Author: dianewoodrow

I married Ian in 2007. I have two grown up children, who I home schooled until they were 16. My son has just joined the army, my daughter has just moved to Cardiff.
I have a degree in History and Creative writing and a PGDip in using Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes.
Until Feb 2016 I lived in a beautiful part of England and now I live in a beautiful part of North Wales where my time is filled with welcoming Airbnb rental guests, running writing workshops, writing, serving in my local Welsh Anglican Church, going for long walks with my little dog, Renly, and drinking coffee and chatting with friends

Categories
empowering

Age of Maturity!

Photograph taken from https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Keir-Hardie/ Read more about this amazing man here

Because Keir Starmer has the first name as one of the founders of the Labour party, Keir Hardie, there have been a few articles about the original Keir. Do read more about him.

But what struck me was that Keir Hardie was only 14 when he became chairman of a miners union and only 23 when he co-founded the Labour party. This was not unusual for people to be becoming leaders and politicians at a young age. William Pitt the younger was standing for election when he was 21 and was Prime Minister by 24. Lord Nelson had his own command of warships at aged 20. And these are just a few. Ordinary people were having families in their teens.

I know we could say that happened because they died younger. But there is more too it.

Lots of the laws passed to stop children working were good but did things go to far? I do wonder if there would be less young people – aged 12-20 hanging about in parks, in high streets, in gangs, if we treated them more less like children and encouraged their potential.

We keep children young for much longer than they used to be. Ok yes back in Hardie and Pitt and Nelson’s times often these men were fighting and leading but were not able to vote so that has changed. But now we keep our young people as children at school until they are 18, followed by the expectation of many to go to university where they are still hanging out with people mainly their own age. After having a stint at university from 2011-2014 it did seem like not much, apart from getting 1st or 2.1’s in their degrees, was expected of the young people.

This year Nadia Whittome is the youngest MP in the UK parliament at 23 and is being called “the baby of the house” is some papers. And it is being made into quite a big thing. [There was a woman of 18 from Scotland who won in the previous elections but she step down not very long after being elected]

I think if you call someone the “baby” you are making them feel young, feel small, feel maybe not as able as “the old timers“. Being 23 and in the House of Commons at one time was not a big thing.

We need to stop holding our young people back!

I wonder if we harnessed some of the energy of these young gang leaders who do run drug businesses that are well-coordinated and make lots of money – if we could take that energy and, instead of holding it back by saying they must be in education until they are 18+ – by which time they are off making money – I wonder what a difference our world would be?

But instead these young men and women, who our school system does not agree with, are in and out of prison, have babies, are “lost”, vilified, and seen as no good and a waste of space.

[My tutor friend of mine was paid by the local council to worked with a young man of 14 who classed as a “school refuser” because he was running his own decorating business, including doing all the accounts, getting the correct amount of materials, etc, and could not see the point of saying at school. She understood!]

Read Keir Hardie’s story of being an the child of a single mother, working class, living in the slums, and look where he got to with not being held back as he matured and saw the things in the world that needed changing.

But how do we get to those young people have been told for so long that they are a waste of space and no good and give them something positive to aim for?

[See tomorrow’s for my take on prejudice]

Categories
freedom magic

Being Presentable

These photos come from a workshop I did with 6-8 year olds in a local school in June 2024

This quote from a fellow blogger struck me this morning

Man has all too quickly reclaimed the garden, the natural chaos is trimmed back. It’s neat, it’s tidy. It’s now very sellable. But to me it has now lost its magic.

His neighbour’s house was being tidied up after the neighbour had died to make it sellable because no one really wants a wildlife garden, even though we talk about making our gardens wildlife friendly we do more often than not mean it in a domesticated way.

It reminded me of an interpretation of the story of the Selkie I’d just read. The woman wants this wild man she had met on the beach for her own and so hides the selkie’s skin which tames him. She then isn’t so keen on him once he is tamed.

It also made me think of the children I worked with in June who really enjoyed their creative writing session once they got their heads round the idea that I didn’t need neat and tidy but wanted something wild and creative.

