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
River walk at St Asaph. Photographed by myself April 2024
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
Psalm 23:1-2a
If I was being good and doing things in chronological order this one should be part 2 but hey ho! This is how I do things. Like I say I don’t promise to even do the whole Psalm but you never know. I am learning to be me more and more and more.
When we were talking about this at our house group last Friday one of my friends said something along the lines of “God leads us, we just have to follow. We don’t have to go hunting for our own food stuff“.
How often have we stressed and pondered and angst to know where to go and what to do when all along we just needed to stop, listen to God’s voice – which we are promised as his sheep we will hear [John 10:27] – but how often do we stop and listen to that voice? How often do we think we know best? Or that we don’t really hear that voice?
Perhaps we don’t trust that God cares enough about us, that we aren’t loved unconditionally. That’s a lie of the enemy! God loves each and everyone of us unconditionally and knows what is best of us. God knows where the best grass for me is – hence quite forcefully nudging me to put a very vulnerable prayer request on a WhatsApp prayer group I’m part of. But God knows that will help me as much by articulating it in WhatsApp as getting my dear friends to pray about it.
My lush fulfilling grass and yours or someone else’s won’t be the same because even though we are compared to sheep we aren’t really. We are uniquely made human beings with different personalities, different needs, different past hurts, different expectations, different skills. But all of us need to stop angsting and start trusting that the Creator of the Universe wants to lead us to the best grass for our needs because God is our parent, our carer, our maker, and our friend and wants to best for each and everyone of us no matter what circumstance we are in.
So just
STOP/WAIT
LISTEN
TRUST
and believe the Good Shepherd knows what is best for you.
Close to where I live. Take 1st July 2024 by myself
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he refreshes my soul.
Psalm 23:2-3a
So the sky was grey and it was too cold for the first day of July and it wasn’t where I intended to walk. Do you ever get it when you are driving along and you take a turn because you go there often but really you meant to go somewhere else? This is what happen in 1st July for me. I turned down a regular route and then remembered I’d intended to take the dog somewhere different. Well we were here now so I thought we’d walk anyway. This helped with the pondering about being lead by God.
It was very much God led me to this spot, a spot I do love, but still I was led. And you know what it did refresh my soul. I took photos. I prayed for some stuff going on that hurts a bit. And I let God refresh my soul.
Note in all these it is God who lies me down, God who leads me, God who refreshes me. It isn’t that I go where God leads and am refreshed, lie down, go beside, but all the while I am being taken.
But I think to gain the refreshment we do need to let God do it and we need to go willingly. I think it I’d done this walk begrudgingly then I would not have received the refreshment. If I’d done this walk thinking that it was a place where I could place all my burdens and issues on to God I still don’t think I would have been refreshed.
There is a lot of talk about mindfulness now, about being present where you are, but I think that I had to be present, be mindful, during this time of being led by still waters and green pastures to fully receive my refreshment.
We’ve just started a house group in our dining room. One thing that stayed in my mind from last time was Psalm 23. Yes we all know it off by heart but I thought, for myself as much as anything, I fancy doing some short [maybe] blogs around it.
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
Psalm 23:1
As a child I remember learning it as “the lord’s my shepherd I’ll not want” from the hymn. And did think it was odd that we were singing about someone we didn’t want. Though now I do think that often we do not want God to lead us through quiet calm places but want them to lead us to our “ministry”/”our calling”.
Now as I read this version from the NIV I know that it means that by allowing God/Jesus to lead me as a Middle Eastern Shepherd would I have enough.
That word Enough again. I have enough of everything I need always and forever and I will not be “be in want” of anything else.
And here is another quote to help us remember that with God we have enough, that we want for nothing.
“Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.”
