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
death elderly

Why do you care for those you care for?

Types Old Believers Maxim Dmitriev by J. Paul Getty Museum is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

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.

Meditations – 26th June 2024

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.

Categories
change forgive

Allowing Changes?

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 the fetters 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.

Categories
blessing concert

Unexpected Blessings

All photographed by myself Wednesday 19th June 2024 at 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.

Categories
Bible new

Everything Is New In Christ

Cornwall early morning August 2022 – photographed by myself stylized by Google

The liturgy for yesterday morning was 2 Corinthians 5:14-17 [the new creation passage] with Dave Bilbrough’s I am a new creation and the sermon with the caterpillar to butterfly analogy all thrown into Sunday morning.

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.

Henri Nouwen’s meditations

Note the highlighted in bold part!

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!”

Categories
freedom wallowing

When The Going Gets Tough

You Are Loved by Rossie Henderson-Begg https://rossiehb.art/ with the tea drinking covid bird underneath

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”!

    Categories
    friendship mithering

    Uselessness

    Latest flowers from Hilltop Garden Flowers photographed by myself June 2024

    Does the title of this blog jar with you? How often do we think we should be useful? should be “doing something worthwhile”? Even with God we think we ought to be useful – even when we stop to pray we think it should be useful and praying about stuff to help God with their sorting out of the world.

    Now I am not against social justice or supporting and helping other people. I fully agree with James’ words that “faith without works is dead” [James 2:26] but I do think, as much as that means working with God and supporting people and nature and issues that need support, I think it also means a faith that works in the knowing there is enough and that when I pray “God’s will be done” that I have changed something. That change doesn’t happen because I’m amazing but because I believe God is amazing.

    I have really been enjoying this latest run of meditations from Henri Nouwen looking at solitude with God. And it is in here that he explores the ideas of us emptying ourselves of everything as we come before God, knowing God has enough for us, but also is great enough to sort the whole world out by themselves.

    In James’s example as well as saying about when you see someone hungry or in need you help them, the example he uses at the end is Rahab. Rahab believes that the God of the Israelites is greater than the gods of her people so, as well as hiding the spies, also ties a red cord to her window so that she gets rescued and becomes part of the Israelite nation. So more than just doing good things!

    In Nouwen’s meditations he says how we need to empty ourselves of everything to truly be with God. That also means all our anxieties and worries. I think sometimes when we come to God to pray about something we come with it as an anxiety so that when we do pray about it we are praying from a place of nervousness or fear. We are not praying from a place of openness and trust. So we often pray “God, can you just do x,y&z” rather than “Amazing God I trust you and place this situation into your hands to do as I know you know best” and then leave it with God.

    Jesus said to his followers that he now called them friends not servants [John 15:15] which means he now saw them as people to hang out not to tell them what to do, or them to ask things of him. I met with a friend the other day. Whilst we were together we chatted, shared our lives, suggested supportive things to each other, but on the whole just unloaded a bit. At the end she said she enjoyed being with me because she could say things to me that she would like to say to the people concerned but struggled to say. She isn’t going to now say those things to the people we were talking about but she says she now feels like she can deal with the situation. I know that I feel the same too when I’m with friends I can be myself with. Like I’ve left a bit of something that was on my mind with them. Not for them to fix but because they are my friends.

    I think that is a bit like God wants. Not for us to come to God to get them to sort out things but for us to unload, to empty ourselves but then we can sit in companionable silence with God because we are empty. And we can then know that actually God, the Creator of the Universe, doesn’t want to be with us because we can help them with their plans for humanity but so that we can know how “useless” we are before them but how loved we are.

    Nouwen also believes that as we empty ourselves of our need to be useful so we give more room for others – friends, family and enemies – to join with us and to sit with us and our amazing God. He believes that when we are trying to be “useful” to God we try to control the situation too much.

    In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus said “”Focus your light within us and create your reign of unity now. Your will come true in the universe [all that vibrates] just as on earth [all that is material]” [Aramaic version] or “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

    Empty ourselves of mithering at God and open ourselves up to being loved for our uselessness by the awesome creator of the Universe who was and is and is to come!