How often do we spend ages tidying ourselves up, making ourselves presentable, sorting out our natural chaos so we are liked by the world? Because that was what was happening with this house here, with the woman and the Selkie, with the children and their story telling; all were making it presentable to the world.

Too often we get taught as children to “pipe down”, to “stop messing about”, to “behave ourselves”. And so we learn that being wild is not really acceptable. So we try to make ourselves “sellable” and in doing so we lose the magic – the magic of ourselves, the magic of how we see the world, the magic of just being alive.

Gary goes on to say

Some called it overgrown, most called it wonderful. To me it was like a magical corner from a chapter in The Secret Garden. A place that made me smile.

So why don’t we stop trying to tidy ourselves up for a world, enter that place of Freedom, and allow our natural chaos, our wild, magical selves out. And maybe create a smile for other people as they enjoy us being our true selves.

Categories
fickle gratitude

Easy To Be Ungrateful

Newborough Beach, Anglesey, June 2024

I had a free day and it had been warm for a few days so I decided to set off for my favourite beach within an hour from my home. But when I got there the wind was blowing wildly and it was cold and overcast. So I still did a stamp along the beach scowling into the wind. Then on the way back I thought I’d check out a coffee shop we’d been meaning to go to. I’d checked its reviews and I was sure it was dog friendly. So in I trot with the dog and was told by the very nice owner that they were not dog friendly inside but I was welcome to sit outside. I was cold and fed up after not having a fun walk on the beach and so did not want to get blown away outside. They sent me to another cafe they were sure were dog friendly which wasn’t!

So there I am in my car grumbling about what a waste of a morning I had had, made worse by the sun then coming out and one of my closer beaches looking blissfully sunny. But of course by then the dog had walked enough and was dozing on the back seat. Also I was grumpy and sullen.

But of course then the revelation came as to what an ungrateful person I was being. Firstly I had been able to drive all the way to this beach, had the time to do it as well as the money. I could afford to stop for a coffee without having to worry about money. So many things to be grateful for – not just the time and the money, but my super little car, my super little dog for company, being safe on the road. And all those things were just for that morning. Lunchtime I was meeting a friend who is one of those true friends who encourages, supports, reprimands and challenges, is open and kind and sharing too. And that doesn’t include all the other great people I have in my life and the great things in my life.

It is so easy to dip down that slipper slope of moaning and complaining, of seeing the negative and not the possible rather than being grateful.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! [or in other versions “Rejoice in all things”]

Philippians 4:4

It doesn’t say just rejoice when things are going well but “always/ in all things”. But we are a fickle and perverse people and we very quickly go into grumble or worry mode.

But there is no reason to feel guilty because the amazing thing with God is we can repent/say we’re sorry and turn the other way. So at that moment in the car, when I got that revelation that I was being a grumpy, ungrateful mare, I said I was sorry and turned around [repented] and moved into being grateful not just for that morning but actually for the revelation that I was being ungrateful. Sometimes the revelation is as brilliant as the change of behaviour, I think.

But of course, because I am perverse and fickle I have had a few more times when I have been unnecessarily ungrateful when actually I should have “rejoiced” and let deep joy fill my heart. But again I repent and move. Again it is interesting how looking at the world with different eyes makes the world look different. It doesn’t change but I do!

So much of the real deep healing I’ve done has been about turning around and going the other way, of seeing situations in a different light.

Categories
freedom Love

True Freedom

I keep writing and rewriting this post, which is why it has taken a long time. Sometimes posts just fly out of me and other times they struggle. One of the things is that at times I think about who I’m writing to and then almost contain the words that I don’t think would fit that person, which seems a very interesting revelation to myself when I am wanting to write a post about being really free.

So yesterday I got myself a can of Dr Pepper and sat in a cafe looking out the window with pen in hand and waited to see what happened. And here are my thoughts

True freedom is about going with flow and not worry about what other people think.

True freedom is not about achieving or ambition or even having stuff.

True freedom is about being content in your own skin and knowing that what you’ve done is what you’ve done.

True freedom is not about being a success or about succeeding in a world that is always changing its boundaries, goal posts and rules of the race.