One of my passions – encouraging other people to enjoy creative writing – whether adults in libraries or community centres, or children in school. Check out more of what I do with writing groups on my Barefoot At The Kitchen Table website
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 to 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 or family member, 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 trigger or that was buzzing in my head; and finish the afternoon on the couch 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 “its 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 🙂
Below are some pictures of some of my other passions. I do need to take more photos of coffee with my friends too
When is something deemed vandalism and when is it seen as art?
The first article made me smile at how cross people can get about things. I’m sure remembering the war and those who were in those gunneries is not a bad thing but they do look very bleak up on the hillside. With the art work on them I think they look brighter and more interesting. I think they are well painted. Nothing rude on them. And nothing war related or political. Apart from not asking permission what is wrong? [Read the article and you can see why some people think it is wrong]
Then this next one, greeted maybe not with joy but with positivity. Why? Well probably because it looks like a “Banksy” and Banksy can do no wrong. Again no permission was asked and no one knows who did it. It also does not depict anything rude, political or war related.
No wonder young people get confused. We venerate Banksy and their crew of random graffiti artists who do seem to see any wall space as fair game. In my county of Conwy some of the Leveling up money sent to the local councils is being spent on 5 murals for the 5 main towns in Conwy county. And lots of money and time is going into going into schools and “liaising”. The council will decide where it is going and we will have to be happy with it.
The difference between the one on the Great Orme and those in the five Conway towns seems to only be that the councils have decided that these are a good thing. I know in my town they will have to go on a historic building because all of the main part of the town is part of a conservation area where we cannot change the fronts of ours houses, etc, without filling in huge forms. But it will be ok to do that. And I am sure it will look very beautiful when done.
But again my question comes back to, I suppose, judgement. Who are we to judge what is art, what is a bit of fun and what is vandalism?
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
This quote from Henri Nouwen’s meditation for today really brought me up short today and got me thinking. There is always something thought provoking in them but, for myself as a youth and children’s worker, made me ponder.
To care for the elderly means then that we allow the elderly to make us poor by inviting us to give up the illusion that we created our own life and that nothing or nobody can take it away from us.
How much of any church outreach is directed towards the elderly? The focus is generally on the young with the tag of bringing in new people and families; often with the hope that they will then volunteer to do things and so ease the burdens of church ministry.
Working with young people does help to give a young attitude to life but can it also help us pretend we’re still young, and not having to admit to the inevitability of death. . There’s that phrase about being “seventy years young” or whatever, rarely admitting to the fact that life is passing us by and we aren’t going to live forever.
I know there are some people who will feel this is not a “good” topic to speak of and that we are to almost pretend it won’t happen rather than be preparing towards it. I know people in their 70s and 80s who still don’t have a funeral plan or have put in people to be powers of attorney over their estates, as if by not doing it one can avoid the conversation.
Even as I got more and more involved with youth work I did wonder why there was never much out there for older people. Most of the charismatic churches I was involved in had no elderly ministry at all. And even some of the more established denominations, even though they did many funerals and taking communion to the housebound, had no form of outreach to the elderly. Nothing where they were taking Jesus to those whose end of life was definitely getting closer.
I love Nouwen’s idea that by caring for the elderly we minister to ourselves by helping each of us realise that we “create our own life” and that “nothing or nobody can take it away from us.” That we can do all these mediations, well-being courses, fitness regimes to “stay young” as if that is going to stop you from eventually getting old and dying.
Perhaps as well as keeping our bodies and minds as fit as we can we also need to be keeping our spirits and souls clean and ready to meet with God. As I watch my mother’s husband descend into dementia and his body deteriorate it does make me think about how, before that happens to myself and to those I love, I want to be “right with God”. I want to have a pure heart and clean hands [Psalm 24:4] so that whatever happens I am ready to meet with my God.
I may carrying on doing the youth and children’s work that I do and may not get into working with the elderly but I do hope that I can let go of “the illusion that [I] created [my] own life and that nothing or nobody can take it away from [me]” and can keep God dead centre no matter what.
waiting for the tide to change – Hornsea, May 2024
As you know we went to see del Amitri and Simple Minds in concert on Wednesday. The lines from del Amitri’s song “Nothing Ever Happens” keep buzzing in my head.