    Categories
    Distractions enough peace

    Distracted By Many Things

    Single focus dog. Photographed by myself Cardiff April 2024

    This week I have been distracted by many things. I’ve got 3 workshops I am running with funding from Creu Conwy which seemed to have taken ages to finalise but now are imminent. The first two are next week! Also they are in the evening – one from 5-7pm and the other from 6-8pm, times when I am usually in that downward curve energy-wise and just want to mooch about and watch TV. Though I have had a few nights where I have been functioning after my 6pm deadline – once with a new churchy-style group that we’ve started in my house and a couple of trips to the cinema with hubby. But I’m panicking about these workshops because I will have to be the one who is fully alert.

    It has amazed me how quickly I get distracted. I’m also doing an online writing course which is great but again is making me worry about that old adage of “not having enough time”. How many times have I written about not having enough. Perhaps I need to be reading my writings not just writing them??

    But it also means that, even though I have been reading my Bible meditations and thinking I’ve not been thinking deeply. Not letting things penetrate into my heart.

    This week’s Henri Nouwen thoughts are about Celebrating and how one needs to be in that moment to really celebrate, how lots of what and when we celebrate is a going through the motions rather than actually celebrating. So the event is something that sits between the stress of planning and the anticlimax after the event, but that celebration should be a lifestyle thing. I need to remember that I am to enjoy running these workshops and not just caught up in the preparation and then the feedback.

    So once again I am like 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“.

    I was worrying about things. Ok not little things. These things are quite big – running these writing workshops, not being too exhausted because of the time I am doing them, getting the work handed in for the writing workshop I have paid for, and the having enough sleep, time, ability!

    Interestingly the other night I was awake worrying about, of all things, having enough energy and enough time, exasperated by being awake from 3.30-5.30am. I had a full day in front of me and a long list of planning not just for the workshop but other things that I had to do. But, as you’ve probably already guessed, I got everything that needed to be done on the list completed and even managed to stay up till 10pm with my husband watching TV as well has having walked my 10,000+ steps. It was as if God was saying “look you can do it. All will be well”.

    Also I do know I have the ability to run these workshops. I do an amazing job every Tuesday fortnight with my regular group and can pull things from the depths of my brain when needed. I know I can do it but I get distracted and once I get distracted I move away from God and also move away from celebrating the joys of being alive.

    As I’ve said before though, there is an order for how this comes about. To really be able to feel I have enough I need to be at Peace. From that place of Peace comes a deep Joy and only then do I believe I have Enough. And what has gone on this week is that I had to realign my autonomic nervous system back to a place of peace – which does just take a few moments of breathing and looking at the window, of remembering what I have to be grateful for, and forgiving myself and others. For me going through the Lord’s Prayer but an Aramaic translation, helps me.

    https://www.pinterest.com/pin/88875792626618323/

    Only then do I start to remember that deeper joy that is a bedrock not a happy feeling. And it is then that I feel like I have enough. Today it means I can say “I have enough time to do a blog post – with many pictures – before going away for the weekend even though my first workshop is Tuesday”.

    My whole thoughts have been consumed by these workshops to the point where a friend asked me for coffee and I said I was too busy!!! And also nearly didn’t go south with my husband to see his Mum which has now turned out to be a trip to see my Mum too. Goodness me! Fancy me thinking I don’t have enough time to see family or friends! As well as the Lord’s Prayer I did have to have a chat with my covid-bird to be reminded that friends and cups of tea are important.

    Picture first shared on Relearning June 2023

    Categories
    beatitudes Praus

    Be-Attitude

    Conwy Beach photographed by myself May 2024

    Little shell just doing its thing

    Waiting for the tide to return

    It doesn’t stress

    It doesn’t strive

    It just waits patiently

    doing its thing

    Lines written just after taking a photo of this little shell on the beach. It really struck me how it was just there, wide open, and just being. Then yesterday I read Josh Luke Smith’s latest Main Event email and felt somehow the two things smooch together. It is about our attitude – hence the beatitude/be-attitude title

    Josh shares how the word “meek” in the verse “blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth” means “Praus”. Praus was a Greek word to mean

    … an animal that had been trained and domesticated until it was entirely under control, such as a horse that responded to the slightest movement and direction from its rider when being ridden into battle. Likewise, the person who is praus is the one who has every instinct and every passion under perfect control …

    www.joshualukesmith.com

    It doesn’t mean, as I have heard preached and taken to believe – and seen people try to act out – that mild, subservient, wishy-washy type of person that none of us really wants to be or to be around. It means something strong. It means someone who has such deep inner strength that they can keep every instinct, every passion, every desire, every need under total control.