True freedom is about not caring what the race is or what the imposed boundaries are.

True freedom is not caring about what other people think so they will love you.

True freedom is not caring about who takes the credit for the success that happen with or around you.

Not caring is not the same as not loving especially if the love comes with strings attached.

True freedom is

Finally able to

Receive

Everything

Envy-free

Devoid of the ties

Of other people’s [and your own]

Motives and expectations

And, I believe, True Freedom can only be obtained when one loves oneself unconditionally and when one knows one is loved unconditionally – especially when one knows that unconditional love comes from the Creator of the Universe/The Universe. But I also think one will struggle to receive that love unless one loves oneself unconditionally and stops comparing oneself to others.

Categories
others self

Letting Go Of Self – part 2

Letting go of self is NOT the same as losing control 🙂

I wish I’d waited till today to write about letting go of self because there was a great example in the Netflix series I was watching.

It all starts to unravel as secrets are reveal. One husband says things like “how are you feeling now?” and “I’m so pleased you are finding you” and even though he looks sad when she says that she truly loved the other guy he reaches out to put his hand on her to comfort her. This character let go of self and cared more for his wife than for himself.

The other husband lost it completely with his wife. He screamed and railed at her, refused to let her be with their daughter, and kept shouting “what about my reputation?” “how am I going to walk down the street now?” “I a ruined”. Even their sister talks all about how this revelation has ruined her life.

Letting go of self is to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and, even if it hurts, put their comfort and their needs first. How many of us could really do that?

Interestingly as the series continues it is those who are angry at their own hurts that the story concentrates on. The self-less husband disappears from the story. It makes me wonder if in reality we like to blame others and keep our feelings in the centre.

Only with healing, by knowing we are loved unconditionally and being accepting of ourselves are we ever going to be willing to let go of self, I think.

Categories
others self

Letting Go Of Self

How many times in a conversation do you get frustrated when you want to unload about something and the other person butts in with their unload? Or how often are you talking with someone and you realise that either they or you have turned it round to self? Or how often do you get upset when things don’t go your way? Or don’t happen as you want them too?

I think one someone dies we grieve for ourselves rather than for them. If someone doesn’t get healed we take responsibility worrying that we didn’t “pray hard enough”.

Each time we do that we are putting “self” , our ego, at the forefront.

How often do I want a dry day, at least for those times when I’m out dog walking without any regard for what my country really needs? Or get narky because a friend is busy when I’d like to see them? Or the traffic is snarled up and I want to get home early?

Jesus tells us to “die to self” – which I think just means letting go of wanting to control the world.

I like to control my world. It makes me feel safe. I’m sure that is the same for all of us. We don’t like to not have a handle of things.

My friend in AA says one of the biggies is when they reach the step that talks about letting go of needing to be in control/letting go of self.

Only when we let go of self and our need to control a situation can we really let God/The Universe/A Higher Power than ourselves into the situation; into our lives.

It is scary letting go of self.

More and more I’m learning to let go of self and let God, but often this means more times I have nothing to do. This is because I don’t go looking for work or actively volunteering for things or even actively finding things to do. I now sit and wait and listen. Though often I spend times distracting myself from the listening by playing games on my phone, reading books, even reading the Bible can be just a distraction to be busy rather than finding what God really wants me to do in that moment.

I think most people are scared to let go and wait and trust in God. I wonder if it is back to that thing of not knowing we are loved unconditionally just for who we are and feeling like we have to work at being loved by God?

One reason I think is that if you aren’t filling your life and your head with other things you get time to ponder and then you see things in the “unseen” world.

Two you have nothing to tell anyone when they ask you “what did you do today?” How often do we all greet each other with “what have you been up to today/yesterday/last week/last month/etc?” Those yearly newsletters which have to put in what we have been up to. It is rare for someone to say “how are you really feeling today?” and really want to listen.

I think that brings us to the third reason why we don’t want to let go of self, of being in control. Don’t want to wait. If we stop rushing around being busy – which I think is what holding on to self equates to – then we get to think how we really feel about a situation, our lives, our towns, our relationships, our relationship with God. And then maybe we might see the gaps, what’s lacking.