Nothing ever happens, Nothing happens at all
the needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before
It is full of songs like “While American businessmen snap up Van Goghs for the price of a hospital wing” and more along this vein. Check out the link because it comes with the lyrics.
When singing it Wednesday and most of the day after I got to thinking, in the melancholic way of how passionate I was 35+ years ago to change the world. Then I got caught up in having children and that whole living thing that happens. And I have enjoyed it so it isn’t like I’m moaning. But I did wonder why things really hadn’t changed and we are still ruled by Prime Ministers and bankers and “captains of industry” who can still buy up paintings, sculptures, footballers, etc for more than it would cost to build and equip and staff a hospital or school or even a prison. Goodness what could happen if our prisons were not places of increased trauma but of true reformation. But that’s another post!!!
Then this morning my friend sent me through Matthew 18:18-20 to do with something else we’d been talking about. But it was verse 18 that seems to fit in with my ponders around why things haven’t changed. [Note too there is no condemnation – but this is an observation!]
[Jesus says] I promise you that God in heaven will allow whatever you allow on earth, but he will not allow anything you don’t allow
Matthew 18:18 Contemporary English Version
I wonder if this is not so much allow as to say “yes that’s ok” but we allow by not saying “No”, by not praying “this should end”. Or we moan about those who have got into leadership but we don’t pray for them or pray in people who would “get it” more.
So we meet, we walk, we eat together, and we moan the state of our government – local, national and international. We moan about the state of our health service, our education system, our justice system, our welfare system, our global care of others, of climate change, etc, etc, etc but we still, in a way, allow it but doing nothing.
Now I know I am as bad as anyone else on this. I get overwhelmed by it all and it is easier to moan about it. But I’m wondering, as I write this, if I’ve made things too hard – for myself and for others.
This verse goes on to say
I promise that when any two of you on earth agree on something you are praying for, my Father in heaven will do it for you. When two or three of you come together in my name I am there with you
Hey that is so easy. Only two of us have to agree and God will make it happen! Wow! do we find it so hard to agree with someone? Not in the surface things but deep in our hearts?
You know what is interesting with these three verses? They come between Jesus talking about dealing with how we should be forgiving each other and then how often we should forgive. I wonder if forgiving has something to do with praying in harmony and agreement with each other.
I’m thinking of situations where I know I “should be” praying for someone but I’m a bit grouchy that they’ve let themselves get into this situation again when if only they had listen to me they would be well/able to do x/in the “correct” situation, etc, etc. Bit of pride there!!!
Thinking back to the moaning scenario – I don’t think, now I’ve thought about this – that we can do, as I have done before, just go “oh let’s now pray about them/for them/for the situation.”I think we have to “release thefetters of fault that bind us as we let go of the guilt of others/loose the cords of mistakes that bind us, as we release the strands we hold of others’ guilt” [Two version of Aramaic translations of The Lord’s Prayer] In other words we need to forgive ourselves for moaning and bitching and we then need to forgive those we’ve been moaning about bitching about of the things that they have missed out and don’t see.
So I don’t just say “Oh it’s ok for someone to buy a painting for the price of a hospital wing” or whatever but after having a good moan I firstly need to say “God of Creation please forgive me for moaning about this person/situation and please forgive them for using their money in a way that seems selfish to me”.
I think we need to be careful, when we are looking deeper at something from the Bible to not just look at that verse but to look around it. It is put where it is to tell a whole story not part of one.
So Yes God will allow what we allow and not allow what we don’t allow but, I think, this will only come about when we forgive and pray with hearts in harmony with each other and with ourselves.
All photographed by myself Wednesday 19th June 2024at Llangogllen International Pavilion
Blessings come from unexpected places and, I don’t know about you, but I need to keep being reminded of that.