    How often do we see this in our leaders? How often do we see it in ourselves?

    I don’t know about you but I want that. I want to be able to hold every instinct and passion in perfect control. Not so it is bubbling under the surface. Not holding it there with resentment. Not holding it there to “be a good Christian”. But holding it there because I know that I can trust God in every thing.

    Having ridden horses I know that even though every horse I’ve ridden has been properly trained and brought into “praus” I know that the ones I’ve ridden best on are those who trust my leading. When I am uncertain the horse hasn’t trusted me. Watch the dressage on the Horse of The Year show sometime. These horses are big beasts who could do anything but they are in “praus” and they trust their riders.

    I think one of the reasons why it was so prophetic when those Horse Guard horses ran amok in London was because they exploded out of that place of having their instincts under total control of their rider, that when the loud bang happened they no longer trusted their riders, but also that, I think, the riders panic too. We have heard a lot from this about the horses but nothing about how those riders felt as the loud crash happened. Were they not so experienced? We don’t know. But there was a disconnect between horse and rider, a lost of trust, so that those horses responded to their base instinct and ran. Read Sue Sinclair’s prophecy here

    So how do we get ourselves to that place of “praus” where all our instincts and passions are under control? How do we pray for our leaders so that they can led from that place?

    I think, as with the teachings of Alcoholics Anonymous’ 12 steps program, we need to believe in something higher than ourselves and we need support from others. Even with the QEC healing, though my practitioner doesn’t believe in God she does hand things to the Universe. It isn’t all about “me” . Those horses don’t give up their natural instincts because they think it is a good idea. They do it because they trust in that higher power. The same with my dog. So much of his life is built on trust.

    So when Jesus says “blessed are the meek” remember that to be meek is not to be weak but to be so strong you can let go of your own needs and trusts in a higher power to set you fully free.

    I’ll finish with another quote from Josh’s Main Event email –

    Jesus said to them, “If you live in submission to God, if you pursue reverence and become Praus, everything you long for, you’ll receive” In the words of Eugene Peterson, “You’ll become proud owners of everything that can’t be bought”. You may not have material goods, land and gold (that you’ll only fight to hold onto and own), but you will have your soul and a place in God’s new creation where everything that has been lost and stolen will be restored.

    And pray that we can all be like that shell waiting, trusting, and knowing.

    Renly wondering why I’m taking a photo of the shell but trusting that it is something he needs to be involved in too
    Categories
    Saint' day strong women

    Yesterday was Joan of Arc’s Feast Day

    and I felt, with less than 5 weeks to go until the UK’s General Election it seemed a good idea to remember this feisty God-fearing young woman. Whether you think she was right, wrong, insane or courageous, I think we could do with more people like her speaking up and calling things out.

    It has also been republish on Godspacelight on 28th May – 2 days before her saint’s day.

    Screenshot from Godspace

    I wonder what we would have thought of Joan of Arc today even in some of the more crazy charismatic churches. She doesn’t fit the stereotype of prophetic leader. She didn’t have visions of Jesus but of Michael, the archangel, Catherine of the “death by flaming spinning wheel from which the firework known as the Catherine-wheel comes from”, and Margaret who was tortured and murdered because she would not renounce the vow to remain a virginal bride of Christ when a pagan king wanted to marry her. Would we have been more like one source and just say “she claimed to have heard voices in her head”?

    I wonder if she had come forward today, a young girl of 16 or so, and said she heard voices of an angel and two martyred women and that she wanted to lead her country to victory, she would be taken to a psychiatric ward? Or, if one of our children said they heard voices, would we tell them to hush and maybe get them checked out for autism? Or, what about ourselves? What would you do, what would I do, if we were sure we could hear voices telling us to do something bold and brave? I wonder if we would just keep quiet and wait for our voices to be “confirmed”. 

    As I pondered Joan of Arc, Greta Thunberg came in to my head, the teenager who has stepped up to the mark to try to lead the world to another place. I wonder if there were other young people who felt the same but whose parents, teachers, or churches, told them not to be so silly and the whole thing was too big for them. Greta, I believe, has only got as far as she has because her parents didn’t stop her. There is nothing to say what Joan of Arc’s parents thought but it was her relative who was bold enough to take her to a local garrison and from there she made it to the French court. 

