people colour in the verse to help them remember. Well now I can understand why they suggest that.

And again Sunday’s youth group just showed me that the Bible always has new things to reveal to us!

Categories
Brutal Genesis

That Snake!!

Adam and Eve Albrecht Durer by Los Angeles County Museum of Art is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Would you trust that snake?

I’m just back from my visit to my Mum’s and have lots to catch up on but yesterday was youth group night. It has been a while since we’ve done youth group due to people being away and what not. As always it was a breath of fresh air.

We’ve decided to work through a booklet by from the Bible Society by Dai Woolridge called Six Beats One Story. That’s always a challenge for me. I’m a bit of a one for going off on tangents but also can get a bit task orientated and rush through it. Thankfully the vicar I work with is great at slowing me down or stopping the tangents going too far off piste.

Yesterday we were at the beginning – Genesis 1-3 where God makes the world, God makes humans, the serpent tempts the people and people leave the perfect place with God, sin goes wild, Noah and the ark!

In every part of this study there is a spoken word poem to go with it. I think you might be able to listen to “Beat 1” if you click on the link! After telling the tale and reminding us the Genesis 3:15 foreshadows Jesus it finishes with

Where the raucous chant of evil gets hushed

as the seed’s heel gets bruised

but the serpent’s head … gets crushed

There was silence at the end then one of our girls says “that was brutal”as to the serpent having it’s head crushed in this age of David Attenborough, etc and caring for animals. There then followed a great discussion of how we do need to be harsh and brutal in crushing sin in our lives and helping others to do it in theirs. As someone’s son said in the family service previously he doesn’t like it when his dad says No but actually sometimes saying No though harsh helps!

But what got me thinking was how attractive the serpent must have been. Imagine you are living with God, you are fully understanding of what unconditional love truly is, you want for nothing. What would tempt you to turn from that? What would tempt you to do what was asked for you not to do?

I really don’t think some slimy snake [ok yes I know snakes aren’t slimy but I mean so low-life] just popped up one day and say “hey eat that thing you were told not to do”. I don’t think you would just say “yes ok”. I think the serpent deceiver was about chatting with Adam and Eve, whispering things to them, chatting away. Hanging out with them when God wasn’t about. It does say God only walked with man in the cool of the evening. So maybe Mr Cool Snake was hanging around during the day.

Also I think that deceiver did what it is still doing now – told us that actually we didn’t need to wait to ask God whether this was not so much a good/bad idea but whether it was what God had for our lives. The attractive wily deceiver suggested that we knew best, that we could just plough on and do this because it was a good idea. Like I said it doesn’t matter whether it is a good/bad idea but whether it is right for us.

I’ve just had recently a really great thing put to me that sounded perfect for who I am. I did the thing of saying Yes and moving forward with it without checking in with God. All the bodily things that happen to me when I’ve done thing that isn’t right for me started going on so then I took it to God. And of course now I have to slowly slide out of that thing that seemed to good.

Yes there are a lot of really evil, wicked, sinful things that people do that need to be brutally crushed. But I think we also need to brutally crush that tendency inside of each and everyone of us to do things our independent way instead of God’s way.

Sin is missing God’s mark and going our own way and we need to crush that serpent brutally each and every day!

Categories
dog prayer

A Little Trip Away

This is a photo from April 2015 when the dog and I were off on a train to see my daughter in London but he still has that same excited face whenever i start to pack.

My husband can go off on trips and the dog doesn’t seem to get so excited by it, or nervous. But if I put a bag of any kind – whether holdall or suitcase – but my side of our bedroom and start to add clothes to it Renly gets clingy and won’t leave my side. He knows something is going on.

Well this week we aren’t going far. It is my first trip to see my Mum this year. We left it would be good to leave it until the storms of winter had passed so it was safer driving down. The last time I went in December I had a storm follow me down the M6/M5 most of the way. Well tomorrow we travel down in the aftermath of Storm Kathleen, which I think is the first storm since the one I drove down in at the end of the last year!!!!!

If it rains I have to pray more, not just for my safety but because my faithful traveler, who used to enjoy a good road trip, has got scared of the noise of the swish of the rain under the car as we drive along. So it will be 4-5 hours of the radio up loud and me praying that angels calm my dog.