Yesterday hubby and I went to see del Amitri and Simple Minds in concert for his 56th birthday; reliving our teen/mid-twenties angst!
First blessing was being able to stand mid-way in the arena but against the walkway/firebreak type area, so we had a perfect view of the stage even if these photos don’t do it justice.
Then when we left and drove home we were we blessed by the horizon [we headed north home] always having an orange streak to it where the sun wasn’t setting. The photos are taken from the venue at about 10.45. I wish I’d taken some on our sea front when we got home but we were exhausted and wanting to check the dog was ok – which he was.
But not only having that lovely sunset we were also followed by the gorgeous full moon. Those photos, again taken at the venue, do not do it justice to how the moon kept peeking out behind the clouds and then disappearing again. It was awesome.
So perfect spot to watch the bands of our youth, amazing almost longest day sky and a beautiful full moon. Blessed and blessed and blessed.
Flip side – I had to get up about 2am because the pain in my legs and feet was unbearable from standing up for 5 hours, dancing for 3 of those 5.
I have a choice – I can remember that night for the lack of sleep and the pain in my legs and the reminder that I’m not 25 any more, or I can remember the great music, great spot, sunset and moon. Which do I choose?
It seems like a no-contest to me but too often we slide into the negative rather than the positive totally missing the blessing and the joy. Even on average days or even rubbish days there is always a blessing lurking in there – like when we had a serious of unfortunate deaths but we’d bought our puppy just before it all happened and he just kept us laughing through our tears. Or even just on the ordinary when the sun peaks through the clouds – as RS Thomas reminds us The Bright Field – there is always blessing to be found.
So yesterday was awesome. Today is ordinary. But in each there is a blessing to be found if we look for it.
But I got to chewing this over. Do we really emerge from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly and that’s it? What happens to those who back slide, loose faith, etc etc? Do they just “die” and that’s it? And what about those people who say they are Christians but don’t quite look like new creations. I know the me of 30 years ago isn’t the me of now but I didn’t change instantly. I am very much a work in progress.
So anyway we got to chewing over this verse – which I think we all should be doing rather than just accepting the interpretation of the person at the front or some book or blog we read.
The NRSV version that our church uses says
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view., we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
Not “you are a new creation” but “there is a new creation”. We no longer look from a human point of view but from the point of view of Christ. And Christ Jesus looks at us with no condemnation, no fear, no anxiety. He doesn’t look at us as if we are an issue, a problem that needs solving or sorting. He looks at us with unconditional love.
So this go me thinking – especially as we approach election time – as how do I look at the political situation in my town, my country, my world? At the education system, the health system, the emergency services, the welfare state, etc, etc, etc? The ecology system, global warming, pollution, etc?
I have to say that more and more I am learning to look at my fellow humans as people that I need to learn to love unconditionally and not problems that need solving or people I need to judge – however kindly that might seem at times.
Talking of people – in the park yesterday someone showed me how looking at someone in Christ was. Now I don’t know where this fellow dog walker is with God but we all walked passed this person sat on the bench drinking a can of beer at 8am. Some of us nodded but some walked on without noticing him. This fellow dog walker stopped chatted to him, noticed he had a swollen arm and suggest ways he could help himself. When I said something about getting this drinker to hospital the dog-walker said how this man had to choose for himself. He made me see this other man as a human being with choices he could make and not an issue that needed sorting.
Henri Nouwen’s says
Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering.
What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. As busy, active, relevant [people], we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference.
And so we ignore our greatest gift, which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer. . . .
Those who can sit with their fellow man, not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life into a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears of grief, and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.
But finding a quick cure is not “being in Christ” but is being in self. So to be “in Christ” we all need to be seeing our fellow man and our world through the eyes of new creation. Nothing changes but the way we look at things.