    Joan experienced lots of opposition but preserved because of her total belief that this was what God was telling her through his messengers; Michael, Catherine and Margaret. How often do we hear something, and hear it very clear, and yet when we hit opposition, or lack of support from others, we give up? This doesn’t mean that we should power on through because we think this is what we should do but sometimes, like both Joan and Greta, we need to listen to what we are hearing, listen with our hearts, and keep on keeping on even if it means we lose our reputation, our livelihoods, and in Joan’s case, our lives. 

    I don’t think Joan cared what other people thought. I don’t think Greta cares much either. This isn’t to say I think either of these young women lack emotion at all. I think they both believe/believed that what they were doing is/was so right that they just can’t/could stop. 

    From pondering Joan of Arc, and as a result of that Greta Thunberg, my hope is that when I hear a voice or voices telling me to go and do something I won’t hold back whatever opposition I face, or however much it might damage my reputation. But also when I hear of some young person talking about a dream, a vision, voices speaking to them, that will change the world I will be willing to encourage them rather than hinder them. 

    Our world needs to change to stop it going back to the same pre-covid patterns where those who have stuff and status, fear of losing out to those who do not, and where those who do not have status are treated with disgrace and live in fear of having the little they have taken from them. We need to change and I believe we need younger people to help us with that – with more energy, more determination, more of an innocent belief that things can change. 

    I would like to be like Joan of Arc’s relative, helping to get someone young person to where they believe they should be, helping and encouraging them to see the change they believe in. 

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    carpenter fishermen

    Jesus Was A Carpenter – Part Two

    Hebrew Fishermen. Historic color print of Fishermans boat on the lake in i.e., Israel

    Have you ever wondered what sort of boats the Peter, Andrew, James and John had? Do you imagine them as more primitive versions of modern boats? Above is a historic print of Hebrew fishermen so is probably similar to the boats the Biblical fishermen used. It isn’t that big! No wonder when the storm rose the seasoned fishermen were scared. They had probably lost friends and family in an Galilean storm.

    So hold this in your head. These men are seasoned fishermen. They might not be very old but they have been fishing since they could stand, probably. And probably from generations of fishermen.

    Read Luke 5 from the beginning because often when we hear Bible stories we start in the middle.

    At this point Jesus is just a itinerant preacher. According to Luke’s account he’s been baptised, been tempted in the desert, has read scripture in his local synagogue and nearly killed for it, and has started healing. He turns up at Lake Galilee and starts teaching the people about God. It is all getting a bit crowded and probably unsafe so he gets into Peter’s boat and asks him to take him a bit away from the shore. Probably so he was he was just a bit too far out for people to wade out to meet him.

    At this point, I think things were probably pretty normal. Itinerant preachers sharing God’s word were not unusual at this time. From what I’ve read even healing people was not unusual. Things going on God-wise in the region. But the next bit is where things get different.

    Jesus the carpenter and itinerant preacher tells the seasoned experienced fishermen to go into the deeper water and put down their nets.

    Now Peter and his crew have two choices – either tell Jesus that he’s being daft or do it. And this is where the miracle comes in for me. For me it isn’t that they then catch lots of fish after and unsuccessful night’s fishing but it is that they obey the carpenter!

    Their success comes from believing the words of the carpenter/itinerant preacher/stranger.

    We’re never told what Jesus was preaching when he was in the boat. Just that it was the Word of God. [Usual Bible stuff of details, which 2000 year on could be very important] But I don’t think it was just the quantity of fish caught that caused Peter to repent and for all the others to give up their livelihoods and follow Jesus. Preachers says it was the authority he spoke with or the words he used. But I’m left to wonder there if there was authority then how come the people in the synagogue turned on him? Where was the authority there?

    There is something going on between these skilled and seasoned fishermen and this stranger which is not revealed fully. We can only guess why one group of people is willing to obey and another want to kill him.

    In previous posts I’ve put about how we can often only reach people if we have been through similar things to them but this has made me think otherwise.

    I wonder if we truly believed and trusted Jesus would we have that same power? Could we then help those whose journeys we don’t know or understand?

    Jesus did support the fishermen by giving them something to support their families with but he didn’t put them right. I wonder if too often we barge in and think we know the answer when we haven’t checked with God “where the fish are” so to speak.