To me honest last time it was only the praying that angels hugged my dog and kept him calm that stopped him barking not the £15 calming spray I lathered the inside of the car in!!!

Again it seems a bit of a lesson still being learned – Pray sooner!!! Hopefully this trip I will learn that and trust that God and the angels will travel with us and keep my road-trip companion calm and quiet.

So even though I’ve got a growing list of things I have ideas for blogs on they are going to have to wait until I return next week and see if they are still ideas I want to pursue or whether things have moved on.

Have a good week X

Actively waiting for the train. April 2015

Categories
enough prayer

Why Does It Take So Long To Remember to Pray?

Last night this little man was not very well [This is not a photograph from last night :)] He woke about 10.30 and we were up and wandering the streets till about 1pm with him with a squiggie tummy. Thankfully I live in a very safe area and did not see a soul whilst wandering about. And also the promised rain did not appear during the times I was out.

Eventually we crawled back into bed again and he wrapped himself around me like a child with a bad tummy needing a hug. It was then that I prayed for Jesus to heal Renly’s tummy and for me to get a good night’s sleep – what was left of it. Of course Renly was asleep in seconds and slept in until gone 7 and I was asleep not long after and woke when the next door neighbour started his car to go to work just before 7.

What struck me was why didn’t I pray sooner?

From the moment Renly woke I work through a range of emotions. Some of which were: resigned that this is what I had to do; being mad at him for eating some that had upset his tummy; being angry that once he was outside he seemed more than happy to be going for a walk on a street light pavements; gratitude that we live in a safe neighbourhood and do have grass pavements; fed up with myself that I kept getting dressed and didn’t just make him go in the backyard rather than the street; to just a bit fed up with it. Nearly 3 hours it took me before I thought of praying!!!

How often do we all do that? Especially if it is a situation we can cope with? We take the “I can handle this on my own” attitude rather than “Ok Father I need someone to lean on”.

It wasn’t lack of faith or lack of trust because once I prayed I truly believed God would heal my dog and give me the sleep I needed. I just took a while to get there. Perhaps it comes from something deep seated about not wanting to worry God about trivial things when there is so much else going on in the world?

I am grateful that even though I was independent to begin with God didn’t tell me I should have asked soon. No God just got on and healed my dog’s tummy so that we could both sleep.

There’s no reprimanding with God. No blaming. No if onlys. No “you should have asked sooner“. God just always turns up when we turn to God and is there for us. And for that I am more than grateful.

And I only hope I can remember this and pray sooner, give the whole thing to God sooner, and be able to rest in the situation. And not think that my stuff isn’t important ‘enough‘ to bother God with!

Categories
Holy Week pondering

Thank You For Walking Through Holy Week with me

Abergwyngregyn Nature Reserve, Gwynedd, North Wales. Photographed 2nd April 2024

I want to say a huge thank you for journey with me and my random thoughts through Holy Week and beyond. I don’t know about you but I’ve really enjoyed marking this space and looking at things a bit differently. I’m not sure about you but for me, sometimes, to turn things on their side helps deepen my faith, whereas looking at things the same way as I’ve always done can make things a bit stale.

This morning I cemented my Holy week and beyond thoughts by taking myself for a walk at one of my favourite places. It is a walk of about 3-3 1/2 miles and takes about 90 mins. It is by the sea looking across the Menai Straights but with the sounds of the A55 North Wales Expressway and the main Holyhead to Cardiff railway line running always to the other side. It is a place where my dog can be off the lead for the whole 90 mins which I enjoy for him as much as for myself. Also a 3 min drive from the walk is the most wonderful community cafe where the dog gets a free sausage and I get a wonderful breakfast so very much a win-win!

I saw one other person on the whole walk and he was standing peacefully looking out to sea and we just exchanged that polite “Morning” before going back to our own thoughts. I have lots of thoughts from it which I will share later on, maybe.