Maybe too by letting go of self we won’t just be putting God/The Universe/A Higher Power first but will start putting each other first.

What would a conversation look like if I bit my tongue and really listened to the other person?

What could the world look like if we took the time to really hear what each other was saying without thinking how that relates to us and jumping in with our anecdote?

Categories
Book for sale

It Became A Booklet!!

One of my super encouraging supporters keeps nagging at me [in that lovely God given way] to turn some of my posts into booklets so she can keep them and reread them. I thought seeing as I made it from beginning to end with Psalm 23 I’d give it a go.

Oh my Goodness!!! Fighting to the death with Amazon Kindle Direct Print [Amazon KDP] was like fighting a bear. Every time it looked like I’d won it would rear up again and do something to stop the process!!! I don’t remember it being so hard when I did my poetry book Inspirations From Walking in North Wales but that was back in the spring of 2022 so maybe I’d forgotten the stress!

But I persevered and here is it.

Thoughts on Psalm 23 Paperback can be found by clicking the link and is found either in paperback priced £3.50 or Kindle from 0.00 from Kindle Unlimited or £2.50 if you don’t have unlimited. Or you can purchase it from me for £3.50 [+P&P] or pick up from myself and I’ll sign it for you.

Categories
oughts writing

Walking Away from “Oughts”

Write from your Passion

First published on Godspacelight 9th July 2024

Writing workshop about dragons and myths run by myself – Barefoot At The Kitchen Table – June 2024

In Christine Sine’s newsletter to those of us who write for Godspacelight she talked about writing into her passion. This is probably one of the bests prompts I’ve had in ages. I have tried writing what I ought to write. I even set up a Substack account to write about writing for well-being but it’s failed. Why? Because, much as I love free writing for my own well-being, I wasn’t writing into my passion. I was trying to be something I wasn’t. I even tried putting in a regular structure to when I blogged but I’m afraid that isn’t me. 

How often do we do that – try to be something we are not? Whether it is in what we write or what we do? I think of many times when I have done something – job or ministry – that is so significant but isn’t me. Too many times to remember. It could even be something I’m good at, have talents in, but it isn’t my passion. I suppose if one jargoned it up I could say it wasn’t “my calling.”

As I’ve got older I’ve learned more and more not just what my skills and talents are but what I am passionate about. I love people, though I need time alone with a book too. If I’m honest my perfect day would be to go for a dog walk, coffee and breakfast with a friend and have a rolling, random conversation that covers deep and meaning as well as trivial and silly; come home and write a blog piece on something that either the conversation has triggered or that was buzzing in my head; and finish the afternoon on the couch to have a read of a good book, then maybe some intense Netflix drama with a glass of red wine to finish the day. Somewhere in that I’d like to ponder writing a short story or flash fiction, though maybe never get to write it; I’d like to email someone I enjoy writing to; run a writing workshop where I encourage others to get the most from putting pen to paper; and probably free write or journal myself. 

But I can get into thinking I “ought to” write X, Y or Z; I “ought to” be connecting with a certain person or group and “ought to” be doing something with them. But that is my “oughts and shoulds” and not my passion coming through. 

I’ve just read Timothy Keller’s The Prodigal God in which he talks of the older brother attitude being the one that says “it’s not fair” when God doesn’t do as we think they should do because we were “good Christians”. My “ought to” comes, I think, from a place that is where I’ve decided what a  “good Christian” or a “good writer” would/should do. It isn’t coming from a place of my passion. 

I think for all of us there are times when we do not run with our passions for many reasons; a need to fit in, a fear of missing out, having been told by a parental figure that life isn’t meant to be about fun, or whatever. I’m sure we all, if we allow ourselves to really hear our hearts, can come up with many reasons why we don’t follow our passions in work, in writing, in church stuff, in life in general. All of them have some truth in them but remember the devil goes around like a angel of light. The one who keeps us away from our true selves does it subtly not overtly. If it was overtly we would notice and rise above it. But it is filled with limited truths and comes from people who do care for us and want the best for us. But it is still lies if it keeps us from our passions and our true selves. 