For instance have you ever been somewhere and before you’ve gone you’ve thought “this is going to be hard work and I know I’m not going to like it” and guess what? Yup it is hard work and you didn’t enjoy it. But what happens if you say “I do find these situation hard but I want to go and I want to enjoy it and I want to flourish and see others flourish”. Guess what? You go and you have a good time and something good comes from it. Etc, etc.
When we look through the eyes of Christ, the eyes of God, which is what I think “in Christ” means – looking through Christ/God’s eyes and heart, then we see the whole world and everything in it with unconditional love. That doesn’t mean it is perfect. That doesn’t mean we should just let it be. But it means we can look with love and compassion not at a problem needing fixing.
Like I say I am getting better at doing this with people but with the bigger things like climate change, people trafficking, our crazy political leaders – national and international, our health care, education, welfare, etc I am still working on.
I am a work in progress but my heart is to learn to burrow deeper and deeper into Christ so I can see with their eyes that “the old has passed away” and be able to exclaim “see everything has become new!”
What do you do when things get tough? Do you retreat into the toughness and wallow there waiting for someone to lift you out? or do you see where life is going to take? Do you go with the currents of life and trust that “all will be well and all will be and all manner of things will be well” – Julian of Norwich
I’m sharing the picture above to encourage you to sign up to my friend, Rossie’s newsletter which you can find on her website if you click the link above. Here is a young woman who has walked through tragedy, sadness and defeat, but has found a way to journey through it. She isn’t one to wallow.
Many people, whether Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, other religions or none, choose between sliding into a pit of despair when something happens – big or small – that doesn’t reach their expectations, or rising above it and accepting it as life. This can the tragic loss of someone too young and too soon, or it can be a dream that didn’t come to fruition, a relationship that they didn’t want to end that ended painfully, an exam not passed, a job not got, etc. And I’m not saying these things are not horrendous. But some people choose to stay there and wallow, almost waiting for someone to pick them up and out of it – but it can often seem that no matter what is suggested they will find a way to stay where they are.
For each of us though there is a way up and out of it.
For Rossie it is her painting, amongst other things, – which she has now bravely gone and turned into her profession. For myself it is my writing – especially the free writing – but also chatting with people. I also love to help others find that freedom and release via writing. My writing groups are not “writing for well-being” per se but they are also not for people who really want to get a book published. They are for people to explore life, the universe, their feelings, etc, via the power of creative writing!
One of my biggies too is to be outside, especially by the sea, but my local park does the same. Just to walk and enjoy the simplicity of the natural world and all its wonders helps me to get outside my own troubles, issues, and disappointments.
Prayer and connecting with God is also another amazing way. But I do think to do that one has to want to trust God to be there, not to sort things out but to hold, to love, and to listen, for prayer to turn one’s heart around. Not the situation, but one’s heart. Too often, I think, there is a disappointment with God because he doesn’t sort things as the person praying would like – doesn’t heal, bring back from the dead, restore the relationship, make the dream work out as one hoped.
Healing via QEC is another one for me. I know others who’ve found a sense of healing through Sozo, talking therapies, and many other ways. But these things must be used as a place to be freed not to prolong things. The same is true is prayer. There is no point keep mithering at God that things didn’t work out as you wanted but, like with the above therapies, it has to be a way to be healed and to move on.
My point from this post is to say that my friend could have wallowed in her grief and despair, even whilst doing her painting, but she chose not to. [check out her photo on her website] But I know of many others who choose to stay in that place. And for some I think they stay, not because they like it, but because they believe the world is a scary place and so it is better to stay in their fear, anxiety, sorrow and loss, than to step out and get slammed all over again.
There is always a choice – to stay and wallow or to find a way out of that place.
If you check out my earlier blog – Diane’s Daily Thoughts – you’ll see I am talking from experience. And this blog from March 2012 only shows a snapshot of my journey through disappointment, loss and other shit. When someone read my Day of The Dead post they said “I didn’t realise you had dealt with so much loss”!
Aspirational Adventures 