But I will end these Holy Week and beyond ponderings with a prayer by Walter Brueggemann that Joshua Luke Smith shared on yesterday’s The Main Event email

On Generosity

On our own, we conclude:

there is not enough to go around

we are going to run short

of money

of love

of grades

of publications

of sex

of beer

of members

of years

of life

we should seize the day

seize our goods

seize our neighbours goods

because there is not enough to go around

and in the midst of our perceived deficit

you come

you come giving bread in the wilderness

you come giving children at the 11th hour

you come giving homes to exiles

you come giving futures to the shut down

you come giving easter joy to the dead

you come – fleshed in Jesus.

and we watch while

the blind receive their sight

the lame walk

the lepers are cleansed

the deaf hear

the dead are raised

the poor dance and sing

we watch

and we take food we did not grow and

life we did not invent and

future that is gift and gift and gift and

families and neighbours who sustain us

when we did not deserve it.

It dawns on us – late rather than soon-

that you “give food in due season

you open your hand

and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”

By your giving, break our cycles of imagined scarcity

override our presumed deficits

quiet our anxieties of lack

transform our perceptual field to see

the abundance………mercy upon mercy

blessing upon blessing.

Sink your generosity deep into our lives

that your muchness may expose our false lack

that endlessly receiving we may endlessly give

so that the world may be made Easter new,

without greedy lack, but only wonder,

without coercive need but only love,

without destructive greed but only praise

without aggression and invasiveness….

all things Easter new…..

all around us, toward us and

by us

all things Easter new.

Finish your creation, in wonder, love and praise.

Amen.

Categories
Holy Week Monday

Emmaus Road

So maybe this happened Easter Sunday but there’s enough going on I thought I’d share this to. Found in Luke 24:12-35

Scholars like NT Wright and Wayne Grudem have argued that maybe Cleopas was walking home with his wife Mary The artists are Sr Marie-Paul Farrar OSB and Maximo Cerezo Barredo who painted several versions of the meal. Thank you to David Pott for bringing this to my attention.

How often does someone take something, decide they are seeing it as it should, gone on to tell others and that has become fact? It isn’t just in preaching from the pulpit but in many areas of life.

In this story it mentions “that same day two of Jesus’ disciples were going to the village of Emmaus”. It then goes on to mention Cleopas by name. Cleopas has never had a mention in any Jesus stories up to now but he is named by Luke the historian as a disciple. The other disciple never gets a name. It also never says if they were traveling just the two of them. They may have been with a crowd of friends who were not classed as disciples by Luke. So to just says “two of Jesus’ disciples” is accurate but not necessarily the whole story. It could have been just Cleopas and a friend; just Cleopas and his wife, who was also a disciple; Cleopas, his wife and a friend, two of whom were disciples; Cleopas with a small group of people heading home dejected after what had gone on, where Cleopas and someone else were disciples.

It amazes me how we are so quick to make assumptions, which with many of the Bible stories then get “set in stone” by years of preaching. And even with this new thought with these paintings and two amazing scholars making us look at it differently. We do still have to be very careful we don’t take this as the true and accurate picture.

The other day a friend of mine was talking about someone who was self-harming. God led me to pray for this person and I was able to suggest an idea to help my friend help her friend. My friend said this was very helpful because this friend of hers was very intelligent and was a retired professional. Well because I’d been told this person was self-harming I had a picture of her in her 20-30s, brassy blond hair with money problems. My friend hadn’t said that. There was nothing in her narrative that told me that but that was my stereotype from the information I have bubbling around in my brain.

So this is why I think we have to be really careful about how we stereotype and pigeon-hole things. Just because the person in authority in church has been telling us this for many years does not make it true.

But as I was reading this story and writing this blog it suddenly struck me – why did Jesus go and meet up with these people; be they 2 or many? What was it about them that was special?

In Luke’s account we have the women going to the tomb with spices and being told by the angel that Jesus was risen. They then go back to tell the “eleven apostles” [Luke 24:12] who think it is nonsense. Though Peter does go to have a look for himself. So why is Luke’s next scene of the risen Jesus with these two disciples on the road to Emmaus – a place that is not named previously and a disciple who is not named previously?

I think this is why we need to really get lost in the scripture. Most of the Bible is not a great way to learn about storytelling because it comes with many plot-holes. But it is an amazing place to not take things as given, to spend time listening to many different opinions but also spend time exploring it for yourself.

And the exciting thing, because the Bible is called the LIVING WORD of God then it will keep changing depending on how you read it and what God needs to highlight for you. Now that is exciting.