I’m grateful to all the healing that I’ve received so I can hear God clearly, hear my heart clearly, and be bold enough to step out into my passions. I’m also bold enough now to walk away from when I’ve try to do something that looks good but isn’t me; when I’ve done an “ought”. But this has come about because I know God loves me unconditionally all the time – not just when I get it right/write 🙂 

Categories
house of the lord paradise psalm 23

Psalm 23 – part 9

Various pictures of my house taken over the last couple of month by myself

First big cheer to me!!! I’ve made it. I’m not great at committing to doing something from beginning to end so I am feeling pleased with myself. Perhaps I might even do it again. I have discovered on thing that has helped me – scheduling posts. Some days I have ploughed on and done 2-3 in a day. I am writing this on 6th July and it won’t be posted until 11th. So maybe I have learned something about myself through this?

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

Psalm 23:6b

So this last part – I don’t think it just means a “happy in heaven living with God” experience. David says “forever” not “forever after I’m dead”. In fact this line comes after being in green pastures, calm rivers, dark valleys, making peace with enemies, being refreshed, knowing one is anointed, knowing God loves us unconditionally and that love and goodness follows us all the time and watches our backs.

I think that “the house of the Lord” is the green pastures, is the still rivers, is the dark valleys, is the room/table where we can make peace with our enemies, is the anointing, is the being kept safe from anything attacking from behind by goodness and love/mercy. I think it is all those things.

I think this might just be the “room” Jesus talks about when he says he has prepared a room for us in his Father’s House [John 14:2]. It isn’t a tiny bedsit room but it is the whole world – with pastures and rivers and dark valleys and hard places.

This is the room – the space – God has for us. This is the “House of the Lord“. And we live in it now – if only we open our eyes!

I am just blown away by this. I am grateful that my house group started this journey off for me. I have tears in my eyes as all this settles into my heart. It isn’t just that God is so much bigger than we too often make them to be but that what we have got by being with God is so much bigger, safer, amazing, than we could even imagine.

This takes me back to the song one of our house group mentioned last time – Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka especially the lines

If you want to view paradise simply look around and view it

Paradise is here and now, this is the House of the Lord – if you would simply look around and view it

Categories
goodness mercy psalm 23

Psalm 23 – part 8

“Come on. Let’s go this way!” Photographed by myself July 2022

Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,

Psalm 23:6a

One of the things public speaking teaches is that if you make something visual people will remember it. Well about 20 years ago at Cross Rhythms Festival, even though I don’t remember who the speaker was I do remember the great skit they did about this verse.

The speaker got two young people from the crowd up and got them to follow him. He called one Goodness and the other Love or Mercy [some bible translations have “surely goodness and mercy will follow me …”]. These two people followed him as he wandered round the tent where we were gathered. His point was that whether we went, the right place or the wrong place, going where God wants us or off doing our own thing, God has promised that goodness and love/mercy will be right behind us.

Often we don’t realise it because we don’t look. We career about on our own thinking we are totally alone and that it is all up to us. Or we are so fearful to “get it right” so we get God’s goodness and mercy that we don’t realise they are with us all the time anyway.

How much different would your life, would my life, be if we truly believed that whatever we did and wherever we went God’s goodness and love/mercy were hot on our tails, were there ready for us to fall into, were there to protect and support us?

All we would have to do is stop, rest by those green pastures – because often even though God leads us into those green pastures and beside still waters we don’t see them because we are rushing past to the “next thing”. What if we stopped and let God’s goodness and love/mercy hang out and minister to us?

So first we need to believe they are there. How do we know that? Well … because God promised us. Maybe we don’t believe really that God promised it to us too. Maybe we think we need to do something more to get God’s goodness and love/mercy and probably also God’s unconditional love????

It all goes back to that thing that if you don’t believe God loves you unconditionally and you don’t believe God has your back – which we see here God does because it says his goodness and love/mercy follow us, which means they watch our backs. Duh! – but if you don’t believe that then you maybe don’t notice the still waters, the green pastures and don’t believe that all that love and goodness are with you in those dark places?